Been investigating Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC Phone Edition, and I must say that as soon as more devices are on the market, I’ll have to pick one up.

The new operating system has many changes from previous versions, mostly in stability and UI enhancements. The most striking addition is the soft keys at the bottom of the screen. These have been on most cell phones for awhile and make the PPC more usable for a phone than it was in the past.

Another new "feature" for WM5 is the requirement of ActiveSync 4.0. This version of AS seems to have some issues with creating a partnership, and also with different Windows XP configurations! MS needs to address this as a #1 priority.

Other neat updates are WMP 10, better Bluetooth support, better WiFi support, better connectivity for tethering as a modem, and much more in the network department.

At the most basic level in the OS, a major change was to move to non-volatile storage. This is also similar to what most cell phones have been using for a long time. Everything in memory is not lost if the battery goes dead. In previous incarnations of the OS and its supported devices, there needed to be constant power applied to the memory. That is a nice change – it also has the positive affect of making more power available for the same battery capacity. Previously in WM, the system had to reserve a certain percentage of battery life to keep the memory contents over a 3 day period – and would even tell the user that the battery was empty when it was not, just to support this requirement. Now, that need is not there and that remaining power can now be used by the user for additional run-time.

Finding all the new features will take time, but there are a slew of people investigating the new OS and posting all over the enthusiast sites about tweaks and settings that improve the OS.

Lots of fun.