I don’t see any reason for me to have a lengthy review that has been repeated hundreds of times on the interwebs and YouTube. So this is about my own personal experience since the release date on Verizon last September. But this may turn in to more of a “Hey, I think you should take a look at Windows Mobile phones because you can unlock it and try out different Windows Mobile ROMs really easily.” Short and to the point….

I have had this phone mistaken for an Iphone a few time with it just laying on a table. Windows Mobile 6.1 came on the phone as stock. It was ok, wasn’t too flashy by itself. HTC however includes an overlay called SenseUI. If you have seen an HTC phone running whatever OS, it has this overlay. So I have nothing more to say about that.

What I like about the phone:

• Keypad
• Verizon Network
• Size of the phone itself, bigger and thick is the way I like it
• Speaker phone and mics are awesome for conferencing

What I don’t like:

• Battery can be weak at times depending on use
• Backlight button is in a bad places. When I am texting, I constantly hit the button turning off the display.
• The tilt screen (Image below credited to Crunch Gear). I thought I would like it but I don’t use it. I still don’t feel that phones should be used as video players.

Opera runs great though it seems it eat up the memory on the phone. Memory on the phone is bare minimum it really could have used more. Sometimes it does get a little slow switching to another app or going back to home. But you got a task manager to close out whatever is not needed. Steve Jobs be damned…multitasking is a must and having a task manager is a benefit. Suck it!

I did not care for Windows Mobile 6.1 and wanted to look around to see if there were custom ROMs and how easy it could be to unlock the phone and load it. So I checked out PPCGeeks.com and there are a TON of developers that are customizing ROMs for WM6+. Best one that I found and donated to show support is MightyROM. Frequent updates and very stable upon releases. Check out the sites I have linked to for all the how to on loading custom ROMs. It is hard to brick the phone once it is unlocked. I accidently loaded a ROM that supported GSM instead of CDMA…phone was bricked but with a key combination on the phone, I was able to restore with the correct ROM.

Obviously there are TONs of phones out there. I would like an Iphone but AT&T blows in my part of Virginia. We all have our own experiences with the networks and phone makers so shop around for what is best for you. If you are into Apps, Windows Mobile devices are WAY behind both Google and Apple. I don’t really see the need for apps on a phone in my life so I can live without them. But if you want to have a phone that is easy to customize, try out a Windows Mobile Device. HTC offers a lot of cool phones and there is a lot of support at PPCGeeks. Have some fun and take control of your phone.