Talking Smart: Windows Mobile Professional vs. Standard
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Alfredo Padilla Published on March 13, 2008 |
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You may have noticed that Windows Mobile devices have exploded in popularity over the past couple of years. It used to be that you had to be a dyed in the wool geek to even consider owning one, and even then you had to struggle to figure out how the damn thing worked, but nowadays every major carrier, and a lot of those not so major, will offer you a choice of several different Windows Mobile devices. When considering this dizzying array of choices one strange thing might catch you're eye. Despite the fact that all of these are "Windows Mobile" phones, they obviously have some fairly stark differences in terms of interface. The reason for this is Microsoft's decision to introduce two different flavors of their smart phone operating system. Microsoft long ago decided to develop two parallel tracks of Windows Mobile. The more capable of the two was originally called Windows Mobile Pocket PC while the slightly slimmed down version was called Windows Mobile Smartphone. Before we completely confuse you, or at least so we can shift the blame, we should note that in their latest update to the operating system Microsoft decided to rebrand these two flavors of Windows Mobile. Pocket PC became "Professional" while Smartphone became "Standard". We'll use these more modern terms from this point out. The most obvious difference between the two platforms is that the Professional version has a touch screen interface while the Standard version does not. There are some exceptions to this, but we won't go there, for your sake. As a rule of thumb this is probably the easiest way to tell the difference between the two. So if you're holding a device like the HTC Mogul (read review) in your hand and you can touch the screen with a stylus or finger to interact with the interface you know you've got a Professional device. On the other hand phones like the Samsung BlackJack II (read review) lack the touch screen and instead require you to use a D-Pad and soft keys to navigate the interface. Although the most obvious difference it doesn't stop there. In the past Microsoft tried to differentiate between the two platforms by limiting built-in document editing capabilities to the Professional line. With their latest update, however, this has changed and now both device types include Office Mobile that allows you to view and edit Word or Excel documents. Powerpoint documents are view-only on both platforms. Although this was a welcome change there is still a subtle difference between the two, namely you can't create new Word or Excel documents on Windows Mobile Standard devices, you can only edit existing documents. We imagine that Microsoft made this decision to try and continue to differentiate between the two platforms, but frankly it's silly. Not only are there ridiculously simple workarounds, like just saving a blank version of a Word and Excel document and then using the "save-as" feature to create new ones, but the third-party application community quickly created a free application that addresses this issue. Another difference you'll notice between the two version of Windows Mobile is the home screen. On Professional devices like the Treo 750 (read review) you have a series of plugins that can be easily turned on or off using the Today screen preferences in the settings. You also have a drop down Start menu that gives you quick access to a customizable list of applications and recently used items. By contrast Windows Mobile Standard devices like the Pantech Duo (read review) have a different interface. There are also a series of plugins on the home screen, but these are not easily customizable from the settings. Instead you can choose from a few different presets or, if you want more specific control, you'll have to edit the XML document that defines the home screen, not for the faint of heart.
On the left the HTC Mogul Windows Mobile Professional Device. In the middle the Pantech Duo and to the right the T-Mobile Shadow, both Windows Mobile Standard devices. The Start menu on Standard devices is also different, it basically just looks like a set of program icons, with some folders, rather than the customizable list that's available on Professional devices. In fact if you want to customize the order of programs in the Start menu in Standard devices you'll have to mess around in the registry, with all its associated dangers. The last major difference between the two is that your recently used applications on Windows Mobile Standard devices are generally found in a strip along the top of the home screen, rather than in the Start menu as on Windows Mobile Professional devices. Some Windows Mobile Standard devices do offer a newer and different interface, which introduces a third variation on the Windows Mobile home screen experience. Devices like the T-Mobile Shadow (read review) have a series of animated plugins each of which gives you access to a particular area of device functionality. So, for example, the Calendar plugin allows you to choose from viewing your current day's events or creating a new event. Certain carriers, like Orange in the UK, will also create their own custom home screens for both Windows Mobile Standard and Professional devices. If there's one thing that Windows Mobile is good at is giving people the power to customize their devices, but as you can see this can also create a lot of confusion for you the consumer. There are also a bunch of minor differences between the two version of Windows Mobile that you won't notice right off. For example on Professional devices the alarm functionality is robust, allowing you to create complex recurrence patterns and have multiple alarms. On Standard devices you can only have a single alarm and the recurrence patterns are limited. Windows Mobile Standard devices lack a text notes application, while Professional devices have one. The file browsers are also slightly different, with Windows Mobile Professional devices having much more robust functionality for moving and copying files about. What you might have garnered from all this is that Windows Mobile Professional devices give users more powerful tools out of the box than Standard devices. We have to note, however, that this gap has closed dramatically in recent years and Microsoft seems to be moving towards a unified operating system, for which we can only hope. In the meantime if you like the Windows Mobile Standard interface better, but are worried about holes in its functionality we can say that almost all of these issues can be addressed via third party software. Now that you have been armed with this knowledge you may want to get some more in depth information about specific devices. Every phone has its own unique strengths and weaknesses apart from its platform, of course. As such we put together a list of all the Windows Mobile phones that we have reviewed to date. If you have any comments or questions please feel free to post them below. Windows Mobile Professional Windows Mobile Standard
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Anyone wading into the world of smart phones for the first time is bound to be confused. Choosing between Symbian, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and even Linux (if you're really geeky) is no easy task. But then throw in the fact that many of these platforms have various "flavors" and it gets even harrier. Today we're going to be talking about the difference between the two different versions of Windows Mobile: Professional versus Standard. We're warning you, it's going to get a little geeky, so if you think you can put up with it, read on for this week's Talking Smart. 
