WM phone users revolt

The results of Information week poll are in. They asked readers what the most frustrating thing about smartphones is, and over 30% say it's battery life. Most smartphones work fine until you try to access an application or download a graphic from the Web. Working in applications will suck the life out of a battery faster than you can type "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" on that tiny keyboard. Twenty-three percent say the small screen size on a smartphone is frustrating, followed by 21% who are dissatisfied with wireless broadband speeds and 20% with the voice quality. "Despite all their advanced features, some [smartphones] perform poorly as phones. That's the main reason I have one, to make and received calls," says one respondent.

Some other common complaints include:

- The high cost of devices and wireless data services that are still not as fast or as cheap as cable or DSL.

- Processor speed, which becomes an issue as companies look to use smartphones to replace laptops and want to load custom applications or extend current apps to the devices.

- The need for more robust browsers that will allow the use of hosted applications.

And the award for The Operating System With The Most Issues goes to Windows Mobile 5.0. The popular OS has a tendency to lock up often and requires users to reboot their smartphones. "The fact that the 'close' button doesn't actually close the application but just minimizes it has been a shortcoming since day one," says one Windows Mobile user. Very few of the applications in Windows Mobile cooperate in sharing data, meaning the applications don't interoperate. "The easiest way to make a calendar appointment with someone whose information is in your contact list, is to jot down (paper and pen) the appropriate information (phone number or address), then calendarize the event," says another user.