Database Info

Help me decide: Prophet or Magician?

I am finding it hard to decide which one of those to get.
Could you help me clear the following points:
The Prophet has a slower processor, right?
The Prophet has the newer OS, what are its pros/cons?
The Prophet has a better camera, how much better is it?
The Prophet has wireless lan. But wlan can be added to the Magician by means of an SDIO card, right?
The Magician is 100 Euros cheaper than the Prophet (in the offer I got).
What else did I miss?
Thanks in advance for the advice.

Go for the Prophet!
1. yes, the processor has a lower clock speed, but the processor is a dual core and has a different architecture. it is therefore less power hungry, meaning that your battery will last longer. secondly the speed is not noticably lower. It is the same as the AMD and Intel processors in desktops, different Ghz, but equally quick. Perhaps it is a little slower, but only if you play a video, run TomTom and several other applications you'll notice it. In normal use the speed differences are neglectable. Watching full screen video's or using navigation apps is no problem at all on my Wizard (TI OMAP 200 Mhz).
2. Wm5 is a hugh improvement over Wm2003 SE. It is more oriented on one-handedness and with some handy apps installed I almost never have to pull out my stylus for simple actions like I used to do with my magician. Only more complicated actions require stylus use. Furthermore WM5 uses persistent storage in flash ROM. This means that when your battery runs out, all your data is saved. With Wm2003 SE, which uses RAM for storage, all data is lost if the battery is removed or runs out. basically this means that you never have to worry about your battery running low on Wm5. This is a hugh improvement in my opinion. Wm5 uses RAM exclusively for running programs. Since WM 2003 also stores programs and data there, less RAM becomes available after installing apps and data on the device, leading to slower operations. With Wm5 all is stored in ROM, thereby leaving RAM for running them, saving you RAM and thereby working speed. I install almost all my apps and data on my device now I use Wm5, with my magician I had to really take care to install most to the Sd card to save precious RAM.
Wm5 is the new standard, all new software will be written for this platform. Slowly WM2003 software will disappear from the market.
3. I don't own a Prophet, so I cannot really judge here, but on my Magician the camera was really crappy. On my Wizard, the quality is much better and I have heard and read that on the Prophet the cam quality is even better. However, I have no personal experience with this. Perhaps someone else on the forum can answer this for you.
4. Yes, you can use an SDIO card for Wifi in your Magician. However, that takes away your SD slot. That means you can hardly save files you download through Wifi and the apps you installed on there (in order to save RAM, where the WM 2003 OS stores apps and data) cannot be used when the SDIO slot is used for the Wifi card. Sandisk has produced a combo card with a Wifi adapter and 256 MB flash memory for SDIO use, but these card are not produced anymore and from Ebay or other online sources they cost around 80 euro's (when I last looked, a year ago). This almost takes away the 100 euros price difference. Furthermore, when you want to use this combo card you have to install your apps onto that SDIO card as well, meaning either a double install or having to use the combo card all the time. It protrudes approximately 1cm from the SDIO slot. And the 256 MB is not much if you want to install MP3 or Navigation cards onto it.
The Prophet is definately the better choice in my opinion, it also features an FM radio is my memory serves me well.
Concluding: WM5, integrated Wifi, the better camera and the small speed difference in the processor make the Prophet the winner of the two.

Ok I might be a bit bias since I like my Prophet very much, but here's what I can tell you:
1) The speed is fine for most apps, and you can overclock for navigation.
2) It's quad bend, it has WiFi g, bluetooth 2 (you can have A2DP with the latest ROM), EDGE.
3) Although WM5 is a bit sluggish compared to WM2003 it has a lot of advantages, like more advance office apps, built in push mail and such. The biggest one for me is that you don't get a hard reset if your battery dies or you remove it.
4) The prophet has more memory. (true, it has the same 64MB RAM but it is all used to run apps. On the Magician it is split between program and storage)
5) The camera is 2MP + a 'macro' switch (at leas on the Jamin version). Granted, it doesn't replace my 5MP Olympus but it is very nice thing to have.
All in all the Magician is an old device and not one of the best (in my opinion) if your choice is between these 2 phones only the Prophet wins hands down.
P.S.
It doesn't have FM radio.

