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REVIEW: exoSyphen Studios' BS Hacker Mobile Console - now for half the original price

Some of you may have already played BS Hacker Replay Unlimited, a Cyberpunk / “hacker” game. It’s not a bad game (on the desktop Windows); I certainly recommend this review on it for more info. (Note that the linked review also reviews another desktop Windows "cyberpunk" game of the same developer.)
Now that Handango has cut the price of the Pocket PC port of the game in half, I’ve decided to give it a go, particularly when it comes to comparing it to the desktop version. There doesn’t seem a review of the Pocket PC version anywhere; PocketGamer.org hasn’t even mentioned it, let alone other Pocket PC gaming-related sites.
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Availability, price
(Current, tested version: 1.211)
The title is available for the original $9.99 on the homepage of the developer and, as has already been pointed out, at half the price, $4.99, on Handango.
Compatibility
All devices starting with Pocket PC 2002. This means, in addition to my Pocket PC 2002 iPAQ 3660, both my two other “problematic” devices have run the game without problems:
the WM5-upgraded HP iPAQ hx4700
the “slow” HTC Wizard (has for example no music or similar problems, unlike, say, SuperTux)
Differences between the desktop and the Windows Mobile version
First, you don’t need to enter any text on the Windows Mobile – everything is icon-based and, therefore, happens much faster (you don't need to enter commands on the keyboard, just click the given icon). The generic speedup also applies to functionality that was definitely slow in the desktop version: for example, cracking passwords, which is done much faster on Windows Mobile than in the desktop version.
However, a LOT of the desktop functionalities have been removed. For example, there are no files on hosts any more, you can only transfer money from them (and trash / BNC them if you deem it necessary – it’s only in this respect that it’s the same as the desktop version). Which is even worse, a LOT of functionality (still) present in the desktop version (ability to upgrade hacker apps; several missions or, for that matter, almost ANYTHING except just money transfer etc.) are severely missing from the PDA version.
The built-in, one-page (!) help (screenshot of it here) is in no way as good as the built-in, several-page tutorial of the desktop version. Apart from the differences between the desktop and the WM version (NO filelists, NO file transfer etc) for example it doesn’t even explain how the different BNC connections affect the trace speed – in this respect (too), it’s really poor.
Music
The music is exactly the same as in the desktop version (pretty repetitive, mono). Unfortunately, the Pocket PC version severely lacks the rather basic, but sometimes (for example, when you click a server to hack on the map) really cool sound effects.
Graphics
QVGA only (sorry, no high-resolution VGA support). However, the developers have managed to squeeze everything into this; that is, almost everything important is displayed, without the need for scrolling (which is, by the way, impossible in the PPC version, unlike on the desktop).
Verdict
If you loved the desktop version because of the great missions and the flexibility, you’ll be REALLY disappointed. In the conversion, all of this has been removed; this makes the game really shallow and uninteresting. I really disliked the PPC port because it’s just the best parts (the missions and the sophisticated file lists and options) that have been removed. You may want to give it a try to see whether you like it though.

Canalys’ report on the latest smart phone sales – with my comments

As is reported in Tero Lehto’s mobility-related blog, Canalys has just published a report on the market share of mobile / smart phone manufacturers.
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The figures (Windows Mobile has lost some 1.1% and now stays at 16.9%) are pretty interesting an, unfortunately, back up what I’ve been complaining about for a long time (see for example this and this): HTC, the most important Windows Mobile-based smartphone manufacturer (it’s HTC’s products that most rebranders / operators sell under their names) just refuses to include enhanced multimedia capabilities (for example, digital TV receivers) in their phones. That is, features that would really appeal to ordinary mobile phone users. It’s only some of their latest, just-released Smartphone models that they bothered to include FM radios – something the competing dumb / smart phone manufacturers like Nokia, Sony-Ericsson etc. have already had for more than five years. And I haven’t even mentioned TV receivers or anything similar. See the difference?
Only less-known and, what is even worse, only-in-the-Pacific-sold Pocket PC Phone Edition manufacturers like Gigabyte (see for example this thread on their latest model) include really cool multimedia features like digital TV receivers in their phones. Unfortunately, that's the only way to have digital TV on the Windows Mobile platform as the really usable DVB SDIO cards (see this article) are still not released. HTC? They don’t seem to bother. (ASUSTeK, the third independent hardware manufacturer, manufacturing for example the Fujitsu-Siemens T800/T830, doesn’t include any advanced multimedia features in their phones either.)
And I haven’t mentioned seamless (see this article for more info) phone call recording capabilities either. This has always been possible with even “dumb” (let alone Symbian-based – or, for that matter, the Palm OS-based Treo 650) phones of Nokia, Siemens and Sony-Ericsson in the last five years (with Sony-Ericsson, starting with the 2002 model t68).
HTC, when will we see hardware support for call recording in all your Windows Mobile models? Never, I bet. And don’t come telling me it’s not included because it might be illegal to record calls in some states / countries. Nokia, S-E, (the Windows Mobile-based) Gigabyte and the rest all have call recording capabilities. If they are allowed to manufacture phones with call recording capabilities, why isn't HTC?
If only Nokia or Sony-Ericsson manufactured Windows Mobile-based phones and not (just) Symbian-based ones... Just imagine the Nokia N95 (of which, Tero Lehto has just published another “quick test in 4.2 minutes” article; he’s pretty happy with the new model. Upon specific request, I translate the Finnish article into English.) running Windows Mobile! It would be a killer device, putting all current HTC models into shame, hardware feature-wise, I’d say.
Verdict
To change this trend, HTC should include in their phones what “ordinary” users want: advanced multimedia and call recording capabilities.

