First thoughts of the Nokia N95 & I’ll, in the future, publish a lot of Symbian info
Now that the HTC folks have announced they will not release the HTC Omni in the next three months, that is, there is no real successor of the HTC Universal (my current workhorse and main Pocket PC) and, frankly, none of the current Pocket PC’s (or Smartphones) appeal to me (I already have several previous-generation PPC’s and SP’s and the current HTC models don’t offer significantly more than, say, my Universal or Vox), but I’m (still) severely addicted to electronic toys & gadgets like smart phones, I’ve decided to get the Nokia N95. After all, I needed a new toy (Yes, it’s certainly HTC to blame for my decision – why on earth did they have left us high and dry on the upgrade path?)
I received it about a week ago and now I understand why a lot of, otherwise, Windows Mobile freaks (for example, the folks over at MobilitySite) publish so many news items / articles on it. Despite it being over half a year old, the Nokia folks have managed to pack in a lot of functionality into this phone. Frankly, my HTC Vox (s710) MS Smartphone (which was released about the same time as the N95), hardware-wise, seems still to be in the stone ages compared to this beauty (much heavier, much worse camera, no GPS, no 3G (let alone 3.5G), no 3D hardware acceleration, no TV out, no FM radio, impossible to set the brightness level (the Vox is far too bright in a completely dark room), no call recording / answering machine support etc.) – except for, of course, the QWERTY keyboard.
Unfortunately, there are some problems with the N95. The battery life is pretty bad, for one. While, sometimes, I only charge my TI OMAP-based (and, therefore, non-3G) phones (OK, I don’t use them much for for example Web browsing and such – I mostly use my Universal for that because of the VGA screen) once a week, the N95 requires far more frequent recharges – at least a daily one.
The size of the RAM memory is another question. While the 22-23M RAM available after boot is enough for a LOT of things under Windows Mobile, multitasking in Symbian seems to be much more memory-hungry, particularly if you use the built-in, indeed excellent Web browser. If you open some (not very big) no more than two or three pages in the factory browser, the background tasks (for example, media player) inevitably shut down. In addition (still speaking of the browser), you can’t keep more than 3-4 pages in memory; they will need to be reloaded if you go back to them. Even the pretty much memory-hungry Internet Explorer Mobile behaves better and uses less memory on Windows Mobile, let alone other browsers (for example, the at least twice more memory-friendly Opera Mobile; and I haven’t even mentioned Opera Mini, which has at least two orders of magnitude less memory usage). Fortunately, both Opera Mobile 8.65 and Opera Mini work in a far more memory-friendly way. That is, if you do plan to multitask (a lot), never ever think of getting the N95.
Speaking of the built-in browser, it indeed rocks. It’s using a narrow character set like Thunderhawk and is really able to crunch a lot of text into the visible screen estate without the need for horizontal scrolling. Also, as opposed to almost all Windows Mobile browsers (except for the slow & memory hog Minimo, the, currently, unavailable NetFront, the still slow and buggy jb5 and the unofficial and the somewhat outdated (no full page view), Russian Opera Mini 2 Mod), it allows for in-page text searching – a feature REALLY missing from mainstream Windows Mobile(-compliant), recommended browsers (Opera Mobile, IEM and the official version of Opera Mini). Also, it has really good standards compliance. While the results it presented in the Acid2 (CSS2) test were a bit worse than those of Opera Mobile or Minimo, it, otherwise, turned out to be pretty cool – for example, it has passed all my AJAX (and also the CSS1) tests.
The A2DP support, while it certainly had no quality problems with any stereo headphones (as opposed to the Microsoft BT stack on Windows Mobile) I’ve ever tested it with, has severe AVRCP problems with the Plantronics Pulsar stereo headphones: you can’t just restart playing a title from the 590A. This seems to be an issue with Nokia’s A2DP-enabled products in general: the 5300 also had, albeit different, AVRCP issues with my Plantronics 590A (but, of course, not with Nokia’s own headphones). That is, it’s still pretty sad to see neither the MS BT stack-based Windows Mobile (sometimes severe sound quality problems) nor the Nokia / Symbian platform (AVRCP problems and, after a while, drop-outs) support Plantronics’ products well.
The (stereo) speakers are of very good quality and are VERY loud. Much better than on my HTC Wizard, HTC Universal, HTC Vox, Oxygen, x51v and even the Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket Loox 718 / 720, which, so far, had the best, loudest speaker.