Sorry, my old age is playing up, I probably confused it with another device that does have an FM Radio.
As for the rest of levenum's post, I totally agree. Go for the Prophet if these devices are your only candidates.

If you are a gadget freak like me, I would suggest you to go for the Prophet. You get to play more on their new OS and WiFi. However, if you just want a PDA phone, the Magician will serve you well enough. As for the WiFi issue, depends if you use it often. If you do use it often, (for Magician) it will be a pain in the neck to have something sticking out of your phone and you will NOT have your loyal SD card around (e.g. the WiFi hogged the slot)
Some other thing that you might want to consider.
(1) Memory size. I think Prophet has larger memory.
(2) Prophet has persistent memory (e.g. you will NOT lost your stuff in the phone even if the battery is dead). The Magician relatively hardreset itself upon a dead main + backup battery. I think you have 3-7 days of time frame to have your main battery charged before a total memory wiped-out.
The one with FM is Atom, but I think the discussions here concluded that Prophet is better than Atom.. unless you get the HP-version of the Atom.

The Prophet is obviously the superior machine because all its specs are better than the Magician except one - the CPU, it sucks! It is only sufficient to get the job done on routine applications but do anything beyond routine and you will be cursing at its slowness.
The Magician is still a rock solid machine and if price is the key consideration then you will get your money's worth. But why not go for the newest model if you can afford it - the Hermes/Tytn. It has all the advantages and more of the Prophet without its Achilles Heel. The Hermes Samsung CPU at 400MHz is equivalent to an Intel XCPU at 520MHZ so you will never have to worry about performance problems. It has a larger capacity battery to compensate for the faster CPU so battery life is the same. O2 Germany is releasing it as the Trion any day now.

just to finish this:
I bought my new machine today:
Prophet!
thanks to everyone for the advice

Great! Congratulations with your new device and I am sure you will enjoy it!

Ram upgrade to 128MB

Maybe anyone knows how to change I-mate Jam RAM chip from 64MB to 128MB? I read that it's possible.

Yes it's possible, but not by yourself.
Have a look here : http://www.pocketpctechs.com/main~unit~Qtek_S100-291~area~upgrades-ram~action~updateunit.htm
Good luck
BR, Imer

Its possible,
Just a little worthless and severly overpriced, in my opinion.
Its 169 USD (the service itself, not including post)? Another 50 USD can buy you another magician.
Whitemoo.

Well... I'd surely love 128MB of RAM. There aren't many PDAs around even until now having that relatively huge amount of memory.
If you want to go faster than one horse can run you can't simply solve this problem by using two horses - do you understand?

RAM does not make any computer run faster - it only allows them to load larger/more programs without hanging or swapping out from disk. The illusion of speed comes from the fact that the computer is no longer required to swap things out from HDD that often, so large programs load immediately. Only processor and system bus determines speed - increasing your RAM isn't going to make that SD-Card slot work any faster.

Make Athena vibrate via touch feedback keyboard?

Hi fellow HTC Athena owners,
I realize our phones are getting old and left behind by newer models.
I've been tempted to upgrade to the newer HTC models like Desire and Obsession.
However it's a waste of technology doing so, the HTC Advantage still has a lot to offer, it's just the lack of updated software to take advantage of all its feature.
The bigger beef I've had was the lack of vibration feature.
but i realized at least with the X7510 the build in keyboard as a touch feedback feature that can be turned on/off from the default HTC home software.
If some one can code an application to make the keyboard vibrate when the phone rings/silent then that will solve half the problem.
The rest is ripping off the HTC sense and WM7 + all the newer apps from the new HTC phones, and make it work with the HTC Advantage as most have done in the past with software original from the HTC Diamond and Touch 3D, etc.
The upcoming HTC Obsssion is on WM7, it'll cool if we can port the entire set of software over to our HTC Athena phone, and give it a new lease in life.
Technology wise our HTC Athena still is far superior, with the exception of the available RAM and the ATI "accelerator", but we have 2 "hard drives" to use (internal 166GB flash, and removable miniSD can write up to 8GB, but can read up to 16GB [apparently it doesn't have enough power to write to a 16GB micro SD via the miniSD adapter]), able to hook up to almost any USB device you can think of (mouse, external usb hard drive any size, keyboard, monitor, network adapter, faxmodem, camera, anything else supported by the build in drivers), natively connect to external monitors, Svideo, video import, GPS, Camera, use both CDMA and GSM networks, wifi, stereo/data bluetooth, i can't think of any other phone/pda that is so complete as the HTC Athena.
It's just a shame it was never popular enough to attract the attention of developers to take advantage of it.
The Athena by itself it's a super mini power house, it's better than a laptop, and packed tiny enough to fit in your front shirt pocket (if you don't mind the weight) it can do whatever a laptop can do and way more.
I'm hoping to see new stuff coming for the Athena after WM7 gets released later this year, like we have with the cooked WM6.5, but still the lack of vibration mode is a big drag for me... i tried the fake vibrate using the "vibrate sound ringtone" so you are still really using a ringtone it just simulate the sound of vibrate, it sort of works, but still is not the real thing, i've tried the motor thing like shown on the x7501 topic found in this forum, but that doesn't work either.
So the next best thing is to carry pair it with our keyboard, and figure out a software to make it vibrate if some one knows how to program such thing.

