I've been fortunate enough to have spent the last two months using an unlocked, carrier-independent HTC Touch Phone (product specs here), that has much of the 'wow' of the iPhone (with an earlier release date than the iPhone), without some of the iPhone's infamous limitations (AT&T only, no third-party apps, no Skype, heavy weight and size). The HTC Touch runs Windows Mobile® 6 Professional and uses Windows Media Player for its music. It's quite nice.

But for all the ways HTC beats Apple in form factor and openness, it's still running Windows. This means my phone crashes from time to time. That's not a joke. It really crashes. It also means I get errors like this one when trying to play music I'm paying for through the Urge music service. Apple has DRM too, but the iPhone would never do this. Apple may have its own walled garden, but at least it covers the wall with ivy and climbing roses and makes you forget it's there.

This post sponsored by Gizimo.com.