Microsoft pushes Windows Mobile smartphones at Computex

Microsoft has a packed booth in Hall 3, which they are using to showcase Windows Mobile. Filling the booth from one end to another are smart phones, PDA phones and generally any type of phone you like that can have Microsoft Outlook crammed onto it.

Trying to fit Windows onto a PDA or phone sized device has always presented some interesting engineering problems, and many solutions from onscreen keyboards to sliding phone designs ; and many variations on keyboard layouts are being offered up.

Converging phones and Windows creates portable media players out of these phones in themselves, and many have support for the likes of WMA, MP3 and WAV (among others) on the audio front ; and MPEG4 and WMV on the video front.

Turning PDAs and smart phones into such wide ranging devices, or rather attempting to, is not working out particularly well in all instances. Put too much onto a phone and you get little battery time, or a gigantic phone. Getting the correct layout on the keyboard is another headache altogether.

However, try and they will, and with scores of Windows Mobile phones at the booth today this is a market which will continue to grow. However it might be worth knowing that one of our crew arrived with a Windows Mobile phone, which promptly proceeded to die on the first day of Computex. Just thought we’d throw that out there...

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