Just for info : I own a x7510 and use a sandisk 16GB microsd with adapter and this works without any problems.

that's good to know, i'm doing with the adapter and 2 different brands 16GB micro SD
they both got damaged when i try to write to it, got them both exchange under warranty
but doing the same with 8 GB micro SD via adapter, then i can read and write just fine
the 16 GB works properly on other phones

32Gb
I just purchased a 32GB micro sd and it works with a sandisk adapter (i also have another adapter but this does not work) so now. I did extensive tests writing data while running op battery and it works like a charme.

[Q] Computer Vs. Phone

So, phones have evovled alot during the last few years.....
full html browsing, front and back cameras, emulation, and 1080 video playing
The difference between computers and phones have blurred......
so I ask this
"what can computers do that phones can't?"
other then the obvious processing power, graphics, and software designing.....
-I use this "what can computers do that phones can't?"
question to ask what i want my next app to be like so
any help is good help/answers

They pretty much do the same things these days. A PC just does everything a million times better

The issues with phones are input (you just can't beat a full tactile keyboard and mouse combo) and output (small screen). But that's easy to solve - dock. So in the not too far future you'll have all the computing power and personal data in your pocket and be able to do quite many tasks with that. Then, for the big tasks, you'll put the device on a dock connected to a keyboard, mouse and large display.

Gusar321 said:
The issues with phones are input (you just can't beat a full tactile keyboard and mouse combo) and output (small screen). But that's easy to solve - dock. So in the not too far future you'll have all the computing power and personal data in your pocket and be able to do quite many tasks with that. Then, for the big tasks, you'll put the device on a dock connected to a keyboard, mouse and large display.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You forgot about storage.

It would be great if you could dock your phone, have the screen project onto a wall, and have a wireless keyboard that synced...you'd basically have your computer..minus the hard drive space and all

I'd agree with Gusar, the input device is what really sets them apart IMO.

Unfortunately, Photoshop. The mobile app is a joke - I'm talking about layer editing, adjustment layers, masks, etc. If it weren't for Photoshop, and the ease of typing my school documents in Word, I'd never open my laptop.
There are a lot of things that run better on a computer, but I find myself using my phone for almost everything.
Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

theo80 said:
You forgot about storage.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You forgot about Moore's Law.
Which states that the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. (Thank you wikipedia )
This basically means that storage capacity doubles without becoming more expensive or bigger. Considering the fact that my Galaxy S II has 16 gb ( and 32 gb is possible ) of internal storage and another 32 gb of sd storage. Storage capacity will be 256 gb in 4 years. Of which 128 gb is really fast, for OS, and 128 gb is considerably fast, file storage.
When looking at the bigger picture other problems will be solved too. Because most of the specs will quadruple you are able to use photoshop and such.
And thereby the cloud computing will have evolved tremendously too in four years, rendering all the storage capacity useless.
So by the time we'll see docks as a standard, other problems will be solved too. Unless software requirements are raised too, but that seems unlikely, since my old 1.5 ghz 1 gb ddr 2 RAM laptop runs windows 7 fluidly. ( except for aero, damn you intel! )
Back on topic, I still haven't found a real good all in one VPN app, which also mounts my NAS as an SD card, or any external medium.

