I thought the stuff yesterday was great for the demise of the win 7 phone OS. It just gets better, what next?

No USB support as blue tooth is the way forward?

No MMS, because like Nokia with the N900, some tupid moron decides that EVERYONE wants to upload photos instead of sending them to a friend. Don't they?

They can copy Apple all they want, it is an MS product, so it will need an anti virus to run all the time just to be reasonably safe. And it won't like open source, won't like plug and play to anything other than windows 7 etc etc.

I love it, I couldn't write the lunacy of Ballmer any better that his current media gaffs over win 7 phones.

We need a new icon, somewhow FAIL just doesn't do it.

Isn't that still less than the number of people employed at the airport?

And 10k in a city of over 2 million (if you include the Greater Manchester and Salfrod areas) is nowt.

I do like 'spin' when it is used in this way. (The flapping round trying to look useful way)

So what is this release actually containing that is a selling point then?

It's based on win CE, (I was using that in 2002 on a Toshiba pocket PC) Hardly bespoke and brand new like Android, palm or Apple.

It's not running SQL that you can use.

Apps can't talk to eachother.

Apps can't can't run in the background

Can't auto update

It's not really pushing silverlight while everything else MS does is pushing silverlight.

It's not gonna let the the end user do what they want as MS always lock stuff down to partners etc.

Developer will have 30% creamed off for MS

It's another "walled garden" affair, only without Itunes.

It uses .NET but not the latest .NET

It uses Adobe flash, well known for being buggy and pants.

So then, what are the selling points? Well there is still most of 2010 left to see.

Only slack jawed yokels would buy a win 7 phone based on that interview. It certainly isn't sounding the do all jesus phone fighter that they need it to be.

Or they simply move to program for android or nokia.

Either way Apple loses out in the long run.

I do like the idea of cydia though, something about sticking it to jobs. :)

Google leaving Europe.

YAY!!!!!

At least they tried to come up with a reason that wasn't data mining. Though the lame excuse about technology wouldn't convince my 89 year old blind grandad.

Good riddance to Vista. Can we reclaim the unused milage out of it, the vast over pricing when it came out means I would at least expect the same support as XP. Afterall I didn't get a free upgrade to Windows 7 and only had it twelve months before moving upto Win7.

Then again Windows 7 is dreadful for me. Sick of problems with the flaky load of rubbish.

Ahahahahahaahahhahahahaahahhaha

Well that cheered up a dreary Friday afternoon.

Cheers

The nexus one gave away their real agenda, let everyone do the work to perfect it, then do their own thing on all that hard work. (Android done by all the other companies and then release their own) Or their new facebook clone suddenly released.

"Creepware" is a great word for it and if they do go into property and finance, or jobs it will be the death of many of the sites out there. which at first might not be a bad thing, but then as the UK knows all to well with BT, the post office, the NHS. Once you are down to one major player and a completely shite regulator (Take your pick of the quangos) You are stuffed for decades.

Jobs because somebody with big pockets and a big name has come out the closet and said google are evil. Though with horns because he to is an egotistical reign grabbing maniac that wants everything his way.

As soon as they started Android you knew it wouldn't last, and the amount of locks ins android has to google means you can't go back. You need a Gmail to sign up and use the thing in the first place and everything is 'google apps or not ' pretty much. They are doing what Apple do and it will just generate another bunch of fan bois nobody likes.

It won't be "Is there an app for that?" It will be "Is there a google app for that."

I just got the N900 and it suits me, I just hope Nokia don't take mamo, meamo (whatever its called) the same way later on.

We need an icon for the "blindingly obvious" or "well I didn't see that coming..."

Do they really think that people would cough up for win 7 at vast expense (after currency conversion) and then a little over a year later do it again.

Linux can get people to do it, because it's free. Apple can do it because they have a fanboi "we buy anything from jobs" group because it is usually wrapped in a pretty box. MS have neither.

Are MS going to put Win8 out cheaply instead? Probably not. So hopefully it is wrong and we get at least 3 years before the next round of crappy adverts that say the old bits of linux and OSX are "my idea." and "new" (Well for windows they are)

Or as I fear, they going to release Win8 on a subscription basis. Pay monthly or get nowt in your software. Xbox has been doing it for years.

I think good sir, you are deluded.

"WM is the only OS that properly synchs with Outlook and doesn't suffer from total lockdown or rely on the often unavailable internet connection to be able to operate. WM7 will be a fresh start"

You think M$ will unlock the ability of outlook to do anything with another Mobile phone OS? So WM7 will still be the ONLY phone OS that can sync. It therefore won't be a fresh start, it will be more of the same.

