Being at Microsoft for long time now..and have had many many Window Mobile phones. Some better than others. I remember when I was running our mobile business for a few years when all we had were PowerPoint slides and dummy phones of our then so called SmartPhone the Stinger!
Things have improved tremendously since then of course and although we still have a ways to go, its super encouraging to see land on my desk (Thanks to GraceK) the brand new HTC HD2.
WOW! What a great phone! No doubt a big effort in competing with the power of the iPhone. I’ve had it for 24 hr now and it is truly amazing.
I hate being a iFollow or a iClone so this will definitely separate me from the pack!
Here is what DonK had to say about it
It’s finally here!!
HTC’s HD2 has landed in Oz, and will be officially available thru Telstra & their dealers from tomorrow Tuesday January 19th!
All T-Life stores will have live HD2s in-store, so visit your local store to check it out. The HD2 is also available thru Telstra’s key dealers like JB Hi-Fi, Harvey Norman, FoneZone, The Leading Edge to name a few.
The great news – some of the Telstra channel are already offering special deals on the HD2, for example to purchase the phone outright;
- JB Hi-Fi at $820(inc GST)
- Telstra owned stores from $829(inc GST) [see the listing of these stores at the end of this post]
Make sure to try the following new apps/features when visiting a store:
- Album flo: turn the HD2 on the side and have fun scrolling through photos and music ....on a massive screen!
- 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and flash. It takes pictures in both widescreen and normal resolution.
- Footprints: take photos of your favourite places, along with its GPS location and other details;
- Digital compass: from walkers to hikers to avid mountain bikers –know which direction you’re facing and keep on track with this app on your HD2
- Windows Marketplace: download Office Mobile 2010 beta, Wide World of Sports (WWOS) Cricket Widget, etc...there’s plenty of apps to choose from
- Weather wallpaper – lifelike animation of your local (as in suburb detail) weather.
- Mobile Foxtel – on the massive 4.3” screen!
- Twitter, Linked In, Facebook apps
DonK
Mashable had this to say about Bing and why you should switch.
My personal favourite is number 3. But you make up your mind.
![2313.Movies-j[1]](http://blogs.msdn.com/blogfiles/stevecla01/WindowsLiveWriter/BingVisualSearchWhytypewhenyoucanseeitSe_E8EE/2313.Movies-j%5B1%5D_thumb.jpg "2313.Movies-j[1]")
One of my daily morning routine habits is to …get a coffee…turn on the computer…launch my IE browser and just sit there an admire the daily image that Bing displays.
They are just spectacular images..I mean…look at these butterflies..or the face of that green turtle! Just brilliant.
Long Zheng has managed to collate all images from many country Bing sites into one collection…great job. Check it out here.
Here is a feature I would like to see (in fact I did suggest it to the product teams), is to be able to right click on the image and make it your Win7 wall paper for the day. There might be some copyright issue, but that would be one feature I would turn on!
Not that I am endorsing anyone to do what this guys wants to do…
I actually know guys like this!
I love these series…
thanks to Steve Clayton for the refer
bing announced today! You will get it in about a week. Here is a video for you http://www.decisionengine.com/Default.html
Here are some screen shots I took today:
My MSFT UK colleague Steve Clayton did a fine review of the new Dell Adamo laptop.
I had a look at this beauty the other day but never got to actually play with it well enough to review it. The design is tremendous, really challenging the Mac and even the Sony (who I am a huge fan off). I am hoping my friends at Dell might loan me one to spec out with the new Windows 7 RC :-) but in the meantime you can read what Steve had to say about it.
http://blogs.msdn.com/stevecla01/archive/2009/05/06/my-adamo-experience.aspx
I am glad companies like Dell are making “sexy” designs and putting real effort in differentiating themselves. Good stuff DELL!
You might have seen the latest ads by Microsoft showing the value (financial) of a Windows PC vs the Mac. Infact these series of ads are meant to show the true impact of what you are paying for when purchasing a new PC.
Have a look at the video and read on
So, is Lauren right in buying her HP Pavilion vs a Mac from an economical perspective. Lets have a look at the specs. :
![newmacvshp[1]](http://blogs.msdn.com/blogfiles/stevecla01/WindowsLiveWriter/DidLaurenChooseTheRightPC_7A5D/newmacvshp%5B1%5D_thumb.jpg "newmacvshp[1]")
No kidding she did! That is $2000 difference to be cool.
My view is that there is nothing cool about being ripped off!
A lot of hard work by our education team on this, but its finally paid off.
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,25196245-15306,00.html
Live@Edu is an awesome product designed specifically for schools and universities that want to provide free email services to their students and faculty. It uses Hosted Exchange as the back end but also provides things like Instant Messenger, Spaces and Skydrive.
Other universities have also signed up such as Victoria Uni. If your in education, give it a go here http://get.liveatedu.com/Education/Connect/
Our VE team are doing a tremendous job in keeping upto date with details and imagery of the fires in Victoria.
Go to http://blogs.msdn.com/virtualearth/archive/2009/02/10/australia-on-fire.aspx for more details
You can also go to 
the ABC News site.
:-)
