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So, I definitely love a lot of things about my T-mobile Wing, which is like a super computer compared to my old nokia 6800. The reason I love it is it runs windows mobile 6, which has a huge developer base, so there is software for everything…Skype, NES roms, overclockers, riven, myst, streaming music, etc. Whatever I can think of for this phone to do, it pretty much can do it.
That said, it can be so stupid sometimes. Like my past two phones were unbelievably stupid compared to this phone, but why is it so hard to send a text message?
On my old phone, I’d hit the left navigation button and I’d be composing. I’d use T9 to jot a message out real fast with one hand, and then hit send, and scroll down, again using T9 as a shortcut to find the contact I want to send.
On this phone, it has a dedicated messaging button, but I also have to scroll through my email accounts to get to messaging, then hit menu, new, SMS. The To: field is an autocomplete box which is nice, but I still have to type in a contact or use the ridiculously small contacts manager which is impossible to use without a stylus.
After that, I have to click into the body to start typing, and there’s no easy way to do this with one hand. Let’s say I’m standing on the 147 express bus holding onto the bar for dear life with one hand. I want to write a message to a friend. Either I try and use my fingernail to hit the tiny buttons on the onscreen keyboard (impossible with the bumps in the road and no form of auto correction), or I open up the wing and awkwardly try to use it with one hand. I usually ended up holding it half upside down clung to my body to type on the keyboard. Do they want me to drop this thing? Even with two hands I’m faster at typing T9 than with the skinny little keys it has.
Finally, some googling was fruitful.
The best link I found was here:
Alternative Text Inputs for Windows Mobile
There is a program by HTC called phonepad that adds an additional soft input keyboard for T9. Thank god! HTC used to include this with their devices but got rid of it for some reason. People have complained that its dictionary doesn’t remember the words you use but it does for me.
I found the CAB in a few places (it’s slightly obfuscated on this site) but it was hard to get because without the proper MIME types it would show up as text in internet explorer. So here is a ZIP that you can download, unzip and install directly:
Phonepad For Windows Mobile CAB
Thank god for this. Like I said it’s possible to do anything with this phone, but you have to go through the aggrivating steps to find what you’re trying to do.
This page has other forms of input managers, including an iphone-like keyboard that auto corrects. With the applications out there to mimic the iphone (such as slide to unlock), I think this phone beats the pants off the iphone, I just wish that it was designed right from the beginning.

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