It all started this morning, when I awoke and checked my phone for messages/email/etc. The first thing I noticed was the carrier name had changed–sadly–from “Cingular” to “ATT.“  I saw that, and laughed to myself. See, the underlined T in ATT is caused by the phone trying to interpret a normal programming procedure.

Think back to a favorite application you use. Chances are this application has some menus. If the developer of the program chose so, each menu item can contain a shortcut key. A good example is what’s used in most programs: File>Exit. How does that “x” get underlined in “Exit”? Well, the amperstand (&) is used. Suddenly E&xit becomes Exit. &New becomes New. AT&T becomes ATT.

That underlined T wasn’t a bug. The phone was doing exactly what it was supposed to be doing.

I got to work and decided to do some research and find out if there was a fix for this, or if AT&T was just going to chill and wait for the supposed WM6 update.

Turns out it was the latter, and chill time was over.

Just a couple days ago, the first AT&T Windows Mobile 6 ROM was leaked. Since I’ve been looking forward to upgrading to Windows Mobile 6 since I heard it was going to be a free update (back when I first got the phone). I jumped ahead and tried out the leaked version. There’s rumor that WM6 will be officially released this week for the AT&T phones..

I must say, I’m quite impressed. Everything that I complained about previously has been resolved. It seems like the initial release was rushed, so this firmware definitely slowed everything down and they took the time to make a killer OS for the phone. Some notable items I’ve seen (I’ll keep it updated as I keep playing with the new firmware) :

• The data connection icon is now more specific: E (for EDGE), U (for UMTS), and H (yes, H, for HSDPA).
• HSDPA support. Hell yes. This will be tested tonight for speeds.
• Bluetooth much more stable.
• Bluetooth Internet Connection Sharing: Instead of using the phone as a modem using it as a bluetooth modem, I can join the phones’ Bluetooth Personal Area Network and use the phone as a gateway. Very cool!
• All the Cingular/AT&T Crapware is there (AT&T Music, AT&T Mall, Cellular Video)
• So far, Voice Command does not screw up the ringer (and it works)
• Pretty new reminder.wav sound
• Carrier now shows AT&T, not ATT
• Battery can now be charged over USB
• SDHC cards now supported
• VoIP support that should be in WM6 has been removed (waiting for a workaround)
• Overal response/feel is much faster
• Pretty new Vista-like colors, themes, and icons
• New ribbon in the calendar (slide through the times in a day)
• WeatherBug Mobile doesn’t work right now (seems as though my IMEI got an extra number added to it, therefore invalidating my device)

More as I test it!

Speed Tests: (using dslreports.com/mspeed)

EDGE (Grafton/North Milwaukee) : ~160 kbit/sec

UMTS/3G (Greenfield/South Milwaukee) : ~314 kbit/sec

HSDPA (Menomonee Falls/West Milwaukee) : ~715 kbit/sec

HSDPA (Greenfield/South Milwaukee) : ~698 kbit/sec

~Jaker