I fear WM7 will just be a rehash of WM6.5, like Win7 is to Vista. But as someone else said it will be dead on arrival. People have left for blackberry, Iphone and android, they won't come back unless it really is free and open to sync with the kind ofthings people actually use, not what M$ want them to use and that requires updates in office 2003, 2007, 2010 etc.

It works fine for me.

Nothing is more satisfying than calling in a 1000 pound bomb to kill that one sniper. Afterall that sniper is in a ghillie suit and blooming hard to find otherwise.

Nor is in unreasonable to shoot the Alsatian BEFORE it rips your throat out. (Oh wait PETA will argue about that)

But expecting those Militia from Brazil to adhere to war convetions is a little pointless. As is the rebels in Afghanistan.

OR is it worth expecting the Russians when the third world war does start to adhere to the same rules. (Especially if there is a terrorist attack perpetrated to start said war as in COD4 MW2 - though granted school kids who are willingly shooting and stabbing each other should learn that it is bad to walk round an airport with heavy machine guns)

NEXT you will be telling me getting a 25 kill streak in MW2 and using a nuclear bomb is unreasonable.

What next, how dare we farm pixelated deer and buffalo in Age of empires 3? How dare we mine for trees in an unsustainable forest in Warcraft 3.

How dare we mine a toxic green crystal in C&C 1,2,3 & 4

Some people need to get a proper job.

"My only question would be... how is the "simple and secure" 15 minute enrolment process validating that the applicant is actually who they say they are?"

- Simple, by bringing along a Recent utiilty bill, birth certificate, Passport, driving licence....

oh wait.

If people do their homework...

Actually if people did do their homework they wouldn't be getting win7 on a netbook.

...but as someone mentioned, you can't find linux on a netbook now, or one with an SSD.

Me thinks the MS boys have been using market position again.

Polar shift theory is proven geological fact, as is the 'chandler wobble'

Evidence is in iron fibres and compounds which have been laid one way for one year and the next day they all lie another direction which would account for the massive changes in magnetic field. (the only real way they could have happened on a global scale)

Evidence for the antarctic being once at the equator is also proven and has evidence (possibly atlantis of old myths)

This is roughly every 32000 years.

Well that is what I read as a dual honour undergraduate in Geology and Geography.

Either way nothing is due in the next couple of years, but since when did truth happen to hollywood.

"nappy-, knife- and hammer-toting, trenchcoated, bewigged astronaut mother of three setting about a younger rival for the affections of a space shuttle pilot with non-lethal riot agents"

YAYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fine BT every pound the Government are fined, simple. They caused the issue for taxpayers to pay, so pass it on.

Then sack all responsible. Oh wait that will happen in June.

YAYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Come on Europe.

W7 is pants anyway, so why care about the browser, you should be more worried about the money you just spent on an OS. As an IT support, I fear for my future sanity having to support this turkey. The network / homegroup farce alone scares me.

RE: The browser choice, good idea but now the W7 cat is very definitely out the bag (well for some, I think most end users will see a bonus from vista, most professionals will realise it ain't), it will only cause grief for all concerned when they get another question that pops up. As most end users ignore the messages like "Your AV has detected a virus." You think they will care about the "New browser option." MS knows this and as a result the EU will look stupid when they force it out. Though the ballot screen will indeed force M$ into at least recognising the international web standards.

@AC 23rd October 2009 15:47 GMT

Ubuntu comes with two browsers when I last looked, firefox is the main one but there is the other one in the menus, sea monkey I think it is called. Or something equally silly.

Ubuntu comes with more than one for most things, like word editors, picture software etc. Your choice as to which you use.

Try using your software instead of sounding like a tool.

How is the MS fanboi status going?

Vista failed not because of Apple PR, but because there was no hardware support compared to XP (6 months after laungh Nvidia was using beta drivers still) IBM (and other major players) didn't sign up. Most of the IT support staff and technical staff found it utter pants and bloated with unused rubbish, while being mainly window dressing to an XP build (network properties, program manager etc) an MS director openly said it was rubbish, people took them to court over the hardware spec fiasco and more importantly. Nearly Everyone who bought a Pc had to either spend a ton more just to get it to run properly, Or were ripped off with a machine that wasn't capable of running the new features. Vista Basic was just XP. All of those headlines doomed the Vista OS.

Windows 7. Will sell well simple because of vendor lock in, if you hate vista you haven't been able to buy a new machine for the last two years. And people are now in a serious position of having machines that need replacing. So windows 7 by default will see more uptake now that Vista has been taken outside and shot.

