Smartphone 2002 OS

**click to enlarge**

The biggest complaint about this particular phone is that it is powered by the outdated Microsoft Smartphone 2002 OS.  There are many disadvantages to this.  For example, it does not support the .NET framework and there is no support for multiple POP accounts.  Unfortunately, it has been confirmed that and upgrade to 2003 will not be offered to the public.  While the ROM image does exist, it has not been publicly released nor is there any plans to do so.  As all others are, I'm quite disappointed and you have AT&T and not Microsoft to blame for it!  The internet hasn't failed me yet and I look forward to a leaked image file.

All frustrations aside, let's take a closer look at the Smartphone 2002 operating system.

While not as robust as the today/home screen on a Pocket PC, the home screen on the smartphone does allow for some customization.  Unfortunately, there is no plug-in support.

I won't be covering phone settings in this article but felt the sound features were worth mentioning.  The MPX200 does not support mp3's for your ringtone or notification sounds but does support wav and midi files.  I'd recommend you use a high-speed Secure Digital card with this phone if you plan on storing ring tones on the storage card.  When attempting playback on an older MMC card, the wav files were choppy and just could not keep up.  As far as alarms go, it will allow you to set one alarm, however, there are third-party applications available that will allow you to set multiple alarms. 

The calendar is quite nice and lets you view both week or month.  You can also view any upcoming appointments as well as create new ones with audible reminders.

Smartphone 2002 includes a version of Pocket Outlook.  As stated earlier, this email client will support one POP/IMAP4 account.  Its simple to setup and use and I did not encounter any issues using it.  Works well.

Included is a pocket version of Microsoft Internet Explorer.  It lets you create favorites for quick access to sites.  While it is quite difficult and time consuming to surf the web on such a small device, it works fairly well for light surfing.  There aren't many features, but we will be showing you an excellent alternative to it a bit later in this article.

Also included is the popular MSN Instant Messenger software.  While I did experience some delays in connecting and signing in, once you are, it works quite well. 

Finally, I'll show you the included file manager.  It basically lets you view and manage your files but doesn't offer any advanced features.  For those who do crave this, we will be showing you an application that is loaded with additional capabilities.

The only thing missing from the Smartphone 2002 Operating system is a Terminal Services Client.  This is quite disappointing for me and I hope they release one in the future.  I've tried other thin clients available for smartphones but they don't seem to work and I have some concerns with security on all of the available options.

Next: Third-Party Software