gangsterjoop said:
You forgot about Moore's Law.
Which states that the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. (Thank you wikipedia )
This basically means that storage capacity doubles without becoming more expensive or bigger. Considering the fact that my Galaxy S II has 16 gb ( and 32 gb is possible ) of internal storage and another 32 gb of sd storage. Storage capacity will be 256 gb in 4 years. Of which 128 gb is really fast, for OS, and 128 gb is considerably fast, file storage.
When looking at the bigger picture other problems will be solved too. Because most of the specs will quadruple you are able to use photoshop and such.
And thereby the cloud computing will have evolved tremendously too in four years, rendering all the storage capacity useless.
So by the time we'll see docks as a standard, other problems will be solved too. Unless software requirements are raised too, but that seems unlikely, since my old 1.5 ghz 1 gb ddr 2 RAM laptop runs windows 7 fluidly. ( except for aero, damn you intel! )
Back on topic, I still haven't found a real good all in one VPN app, which also mounts my NAS as an SD card, or any external medium.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know my next science project, a wireless keyboard made specifically for droid
As for output it would need to record its own screen (which I have no idea how to do) and output it to a wireless device such as a laptop or maybe a google tv with android......
does it sound within the depths of realism?

gangsterjoop said:
You forgot about Moore's Law.
Which states that the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. (Thank you wikipedia )
This basically means that storage capacity doubles without becoming more expensive or bigger. Considering the fact that my Galaxy S II has 16 gb ( and 32 gb is possible ) of internal storage and another 32 gb of sd storage. Storage capacity will be 256 gb in 4 years. Of which 128 gb is really fast, for OS, and 128 gb is considerably fast, file storage.
When looking at the bigger picture other problems will be solved too. Because most of the specs will quadruple you are able to use photoshop and such.
And thereby the cloud computing will have evolved tremendously too in four years, rendering all the storage capacity useless.
So by the time we'll see docks as a standard, other problems will be solved too. Unless software requirements are raised too, but that seems unlikely, since my old 1.5 ghz 1 gb ddr 2 RAM laptop runs windows 7 fluidly. ( except for aero, damn you intel! )
Back on topic, I still haven't found a real good all in one VPN app, which also mounts my NAS as an SD card, or any external medium.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
32GB is nothing much compared to TB harddisks available on the computer. Cloud storage is good, but if you want real performance the file being edited should still be in your local drive.

jolined said:
It would be great if you could dock your phone, have the screen project onto a wall, and have a wireless keyboard that synced...you'd basically have your computer..minus the hard drive space and all
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great idea. Later on Mobile phone is just like small computer but just need external device e.g monitor,keyboard,mouse etc.
Seems cpu,ram,storage technology is growing fast.
See macbook air is very thin.may be in the future we just carry thin tablet and can be integrated with our phone.
Sent from my HTC Desire Z using XDA App

theo80 said:
32GB is nothing much compared to TB harddisks available on the computer. Cloud storage is good, but if you want real performance the file being edited should still be in your local drive.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
An even broader perspective, just for you.
In four years entire Europe will have an LTE network, so cloud storage up and down speeds shouldn't be too much of a problem. And besides, 32 gb is enough for caching all the stuff you're working on.

when i move, i use smartphone, when i'm home, i use computer

Most computers can run multiple operating systems. Most phones cannot.
And then there's the issue of battery life, where innovation crawls at the speed of a snail on tranquilizers.

rogier666 said:
Most computers can run multiple operating systems. Most phones cannot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is no inherent design characteristic preventing that, it's all about hardware drivers. If the hardware makers release documentation, then drivers can be written. But the problem is, especially in the embedded world, closed hardware is the norm.
On the other hand, Nvidia has released Meego compatible tegra2 drivers that, while closed, allow installing Meego on tegra2-based Android tablets, for example.

You can build your own computer. You cant build your own phone but I wish one day we can do this
Also games but that's due to power of the device and accessibility and screen size all of which were mentioned
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

rogier666 said:
Most computers can run multiple operating systems. Most phones cannot.
And then there's the issue of battery life, where innovation crawls at the speed of a snail on tranquilizers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Any one else notice this?
Battery-life as stayed the same for years.....Just enough for people to be satisfied......but maybe that is just me since i have only use the one provided by the Cellphone provider.....
maybe there are high capacity batteries that aren't being incorporated here?