The main thing I get from both reports is that XP is basically sound. There is some wiggle room but most of the features XP has are needed, or slimmed already over the years of refinement (hotfixes etc) and therfore it is almost impossible to get tweaks that improve the system to any large extent, relying on RAM to get the speed boost.

Whereas Vista is such a big pile of crap and written so badly there is more "wiggle room" than strictly come dancing. Some of those changes are vast chasms of improvement over the basic Vista installation.

Can't wait to see windows 7 report. :)

Only if someone like asus or sony did one (Or god forbid, Apple). Someone that has a history of good quality hardware. Not a second rate OS manufacturer.

Microsoft doing one just tells me it will be pants, like the surface table idea or Xbox or the Zune.

Still would be interested to see the specs.

They use open source to make something, hoping people back it.

Those people develop better products on it, better than google did.

Google take the pram back and rattle back, because they can't control it anymore.

Those developers realise they can do better and don't need google, after all it is open source

They keep rattle, let google have pram and reinvent pram with an engine, and some cool go faster stripes.

Silly Google.

Obviously the madman at the top isn't alone anymore.

We need a Ballmers evil icon.

@DZ-Jay

How is the job at Apple working out for ya?

@mrkdvs

Spot on. :)

Personally I think the comment of an "unscientific" poll is wrong, surely any poll is simply that, a poll. The questions might not be scientific but the results stand for themselves.

I wanted the WM6.1 update for the tytn2, Tmobile tech support said it would be July 2008 (following the february 2008 release) that was around 15 months ago.

Still waiting.

I don't think T mobile put the idea of supporting existing customers in the same way they do those new ones. Or they are just rubbish at after support for their phones once new ones arrive.

Then again anyone who buys a G2 phone which uses facebook and twitter access as a major selling opint needs to get out more and get a life.

Nothing anywhere will make me like Americans. I am not against the country, it is the "We are right, you listen." attitude that I can't stand. People will support America when it starts actually asking (and caring) before telling someone their opinion.

Still a few million quid in my bank account and I will quite happily believe them (not actually support them). If for no other reason than I am easy like that. :)

Otherwise our government will role over, have it's belly tickled by their owners - and let it happen. Nothing new to this, nothing shocking, same old sad sorry tale of UK government bends over for American bosses.

It can't compete in todays market at that price without on board Wifi and gigabit. You can't network stream or be a NAS without GBit as everyone and their dog who makes motherboards now has on board Wifi and GBit ethernet. So this would be the weakest link a chain very quickly.

And 115 for a 500GB HDD, when you can get them for less than £50 from Freecom if you are still having to use the USB connectivity for file transfers.

"Although this is a very simple idea and an even simpler change, we're excited about it — because it symbolises our focus on search and because it makes our clean, minimalist homepage even easier and more fun to use."

What the hell is "Fun" about using Google?

Especially the bit that says Linux doesn't support messenger. Surely that is a good thing, one huge reason to go to the penguin.

Having spent four hours last night trying to install office 2003 in vista and getting setup.exe is not a win32 application, I am so glad I made the switch to linux.

T mobile doesn't take up those stupid animals. They need to be shot.

They can't import their own file formats.

Man that has to sting!!!!

I can't stand iPhone and all these suck ups that think sliding fingers and paying stupid amounts is the way forward. Yes it may only cost 99c, but 52 apps later and how much do you have of real worth???

Yet they are easier to code, easier to program and if you have a brain cell the one or two you actually need is quite useful, certainly downloading and working them is easier and more user friendly than the mess of having to install on your pc to get them on the phone in the first place. I mean the tipulator, something that breaks down a restaurant bill into portions, just like erm... a calculator can do with the divide key. Come on 99c for that? Geez. Or better yet, that stupid app that lets you send photos to anyone else randomly in the world.

Then again WM is dead, long dead, it is horrible to work with a network, horrible to customise, even worse to get to sync. you can't share domains so working between sites is a no no, you can't go online and on a network without changing a pull down tab on some horrible sub menu.

Active sync is the worst piece of software I have ever come across from MS (A very long list indeed), it just doesn't work and has to convert everything before you can even use your phone as a simple flash storage device.

So whatever comes from Linux or Google I see as the one to watch in the future. They are the ones that have a use for the coding beyond the initial phone, and the buy in from linux coders will be the one that could progress nicely against the MS offering. Or more importantly, progress against the market share.

No one will be bought into working for MS if you have to mount the hurdle that is MSDN and then program something that still can't cope with jumping between mobile internet and plugging in via active sync to a PC without four menu options and a restart.

