At the risk starting a barrage of Windows Mobile flames, we’re going to assert our confidence in the Windows Mobile platform. The WM6 handsets give us the integrated, customizable, (mostly) touchscreen platform that we crave. That being said, it’s understandable (even expected) when a Windows Mobile device has bugs or locks up, especially on a brand-new device. What’s not understandable is an entire first-run batch of mobile phones experiencing sever lock-up issues.
We’re getting widespread reports, from MyG900 forums, of disgruntled Toshiba G900 owners complaining that their brand-spankin’ new Windows Mobile handsets are locking up on them – for the most part the G900s seem to lock-up as they go into standby, and won’t turn back on. Keeping the charger plugged in helps keep the device out of lock-up hell, but no amount of fiddling with SIM cards or error reporting services seems to help.
The “standby of death” has been confirmed by Toshiba as a software issue, although MyG900 forum members speculate that it may be a hardware problem. And, speaking of hardware, the incredible feature-set on the G900 makes this whole buggy situation even worse. Having a spectacularly executed device with a fantastic screen isn’t all that useful when the device doesn’t even work – the list of features is something of a tease, with a 800×480 pixels display, fingerprint sensor, HSDPA, WiFi, qwerty keyboard, and Bluetooth, it’s sad that they can’t be effectively used.
This reminds us of one of our own in-house Windows Mobile 6.0 devices. Our HTC TyTn (Hermes) with a cooked WM6 ROM exhibited the same issues. Stand-by lock-ups that can’t be reliably replicated. So it may indeed be a software issue on the G900, not a hardware problem that’s been speculated by forum members.
[Via: MSMobiles]