The (Java) MIDlet support is excellent (much better than under Windows Mobile) and is hardware 3D accelerated. While there’re few real MIDlets making use of the hardware 3D acceleration support, it’s still nice to have a device around that does support MIDlet acceleration. (More on this in my forthcoming MIDlet Bible.)
As far as the generic (non-A2DP) Bluetooth support is concerned, it, unfortunately, lacks advanced features; for example, it doesn’t support BT PAN at all (not that the MS BT stack would on Windows Mobile – actually, it was only some weeks ago that one-direction (PAN server) support was, finally, added by some XDA-Dev hackers). It can’t use other computers in DUN mode and, as it seems, it can’t connect them via a wireless serial connection either. Note that I had no file exchange problems with neither Widcomm- nor MS BT stack-based Pocket PC’s, which is certainly good news if you take into account that this isn’t necessarily the case, not even on the Windows Mobile platform.
Wi-Fi-wise, p2p connections work, should you really need something like BT PAN. Otherwise, it isn’t as good, compatibility-wise, as that of Windows Mobile. I’ve encountered far more situations where it either didn’t connect or just disconnected after 10-20 seconds than with my Vox (the Vox having the best Wi-Fi support so far). The rumored 2.x ROM update, which should be released next month, is stated to fix this problem.
The camera – particularly when taken into account it’s a phone camera – is very good, particularly when used as a video camera. I especially like the fact that, in video mode, it uses the really advanced and great H-264 (a.k.a. MPEG-4) coding, as opposed to the M-JPEG most even high-end (Canon's expensive SD/IXUS range etc.) point-and-shoot digital cameras. For example, even the latest Canon 870 IS camera (the one I’ll purchase as it has far better optics than its predecessor and has wide angle – see the just-published DPReview HERE) burns around 1.7MB every second at the best quality setting (640x480 / 30fps). The N95 burns about 20 Mbytes every minute – that is, about five times less than M-JPEG encoders – using the same VGA resolution and 30 fps, with compression artifacts not really visible during regular playback. Another comparison: low-end digicameras like the HP R717 burn 13 Mbyte a minute with QVGA (320*240), 30 fps, pretty low-quality videos. The lack of stereo (or even better) microphones is really a shame, though (not that any point-and-shoot, "real" digicams had stereo mikes – you need to use a “real” videocamera for that).
The screen is equally bad outdoors and/or in direct sunlight than those of the current Windows Mobile phones. Quite a letdown after the bright, old 176*208 Nokia screens like that of the Nokia N-Gage, which were perfectly visible / usable outdoors and even in direct sunlight. Instead of pumping out 16 million colors, Nokia should pay attention to making their screens more usable outdoors. Fortunately, the AllAboutSymbian folks declared this problem has also been fixed in the successor, the N95 8GB.
Fortunately, the screen doesn’t have polarization problems in Landscape, unlike many Pocket PC’s (all Casio transmissive color screens; the Dell Axim x50v / x51v etc.). This, and the fact that the minimal backlight level you can set is pretty low make the N95 a great bedtime device – very few gadgets are better in these two respects (the HP iPAQ hx4700 being one of them – it has even lower minimal backlight level and the same lack of polarization issues in Landscape).
Gaming-wise (let’s not forget: the N95 will be compatible with all N-Gage platform games from next month, meaning a lot of high-quality games), the hardware has both pros and cons. First, the pro: it has is excellent 3D accelerator and, again, it’s officially part of the new N-Gage platform. Then, the cons: it has pretty bad controls. Even worse, I’d say, than on most Pocket PC’s (OK, I admit the Pocket Loox 720, the HP iPAQ 2210, 38xx, 39xx, 5450 and 5550 are even worse, D-pad-wise). The sole reason for this is as follows:
it’s very easy for your thumb to accidentally press the two Menu buttons, located to the left / right of the D-pad. There isn’t anything worse than accidentally pressing them during playing a game. Fortunately, games, in general, pause themselves in these cases, so, you can still return to playing them.
if you prefer playing in Landscape (fortunately, the built-in games all support this orientation; so do some MIDlets), the multimedia buttons on the left won’t be of real help: they are very hard to press. According to the latest reviews, the latter problem, to some extent, have been fixed in the N95 8GB.
the Action button isn’t very easy to press either.
