I have the tilt 2 and am running SPB Mobile Shell. I do love it, but most aren’t going to buy a custom shell. The defeault windows shell sucks and the HTC shell is cool but not very functional.
Plus the phone has some bloat on it that makes it slow from time to time. WinMobile 7 will fix that by not allowing every app to multitask. Once again losing a power user feature when compared to 6.5; however, I can see the need because they need to control battery life and responsiveness of the phone. Howver, my tilt2 has had the best battery of any phone ever. I go all day and remain above 80% battery. I’m truly amazed by it.
My thoughts exactly. I told the WinMo guys they should just continue to add real OS features to WinMo 6.5 and then hire a company like SPB to do the entire UI. Get out of the UI business altogether and hire someone to do it for you (one of the smartest things that Linux does - makes the clean break between the UI and the OS).
I know it was slow sometimes on my Samsung i760, but HTC Touch Pro 2 screams with it, even when I have Google Maps, Skype, WM WiFi Router, and Windows Media Player running simultaneously.
The key, I've found, is to install ALL apps to phone memory, but set it to save all data to the micro SD card (encrypted, of course). REALLY speeds up operations.
My battery life isn't as good though; that beautiful screen (800x480) with GPS and Bluetooth always running (I use Ageye's G Profile, a VERY slick way to make your phone switch profiles based upon location, handy when at places like church, or client offices, etc) I get it down to 30% by the end of the night. Picked up a spare extended capacity battery in China, though (for $30) and I have all the backup I need.