Bin Active sync, make it just work. Get rid of MSDN and have a much more open and fuller list of API's and drivers that run in the background and make the whole UI work, instead of just being a pocket PC OS on a smaller device.

Hmm I seem to have ranted a bit.

MS try and compete against Google with MSN. Realise they just can't compete, even against the second placed search engine.

They try again by reinventing MSN into Live or vice versa or both or something, but they reinvent both the virus that is their messenger and the rubbish login passport logic. I don't know as I don't use hotmail but it was released to be pretty and that was about it, I still can't POP3 it to my thunderbird so I don't take notice.

MS try and reinvent - again, their search engine with bong or bing or whatever stupid catch phrase they call it. And fail again because MS still don't understand that people are already in their rut and don't want to change to a sub standard search engine with out really good reason. I didn't even know it existed until I searched MS websites for a fix for an SP3 issue, seeing bing on the MS website as their search facility. (which incidentally didn't find what I was looking for)

This doesn't work. So MS employ their age old tactic of buying up the competition, and they buy yahoo. In some odd deal where they will then assume total control of all the yahoo customer base. (Me included)

This applies to nearly all the MS business models, the games console, the mobile phone OS, their Mp3 player, web browser, anti spyware and viral protection etc. etc. Every market has a number one position filled with someone that does it better. Only MS bribery and lock ins make any head way into a market share.

They should stick to their core market and concentrate on getting one product out, cheaply, working and problem free Vista and Vista 2. Instead of fifteen things badly, over priced and error ridden.

Balmer truly is a moron and won't understand this concept, so will continue to alienate people, manufacturers, clients and share holders. Which is good news as eventually the mighty MS carcass will be picked at and replaced with proper competition between people that actually succeed.

The same rhetoric was said about Vista and that didn't materialise, the big phenomenal piece of software etc etc.

However people were burned, and burned badly by Vista so there won't be the magic bullet they are expecting, it will be a dribble till SP1. If it isn't a dribble it is because of forcing people through the market place to get new equipement with Windows 7.

As with Vista, let's see what IBM do...

Then surely having one of the few companies bigger and better than M$ on board can only be a good thing.

Lots of hardware and software developers don't do linux because it is only a minority. Google doing one means the worlds biggest online search engine is involved. And that means the cash and the market opens up. So surely that will mean the softare and hardware will begin to take notice,

Of course once google and it's OS which follow international standards starts to pick up, it will further alienate the redmond lackeys and their love in deals to start asking why they don't follow standards? Having hte market lead where the international standards bodies fall over and fail.

Personally I will stick with Ubuntu and Mandriva, but it should be a very nice 2010.

When they allow the other packages to be bundled with a first install, they truly truly get rid of those that were not wanted. So when I click firefox or whatever, IE is gone. This includes Instant messenger and all that cruddy media player rubbish (I want my music in a library I can understand, not your version of it)

AND

When I click on firefox, all web browsing standards are adheered to,

All functions of firefox present and future are adheered to and there is not bias or later implementation of IE by annoying pop up messages saying "we notice you use firefox, have you considered IE9" everytime I log in. etc etc.

And more importantly when I choose firefox or opera, ALL the windows resources, drivers, kernal time and coding supports it. Not some windows half hearted attempt to curtail performance underhandedly, thus ensuring people think it is rubbish and go for the fully optimised version of windows IE

They honour the whole thing on future releases, not just as a gimic for Vista 2 (windows 7) home basic, it should be ALL versions of Vista 2 and whatever follows. Just because Neelie might have left his/her job, doesn't mean the EU public have.

Here is to public will and pressure where our limp wristed govenment failed.

Or was it the EU pressure?

...Now lets start on the ID cards and Database.

I can see it and it works. Completely wrong however. Wrong on every possible level.

What next, a plot about Tetris and menacing blocks that once arranged in a line explode devastating cities.

Or terrorists threaten the world with mine sweeper???????

Holly wood has gone nuts.

My main machine, my laptop and my back up machine are Linux or Xp and some dual boots so I only need this to play online games.

Xp works, so do I need to consider buying another OS, it should be cheaper or free for all those muppets that bought Vista and for those like me that bought the ultimate version of vista we should be getting it free and with additional content or a cheque for the price of Vista.

I think XP for my games will continue to suffice at least a nother couple of years then. At least I don't have to run the risk of Beta gfx drivers like Vista.

No IE8 is a bonus

And the media player will still be absolutely !"£$!"£$" at cataloguing my MP3's into the order I have them in. (ie in their own folders) insisting that it's wierd way of doing it is better.

@Mosh,

You really need to get a better job, working for MS obviously has a "Church of Scientology" affect on you.