I can’t comment on the phone part (particularly recording phone calls and/or using answering machines – the biggest problem with most Windows Mobile phones) as yet as I’m still awaiting T-Mobile UK’s official unlock code so that I can use the phone outside of the UK. This is why I’ll only elaborate on the data capabilities later; most importantly, how the HSDPA support really fares, compared to my Windows Mobile devices. And, of course, I’ll also comment on the call recording capabilities.
All in all, so far, the N95 has turned out to be a VERY positive surprise and, if it records my phone calls without problems, I’ll give my HTC Oxygen to my wife and promote the N95 to be my main phone.
BTW, All About Symbian has just published a quick review of the Nokia N95 8GB, the enhanced version of the N95, which will hit the shelves REALLY soon - certainly worth reading.
Finally, an important announcement
I’ll continue publishing a LOT of information on the N95, particularly software-wise (the above is almost exclusively hardware-related) – that is, Symbian-related stuff. That is, in my future roundups, I’ll also elaborate on the comparable / related Symbian s60 products as well, starting with my MIDlet Bible, which will be published, hopefully, tomorrow. Note that the charts (main chart; 3D games Compatibily Chart and JBenchmark Chart) of it already have excessive information on the MIDlet support of Symbian. This will help
both Windows Mobile and Symbian software developers in learning how the software titles on the other platform behave, what functionality has been implemented etc. Currently, my full software roundups and Bibles are, for Windows Mobile developers, probably the number one source of information on what they should implement / work further on (at least this is what I’ve been told by most Windows Mobile top developers and I, knowing the detail of the information contained in these articles, I don’t think they’re just flattering me ). Adding multiplatform coverage will further help developers on adding features they may have not been aware of because they may not have the necessary means / time to know what a completely different, alternative mobile platform offers. This applies to developers of both platforms, of course.
originally Symbian (or, WM) users learning the new / other platform and finding software titles that offer the same (or similar) functionalities they got used to on their old (other) platform
users that have devices from both platforms will find these tests useful. As has already pointed out, the N95 beats most (if not all) Windows Mobile devices in many respects – and, of course, vice versa (for example, the GPS locking speed of natively SiRFIII-based devices, the AVRCP compliance with my Plantronics 590A A2DP headphones or the, in general, better software availability on Windows Mobile); hence, I think in the future the N95 will be always in one of my pockets (along with some of my Pocket PC’s and MS Smartphones, of course). This will greatly help them in deciding what platform / device to use for a given task.
Recommended reviews
MobileBurn
My-Symbian
Gizmodo
Nice review. I've just bought an N95 too and agree with most of your points.
But I gotta say the screen isn't really that bad, the daylight readability is quite acceptable - at least it is a transflective not transmissive like the Kaiser or the G900!
But hey you've not mentioned anything about the GPS?
wywywywy said:
Nice review. I've just bought an N95 too and agree with most of your points.
But I gotta say the screen isn't really that bad, the daylight readability is quite acceptable - at least it is a transflective not transmissive like the Kaiser or the G900!
But hey you've not mentioned anything about the GPS?
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Click to collapse
Thanks, I'll re-compare it to my devices.
BTW, the Kaiser is transflective too (not sure about the G900), as are all 2.8" QVGA HTC devices. It's just that their screen is pretty hard to read outdoors. Still, they are transflective - still much better screens than real transmissive screens like that of color, old Casio models.
wywywywy said:
Nice review. I've just bought an N95 too and agree with most of your points.
But I gotta say the screen isn't really that bad, the daylight readability is quite acceptable - at least it is a transflective not transmissive like the Kaiser or the G900!
But hey you've not mentioned anything about the GPS?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
BTW, how much did you pay for your N95? (Is it the "basic", N95-1 model?)
Menneisyys said:
Thanks, I'll re-compare it to my devices.
BTW, the Kaiser is transflective too (not sure about the G900), as are all 2.8" QVGA HTC devices. It's just that their screen is pretty hard to read outdoors. Still, they are transflective - still much better screens than real transmissive screens like that of color, old Casio models.
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Click to collapse
Hi
I'm very interested in buying the Kaiser. Is the screen really good readable in direct sunlight?
Thank you very much in advance.
Sincerely
JCD.SAG
Menneisyys:
You 100% sure the Kaiser is transflective? Every owner I talked to said its not? I am not doubting you but I need to make sure, as I dismissed it purely because of the screen. But... even if its transflective, if it is not readable in daylight then it might as well not be.
My Hermes is obviously 2.8" too and is definitely transflective, very readable in daylight.
