I solicited the advice of the Windows phone experts last summer in this thread:

To recap briefly, I entertained the idea of replacing my AT&T Tilt (HTC TyTn II) with a shiny new phone, but couldn't decide which to choose. I gave a list of features I wanted more or less in order of importance and got some great input from the experts here, particularly Laura and Trent.

As many who've read my missives here have probably guessed, I'm VERY resistant to change, and have stuck with my Tilt ever since, since it does pretty much everything I needed it to do....

...or at least it DID, until last Friday, when it stopped working forever.

I'm half tempted to just buy another used Tilt, restore from my last Sprite Backup and get on with my life, but I suspect this is opportunity knocking to find a phone that corrects some of the Tilt's shortcomings.

My logic right now is going something like this- since I'll want to go with a 7 Series at year end, I'm looking for a cheap "stop gap" phone, say, under $300, to hold me until then. So rather than a "dream device," I'm just looking to get by until Christmas! Therefore my old "must have" feature set has been downgraded to just the "essentials:" DPad or equivalent, WiFi, BT, GPS, 128MB RAM or higher, and my "wish list" down to VGA, 3.5" headphone jack, TV Out, 3G (I'm on T-Mo, so I'd need 1700MHz AWS 3G), decent camera and IR.

I let a couple of HTC Advantages in good shape get away on eBay for under $300 (I'm still kicking myself!)

I've pretty much narrowed it down to three devices, but feel free to suggest anything I've missed:

Palm Treo Pro: no TV out, sub-VGA, and mediocre camera, but a 3.5mm headphone jack (finally!), an "always there" keyboard (I love the Dash/Q form factor, but wouldn't give up a touchscreen for it- with the Pro I don't have to) and IR for my portable printers. About $230 new, $150+ used.

A Touch Pro 1/Fuze- VGA, TV-Out, but stupid proprietary headphone jack, dumb "diamond" styling and no IR. $200+ used.

Another Tilt/TyTn II. I'm used to it, it has a great DPad- perhaps the best button assortment/layout of any Windows phone ever, and I've lived with its shortcomings (QVGA, no TV-out, no IR, USB headset jack, etc.) for two years. About $150+ used.

Hurry, Windows phone experts! I'm using my five year-old HTC Wizard in the interim, and I might not live long enough to buy a new device if I have to wait for its 200MHz processor to get anything done!

With your wishlist Todd I'd go and buy me a second hand SE X1. It fits most of your requirements.

How about the Tilt2 ? - hasn't got the D Pad , but with Windows Mobile 6.5 ?

Maybe scrub that suggestion ot the Tilt2 - it doesn't have the 3.5  headphone jack but that stupid adapter.

No Dpad, no deal!

Seriously, that's the scariest thing about the Windows 7 press to me!  The "three required buttons" translates into no directional hardware input.

I like touchscreens as much as the next guy- I've only used WinMo Classic/Pro devices as my primary devices (the non-touchscreen phones in my arsenal are backups or are used by other family members.)  But for one handed operation, particularly as our phones continually creep back up in size to accommodate larger screens, nothing beats actual hardware- Dpads, scroll wheels, trackballs, whatever.

Every time I pick up my wife's iPhone, (after I want to get out the Windex and give it a good scrubbing to get the days' worth of fingerprint smudges off it,) I wonder who like the all-touch no-buttons interface?  Ugh!

I could live with the proprietary headset jack on the Tilt2/TP2, but the many times I've played with it at my local T-Mobile store, trying to convince myself to upgrade, the lack of Dpad has been a giant turn-off (which is too bad, because otherwise it has most of what I'd like on a phone- TV out, T-Mo's weird 3G frequency, big VGA+ screen, lots of RAM, etc.  The HTC UI would be the first thing to go, after I welded an aftermarket bluetooth Dpad on it!)

I'm really leaning toward the Palm Treo Pro- having a 3.5mm jack and an IR port again would be nice.  I'm just not sure I can get used to the slightly smaller, and weirdly square screen after a decade of 4x3 screens, but I really like the front QWERTY form factor- I always loved borrowing my wife's T-Mo Dash, but wished it had a touchscreen/WM Pro.  The Treo Pro just might be the best of both worlds, and would give me a new form factor to play with until WP7S drops late this year.

The most frightening thing about this broken Tilt ordeal is how well I'm getting along with the tired old Wizard/MDA again.  Even the 64MB RAM (only about 27MB free at boot!) and slow (200MHz) processor aren't that much of a problem.  I've had to jettison a few of my usual apps (MS Voice Command takes up far too much RAM for the slight convenience it offers, and most alternative browsers other than the Java-based Opera Mini refuse to run or run poorly in the limited RAM) and I had to seriously pair down my MP3s, podcasts, audio books and videos to bare minimum (the Wiz's SD slot maxes out at 2GB- no SDHC support!)    

But Live Mesh and Funambol made getting the long out-of-sync Wizard up to date quickly and smoothly, and I'm actually shocked at how long the battery lasts in this thing- it easily outlasts the Tilt even with my original, now 5 year-old battery!  I guess HTC knew what they were doing when they kneecapped the device with a slow processor!

 So how about the X1 then Todd?

Dave Parker MVP:

 So how about the X1 then Todd?

The X1 is on my short list- it lacks TV out, but has a standard phone jack. Its main problem is price- even used it still fetches big bucks. It's still a desirable device by many, and was sold in small quantities compared to phones like the TyTn II or Touch Pro, driving up the resale value. I'd take it if I can find one at a reasonable price.

I sold on my X1 for £100 last week. If you'd have posted this 2 weeks ago I'd have sent it to you for a try out. Oh, well.

So what are you looking at for a good second hand X1 in the US Todd? They're between £120 and £150 here and quite common.

The USA has never been a good market for unlocked phones, and no operator here has ever sold the X1, so we don't see that many even on eBay. Used, they seem to run about $300+, new, $450.

A similarly spec'd Touch Pro I, (sold here in the gazillions by AT&T as the "Fuze") sells used for $150+. While I prefer the style and features of the Sony, it carries quite a premium here!

Part of the problem, I'm sure, is the mental "value" issue caused by subsidies. The original owner of an X1 here might have paid up to $800 for it unsubsidized, and wants to recoup as much as possible when selling it, whereas the Fuze/TP1 owner paid "only" $200-300 with a subsidy.

 Well if you want me to pick you up one from here and ship it to you just let me know. With the pound so weak at the moment it would probably be about $200 all in.

The Pound is weak? If the Dollar gets any weaker we'll be using it as a cheap alternative to toilet roll!

Buying from a foreign country might be a concern. Do you think that as an American, I'll be able to handle the English language menus?

Seriously, though, I appreciate the offer and would like to take you up on it, providing you pad the price a bit to cover your time and effort. I'll PM you and we can work out all the "high finance" details!

Thanks again for the offer!

 .....your wish.....