Tech: Mobile phone thoughts

(reposted from my response on Cathartic Tome )

One of the first things I install on any PDA phone is some kind of app (for WM5, I use "Magic Button") that turns the "X" button into an actual CLOSE application button - so I pretty much never have any apps running in the background.  Since Windows CE, I always thought that was a bad idea.

There are some quirks in WM, but I still like it a whole lot - primarily because there's SO much good-quality freeware and regular apps for it.  I've got a (now "old") T-Mobile MDA (2?) and it's still the best danged phone I've ever had.  Incidentally, WM7 will not be a vast upgrade as I hear tell, but WM8 is going to be a complete rewrite of the software, so expect to finally see WM in a form that is everyone-friendly, not just nerd-friendly, in a few years.

I just bought the wife a new, low-end phone from Target.  Some cheap Nokia thing but it dials and has a speakerphone so it'll do.  Her old phone's battery is completely dead, which is why we got the new one.  It's sad and very Brave-New-World-ish that her new phone uses the exact same battery as the old phone and while the battery can be purchased online for $40, the new phone can be had for $30.