T-Mobile Dash (Smartphone) with Windows Mobile 6

I have a short term project (more on this after it is completed sometime in July) that requires a Windows Mobile 6 Smartphone (Standard Edition). So, I walked over to the local T-Mobile store during lunch and bought the last remaining Dash in the store. In fact, at first the person handling my potential purchase said they were all out. Fortunately, another sales person heard our conversation and found an Dash box for me to purchase.

If you want to read about what the upgrade process from Windows Mobile 5 to 6 is like, I suggest heading over to my old friend Frank McPherson‘s site (PocketPCHow2.com) and reading his blog entry titled:

Upgrading to Windows Mobile 6

He used a Windows Vista PC for his upgrade while I used a Windows XP PC. However, I am very glad I read his blog entry before attempting my own upgrade. He has some very useful information about the quirks of the upgrade process.

First comment about the Dash with Windows Mobile 6: Wow! Having been totally unimpressed with Windows Mobile 6 Beta running on a Pocket PC last year, I am 180 degrees in the other opinion direction on the combo of the Dash and WM6. Having moved from a T-Mobile SDA WM5 Smartphone that I’ve used for a little over a year (and being reasonably satisfied with it), the experience of having a nice usable QWERTY thumb keyboard with the WM6 apps is just great. Setting up email was a breeze with a QWERTY keyboard to enter email addresses, mail server names, and other textual oddities that are a pain on a DTMF-layout numeric keypad.

More on the Dash with Windows Mobile 6 over the next few days. Stay tuned…