There’s a lot of news with Windows Mobile today – indeed, the OS was the most talked about at the show so far (although it is still only the first day).

The reason for this was that Microsoft was showing off its brand new update to Windows Mobile, Windows Mobile 6.5. Many bloggers have raved about it across the Web, but having seen videos of it, it doesn’t come close to some of the new Symbian-powered UIs we’ve seen so far today from the likes of LG and Nokia.

As for iPhone, Android and even the Palm Pre – fugeddaboutit!

There was also a plethora of new Windows Mobile phones on show from the likes of HTC and Toshiba, but I’ll talk about those some more on Tuesday, as I’m getting blisters from blogging!

More details and that video of Windows Mobile 6.5 after the jump.

Windows Mobile 6.5 Overview

The new Windows Mobile 6.5 is now fully touchscreen-based, though only resistive (not capacitive, which matters, apparently!). There’s a new honeycomb effect to the start screen, which orders the icons according to a honeycomb layout rather than a traditional grid layout.

Engadget have a detailed review of Windows Mobile 6.5 if you want the specs, but you can get a real feel for the OS just by looking at the video below.

Painful isn’t it?! Watching the poor guy mistype the Web address reminded me of, well, using any other version of Windows Mobile!

I also don’t like the way you rearrange the icons by holding your finger down on them and selecting a pop-up menu item. What happened to touch-based drag and drop?!

And as for the latest Internet Explorer – well, you can see what they’ve done in terms of making it more touch-based, but it’s no iPhone.

Overall, it’s a step in the right direction, and this is only the default OS in action: there’s plenty of scope for manufacturers such as HTC to develop their own user interface on top of it, like they’ve all done with version 6.1. But underneath it still smacks of the same ugly Windows Mobile experience that I detest!

[Source: Engadget, Boy Genius]