Gusar321 said:
There is no inherent design characteristic preventing that, it's all about hardware drivers. If the hardware makers release documentation, then drivers can be written. But the problem is, especially in the embedded world, closed hardware is the norm.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For the end user (that means almost everybody) it doesn't make any difference whether the limitation is due to hardware or software.

rogier666 said:
For the end user (that means almost everybody) it doesn't make any difference whether the limitation is due to hardware or software.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
True, but we're talking here about differences between PCs and phones. The ability to run multiple OSes isn't one. Because when you have the drivers, phones can run multiple OSes. People porting Android to Windows Mobile 6 phones, as an example.

The result of porting a mobile OS is nowhere near the result of porting a desktop OS.
If you install Linux on a PC designed for Windows it will usually work without any trouble. If you port a mobile OS you downgrade your smartphone to a toy.
Availability of drivers required for porting is a major difference between phones and computers. That's why ported mobile OSs rarely work as they should. There are always missing features, reduced performance, and broken functions.
That's not a hardware limitation, but that doesn't matter. What matters is the result. As long as ported mobile OSs are not suitable for real life use phones are not able to do everything that computers can do.

Innovation on Storage in Mobiles - IDEA

Hello Everyone,
In present times, if a company does not "innovate" or CREATE then its done for them..
But innovation has taken on to mobiles like anything.
You have OSes, you have hardwares the might of a mini-supercomputer wrapped into the mobile phones, and you have accessories to take that to the next level as well.
Above all if something lacks then it might be compensated by an application to some extent.
But of late these mobile manufacturers have started making fun of the very consumer who buys it from them and gives them business.
Cost competitiveness is the forte for a mobile phone company, but I simply do not understand why this ridiculous 16gb and 64gb variants for specifically the versions WITHOUT AN EXPANDABLE STORAGE..
FRUSTRATING AND @@[email protected][email protected]$$ what not...
YES this thread is about the LIMITED STORAGE ISSUE, you guessed it right..
Well you now have companies offering accessories which can personalize your device with NFC, extended battery, Music centric features, slider keyboards and stuff like what next.. in the back panels/ back covers.....
I have a innovative idea myself, well they dont call me the strategist just like that.....
What if an accessory was to extend the storage of your device....
like make a 16gb non external sd storage device get extra from a back cover or plate.....
If something can be possible, then this would be awesome because we people who need that extra storage wont have to clammer for a OTG or Pendrives.....
Pls some BACK Cover for this purpose to extend the storage so that we dont have to fiddle with an OTG option which is an extra and this will also be like fixed/ permanent with the mobile ...
let me know your thoughts on this people....
Warm Regards,

I have a cool idea, what if we could have an access port on each phone that could accept the cards of your choice.
Like first you buy the hardware (phone) then you can have your choice of cards that the memory for the entire phone would use, the only internal memory installed on the phone would be what was needed to hold the rom, the card would have two seperate modules, one for the ram, the the second for the storage.
As far as making it universal to all phones manufacturers would set forth a common socket to be used (much like a crazy microsd slot)
This would make manufacturing the hardware alot cheaper and add more customization at the consumer level
So the card would come with say a standard 2gb ram/14gb storage and as you go you could have say 16gb ram/16gb storage,
Design could be based on the current class 10 microsd only with it having 2 different module set and having direct access from the cpu via a memory manager.
O and when we switch phones all our information would go with us because we could put it in our new phone and our phones numbers, apps, (granted will need reinstalling,) txts, pics, ect

Sewrizer said:
16 GB ram is impossie due to other hardware limitations. Internal memory must be embedded to the motherboard to prevent disconnection and to maximize speed, because you will have your system in there, after all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ram dose not haft to be hard wired to the board, look at pcs with expandable memory. My point is you would have 2 physical cards in one with access point for both witch will be controlled by a memory manager that is directly connected to the cpu. We are on the move to ddr4 witch means memory will hit the 22nm scale so packing 16, 32, 64, ir even 128gb would be no problem. Also with high transfer rates of ddr4 module lag between card, manager, and cpu would all be dependent on the set bus speed for the cpu and throughput of the manager
Edit
Yes physical hardware problems right now. I mean in the next batch of phones. This is mainly just for r&d and it is possible. Ya know 10 years ago 4gb of ram was unheard of in any pc, now we have it in a phone