However MS should raise it's prices, then more people will see the merits of Linux.

I wanted one of these to replace my aging tytn 2. Which while ham stringed by Windows mobile 6, is still just what I want.

Was hoping this review would give me hope.

Oh well, the search continues

That's Ozzy dollars, which are about 3 to the pound. So you have to endure IE8 for about 3500 quid. (give or take the exchange rate)

It isn't worth having.

And you have to endure a social networking site for more than ten minutes at a time. Yes twitter might be okay, now and then in small doses, but some of us actually have lives, and jobs and the need to talk to a live person.

They make a mockery of the 0845 numbers and anything they want to be charged locally or for free phone numbers. So now we all pay massive amounts of cash to every number they set up to be free.

They make an absolute pigs ear of the mobile communications and roaming charges,

They screwed over the broadband market for actually saying what it is they sell.

All of which actually is important and won't go away.

So now they want to take the p**s with every legitimate bradband user that uses filesharing. No evidence just their whim that says they are right.

Instead they target a technically savvy group of people that will simply side step them, curing nothing and furthering the problem.

I think you have to see the $$$ at the back of this story, and the fact MS have bought into Asus or threatened them as per usual tactics.

I have a nice asus 1000 40GB SSD, mandriva 2009.1 looks great and works

When you update it, it doesn't need to reboot.

I can stick the software where I want on the hard drive and take up as much room as I can.

To install was easy and took thirty minutes and all drivers were working from the box.

There has been no issues, one error message which was my fault

I have it dual booted with Xp, Linux can see and read the XP partition.

Grub can handle all the partitions and booting process. XP's MBR can't

Xp only goes where 'it' wants on the smaller partition.

It can't see or even recognise the larger linux partition.

Install was twice as long as linux, with more questions than linux

I had to install the drivers separately.

There isn't the RAM or the HDD space for Vista so it had to be XP.

XP has crached twice requiring two complete reinstalls just to get back up and running. I love the BSOD.

I can't run it on the netbook for all my apps, because of the hit rate on the SSD, so have to shift some onto the SD card.

XP can't work the new WPA2 wireless security that my netgear router is running, so I have to downgrade to the older version of security or lose the wireless network.

I have to run regular anti virus and anti spyware just to remain safe. (Hammering my SSD)

Battery life is shocking, but boot up is about the same as linux.

I will stick with XP thanks as a secondary boot option. Mandriva are guaranteeing 100% compatilbility for the eee series and they certainly do work straight from the box as a result.

I am not a linux fanboy, but the major line variants out there (I have ubuntu desktop and mandriva laptop) and the way in which linux just does what you want with error messages that mean something if it does go wrong and more importantly there is forum help out there. Windows forums are good but let down by the software, active sync and exchange being my current argument with M$, Linux are at least brought out for the next release, happily this is a year away, not three years like XP.

Bad day for Asus, I held them in such high regard.

Featuring all the same models to now be selectable with dual cores

Anyone else think this is just one person trying to slag off the competition???

Linux might not be designed for the mobile phone market, yet. Then again neither is windows mobile and it seems to be doing alright. :)

@Charles

A horse can be trusted to take you home at any time, if trained. Horses also are keenly aware of their surroundings and so avoid trees, bushes, holes in the ground, other cars, ditches, bus stops, people and anything else that cars can run into. It's the self preservation factor, then again with ultimate four by four and slip diff arrangements they can easily get in and out of the said ditches etc.

Nuff said.

That is all I can say.

And give us a hefty fine us for answering a month and a half late as well.

MP's and the gov't don't listen to the people anymore so someone needs to give them a spanking.

The cost of having the drones will be huge, the cost of flying them will be huge and who is paying for all this. The air lines? Airports and then who pays for them... customers...

Wouldn't it be better to say military planes and air force 1 will be protected. Then military budgets can be wasted on them instead?

No one has shot down a plane with one, and no one has shot at one outside Africa.

Cheaper to just surround the airport with CCTV and roving patrols of armed guards. 50 grand a year for two guys with machine guns. Or a couple of million per unit with fuel costs and the operator costs to fly them for each plane?.

I would love to see the airtraffic controllers bill for that one... Landing double the number planes on an airfield just to get the drones back for the next flight. Heathrow lands a plane every one and a half minutes. So you go figure the drones into that.

The icons might take a while, I for one liked the dead bird icon. Still the penguin is here.... now where is the one that celebrates the death of Microsoft?

And we need one of ballmer (really hasn't a clue of the planet he is one or the company he leads or the people he is trying to sell to) in a straight jacket.