IRC Client News: PocketIRC has just been updated to 1.2.2; Glam IRC 1.0 released!

Now that I’m working on a FULL roundup of EVERYTHING Windows Mobile instant messaging-related, I’ve also scrutinized the current state of Internet Relay Chat (IRC) applications. As I’ve already published several articles on Windows Mobile IRC clients, I’ve decided not to wait for the instant messaging article to be finished, but publish the news (as they are, as is the case with
First, PocketIRC .
PocketIRC has always been one of the best IRC applications for the Pocket PC (see these search results for more information on this question). The brand new version just released adds / fixes the following:
The much requested Favourite Channels list and auto join on connect capability (example screenshot here)
More detailed error messages, and improved disconnect detection
Verdict: a must for all existing PocketIRC users and recommended for anyone that wants to access IRC on his or her Pocket PC.
DXmobile releases Glam IRC, a “modern-style IRC app”
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DXmobile, a newcomer to Windows Mobile development, has recently released a brand new IRC application called Glam IRC. Note that DXmobile doesn’t have a homepage; therefore, you’ll need to download their app (if you bother, that is) from third-party servers like PocketGear and Handango.
Unfortunately, while, on paper, this application seems to be pretty capable, in reality, it is really-really weak.
First, it doesn’t run properly on WM5 and WM6 VGA devices: it has major rendering problems. It seems it’s sensing a QVGA screen as can be seen in for example this Dell Axim x51v screenshot (the same in Landscape). The same stands for WM6 (Crossbow), as can be seen in here. It’s, however, OK with WM5 QVGA (including landscape) and WM2003(SE), both QVGA and VGA, as can for example be seen in this WM2003SE VGA Pocket Loox 720 screenshot.
Unfortunately, this title is one of the worst IRC apps for Windows Mobile I’ve ever tested. It’s very hard to find anything positive about it, except for the DCC and the offline messaging capabilities (which I couldn’t test because of the major trial restrictions, and I, generally, don’t request a review copy of apps I know I couldn’t write anything positive about.)
The problems:
Has a lot of typos - no serious app should contain typos
Major incompatibility problems with WM5 / WM6 VGA models
Absolutely no user control commands (kick etc) (1; in Menu / List channelname Users, there is no context menu and the main menu only offers DCC file sending to the user
No colors, bold, underline, italic etc
Trial mode entirely useless, you can’t even tell anything to anyone
Upon receiving a message in another tab, you don’t get any kind of a notification; not even the color of the tab name is changed
Not any kind of copy/paste support (including clicking URL’s), let alone logging and other advanced functionality that have long been supported by alternate clients
Verdict: forget it, this REALLY overpriced ($19) and REALLY bad application is just not worth bothering. There are a lot of even FREE IRC clients that are way better than this one.

New version of excellent Instant Messenger client Mundu out;runs on standard PPCs too

