Best Windows Mobile Phone on o2

Hi all

I'm in line for an upgrade soon and I was wondering what the best windows mobile phone on o2 would be. I went in today to look at the sony ericsson experia x1 to be told by someone in the shop that they would do anything they could to disuade me from buying anything by sony ericsson. I was under the impression that the xperia was one of the best phones?

If i shouldn't get the xperia, what would be the most appropriate from the xda line up.

I would like a windows mobile phone mainly for email and web browsing abilities, so wifi would be nice, plus I'd like to try some light application development.

If none of the o2 phones are up to scratch which is the best option on another provider.

Sorry for all the questions, but thanks in anticipation.

Andy

Whoever told you not to buy the Xperia X1 doesnt know what they are talking about....let me guess, did he say get an Iphone instead? o2 are trying to push the sales of thier Iphone.

Xperia X1 is a great phone. If you dont want that, ask when they will be stocking the HTC Diamond 2.

I just got the Touch Diamond 2 on O2 via mobiles.co.uk. The phone is excellent, touchflo is lovely. Its my first WinMO phone since an MDA Vario and I'd have to say that UI is a vast improvement.

This phone is also the first wifi phone that I've been able to get to connect to my Netgear router (out of blackberries and the Vario).

£30/month 400 mins/500 texts. Free phone and £40 quidco cashback :)

There are only two Windows Mobile phones out there worth considering at the moment really (in the UK) - the XDA Serra (AKA HTC Touch Pro) or the Xperia X1..both are really great phones.

The XDA Serra beats the X1 largely because of a superior hardware button layout and the fact that it has a flush screen rather than recessed (trust me this make a huge difference to usability), but tbh there is very little to choose from between them..both run the same OS by default (and both can be easily re-flashed to newer versions)..both have a great hardware keyboard (critical for a WM phone..although the Serras is better imo due to the hardware numeric keys).

I would say to avoid the Diamond/Diamond2 like the plague - both of those phones are essentially the same as the X1/Serra but lack the hardware keyboard (instead you get 8gb of memory..worth about £10 as you can just add an SD card to the other devices :)), and they offer nothing extra software wise that you cannot just install on the older devices :)

Best thing to do though is to read a few reviews and have a play with both devices in the shop..I came to the Serra from an iPhone, and never going back lol..Windows mobile has come a long way in the past few years, and I would confidently say its the best mobile OS at the moment (for phones)..especially when you take a look at Windows Phone 6.5. :D

edit: Forgot to mention..yes the X1 is one of Sony's best mobile phones..because they didn't do anything except put their badge on it lol..its a rebranded HTC device :)

I went with the xda guide, which is the HTC Touch Cruise (albeit an updated version with newer aesthetics), my other option was the serra but they didn't have it available at the time, and I was able to get a fairly reasonable deal on the guide.

I'll have to wait and see what it's like as a touch only phone, I'll be moving from to it from the lg viewty so i'm already used to a touch interface, and to be honest I expect it will be better than the viewty's. I Don't expect to be typing too much on the Guide, if I need to email, I generally have my netbook and mobile broadband handy.

Thanks for the advice

Andy

Its a nice phone tbh from the touch only ones :)

I would suggest heading straight over to xda-developers.com and having a good read up on there though..there are some nice ROMs available for the cruise :)

Good luck with it