The Mundu instant messenger client is widely known among both Microsoft Smartphone (in the new, WM6-related parlance, “Windows Mobile Standard”) and Palm OS users – on these platforms (particularly on the Palm), it’s probably the best IM client.
The developer has just come out with a heavily updated, new version. While it’s only meant for the MS Smartphone platform, thanks to the convergence between the MS Smartphone and the Pocket PC (Phone Edition) (in the new parlance, “Windows Mobile Classic / Professional”) devices, it works pretty good on all Pocket PC (Phone Edition) devices starting with WM5.
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Much as it does have some problems on Pocket PC (Phone Edition) devices (for example, it doesn’t support working in suspended mode and vibration, unlike with MS Smartphones, where both are supported), I really recommend it particularly if you
want seamless auto-logging capabilities
want conference support with MSN, Yahoo and, according to the developer, AOL/AIM
want file upload (no file download is possible)
Note that, in addition to the connectivity problems (it doesn’t work while the PPC phone is suspended) caused by the officially not-supported platform, you also need to learn to live with the lack of touchscreen support. This means you’ll need to use the Action button (the center button in D-Pad with most Pocket PC’s) instead of for example double-clicking to, say, initiate a conversation with someone. Note that you can still select and use the menu with the stylus.
Another great news item is that the Mundu folks will release a Pocket PC (and a Symbian)-specific version very soon. Hope that version will also fix the issues caused by the differences between the Smartphone and the Pocket PC platform; most importantly, the (on the Pocket PC) lack of vibration and suspended mode support.
Finally, note that I’ve thoroughly updated the comparison / feature chart of my well-known Windows Mobile Instant Messaging Bible (cross-posted to: PPCT, MobilitySite, AximSite, XDA-Developers, FirstLoox, BrightHand, HowardForums), the source of ALL information on instant messaging. In there, you’ll find a REALLY thorough comparison of Mundu to all the alternative instant messenger clients on the Pocket PC – and tons of screenshots. Make sure you check it out to discover what this messenger is really capable of and how it compares to the alternative messengers.

Probably the "prettiest" of the bunch out there (also fairly large in size at nearly 3mb installed).
I really liked the graphics and the options but it was a little laggy (running on the Moto Q).
What killed it for me though at least in my limited tests (<10 mins, lol):
--> It kept a constant data connection (to Gtalk at least), like if I were streaming a video kind of connection. I could have only imagined what my battery would have looked like after 30 minutes.
Then again maybe it was a fluke or after 10 mins it does some awesome idling, I dunno.
I know you didn't get to test the bandwidth but if you get around I'd be interested to see if you get something similar.

Brand new version of MS-DOS emulator DOSBox out!

Unfortunately, lately, there was almost nothing to report on when it comes to gaming and running emulators on Windows Mobile – most game / emulator developers have switched to the iPhone. The latter sees several game releases a day (including really high-quality titles like UniWar, Wolf 3D and so on); in the meantime, WinMo is pretty much abandoned.
Therefore, I was really delighted to see famous n0p (still) developing for the platform. His excellent MS-DOS emulator port, DOSBox, has just (yesterday) been updated to the latest (0.72) core (please see THIS if you want to know what MS-DOS emulation is all about; why you may want to use it etc.). This has been a long-asked for update: the core has been out for quite long but, so far, n0p haven’t had the time to release it.
It’s available for download HERE (get the XScale build); note that you’ll need a 7z-compliant unpacker tool – for example, WinZip; if you want to go with a free solution, use the official 7-zip tool – to uncompress it. After that, just copy the uncompressed files to anywhere on your WinMo phone.
Using the new version is done in exactly the same way as the old, 0.63 one. (Nevertheless, the config file has changed a bit; for exaple, the MIDI / MT-32 / GUS emulation section has been completely taken out. (This is pretty much understandable: not even the much less demanding FM synthesis of the Adlib / Sound Blaster work at full speed in most games, let alone the much more CPU-demanding midi…) Therefore, you can just go on with the 0.63-specific sections in my definitive guide to running (MS-)DOS (80x86) programs under Windows Mobile on how the config file can be configured, what famous games the emulator is compatible with etc.
Speaking of compatibility (and speed), I’ve played quite a bit with the new version. I’ve tested Companions of Xanth, directly comparing it to how the old version (0.63) runs the title, to see whether there’s any speed increase. There is (the background music stuttered definitely less, particularly in the intro animation), but don’t expect miracles.
Also, there still are problems with the mouse emulation. While the latest version of the major alternative MS-DOS emulator, PocketDOS (as of the latest, 12.2 version), has absolutely no problems with titles like the above-mentioned Xanth and, among others, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego when it comes to stylus-based control, both titles can only be operated with dragging in DOSBox. (Too bad PocketDOS is commercial and doesn’t have any kind of Adlib / Sound Blaster emulation.) Unfortunately, it seems DOSBox will always suffer from this problem.
There’s no VGA support either – that is, high-res (EGA / VGA) games will still be rendered in QVGA even on VGA Pocket PC’s. In this regard, PocketDOS is much better too.
In addition to the new core and the somewhat improved speed, there are some (subtle) improvements. For example, now, by default, four virtual keyboard rows are displayed, with the topmost blended into background:
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Aww Yeah, I've been waiting for this for a long time! I'm so happy that n0p didn't forget about Windows Mobile. There's nothing quite like running MS Windows 3.1, and all sorts of cool, old games in front of my iPhone friends just to make them jealous.
Dave

Hi,
I just tried to check out n0p's dos-box site. Unfortunately it not available any more. Could someone post the latest dos-box release for ppc, please, or upload it to some file hoster?
Thanx!
LUPON