I bought the N95 from Mobiles2yourdoor.co.uk for free, £35 a month on 12 months contract, £175 cashback. Yes it is the basic N95 (I think its refurbished too), not the latest sexy 8GB model.
So, any update on the GPS front? I am still trying to decide which sat nav software to go for But definitely not TomTom because it STILL can't use the internal GPS receiver.
How is the Nokia N95 an upgrade from the HTC Universal
Compared to the Kaiser I would say that the only advantages of the N95 are the camera (5MP, but with extremely bad noise reduction) and video recording ([email protected] with good sound quality). If you want a VGA screen then wait for the ETEN M800 but if the video recording capabilities of the N95 appeal to you then Nokia do not yet have serious competition, AFAIK.
(My i-mobile 902 can do VGA recording, but at a very low bit rate, i.e. the end result is comparable with Video CD quality.)
UPDATE (10/28/2007):
As promised, I've started publishing (comparative) info on Symbian / the N95. The first article, the MIDlet Bible, has already been published. I'll pblish an article on the just-released, EXCELLENT Opera Mini 4 beta 3 tomorrow and will publish the long-awaited Multimedia Bible next week. Both with extensive Symbian-related remarks.
I'd like to thank "Beck" from the sprites & bites blog. In addition to sending me the phone even by her leaving without a single mobile phone for one and half a day, she was really helpful in receiving an official T-Mo UK unlock code for the device and sold the phone really cheap - she didn't try to rip me off in any way. That is, a big THANKS to her, and, if you, sometime, would trade with her, I can assure you she's 100% reliable and is an excellent seller.
Thanks again for the N95, which, otherwise, I couldn't have afforded (at its recent street price) because, after all, I've only bought it to have another toy I sometimes write about, not a(nother) Windows Mobile device I constantly use.
Finally, don't forget to check out her above-linked blog if you're interested in desktop console gaming (currently, it officially discusses the MS Xbox 360, the Nintendo Wii and the PS3) and her occasional mobility-related posts.
I’ve continued playing with the phone. First, some short remarks and, then, I discuss call recording.
The memory problem IS an issue and makes (occasional) running of the built-in browser a pain in even if you only want to see one page. For example, its memory requirements very often result in the application the browser was invoked shut down. This is really a pain if you, for example, clicked a HTML attachment in Messaging or a download link in Opera Mini. Then, there won’t be anything you can return to after having finished reading the HTML mail or downloading the file. Therefore, the built-in browser, no matter how great it is, is pretty much useless (but not on S60 3rd ed. Devices with substantially more free RAM like the N95-3 or the N95 8GB.)
The battery life turned out to be much better than I thought at first. If you don’t actively browse the Net use Wi-Fi etc. all the time and aren’t in a 3G area, you may end up having to recharge the device “only” every second day. Yeah, still much worse than the battery life of the HTC Wizard or any other TI OMAP-based Windows Mobile device, I know.
Compared to the HTC Universal Pocket PC, it has a little bit more tolerance to really low-level signals. When the Universal displays around one bar signal level, GPRS is sure to be interrupted. Not so with the N95, it was able to pretty surely
Unfortunately, the same can’t be stated about its being able to use 3(.5)G (UMTS / HSDPA). In that (at least in using 3G), the Universal seems to be better – it is clearly more sensitive. (It’s another question the Universal can’t make a usable connection with one UMTS bar visible. It’ll constantly switch between the two (GPRS and UMTS) modes, rendering Net access (and sometimes the entire handheld) almost useless – an inherent problem with Windows Mobile, unless you manually disable all kind of 3G support.
That is, if you plan to use your handset exactly at the boundary of 3+G UMTS (HSDPA) and pre-3G (GPRS. EDGE) coverage areas, there might be better handsets out there than the N95.
Bluetooth Dial-Up Networking is implemented REALLY cleverly and in a much more superior way than under Windows Mobile because it allows accessing the Net on the N95 while another client is actively using it as a modem. This really rocks. See THIS for more info on Windows Mobile’s (clearly inferior) approach.
Finally, the question of call (auto)recording – compared to Windows Mobile: In this area, the N95 is orders of magnitude better than most (but not all!) Windows Mobile handsets because 1, it does allow for recording the other party 2, while it does beep every 15 seconds (as opposed to what the manual states, that is, 5 seconds), this is only heard by the local party, not the remote one. The remote party doesn’t hear a thing – not even the initial beep about 2 seconds after starting the recording. This also means you do NOT need to use any beep filter applications (BeepOff, which, currently, doesn’t have an S60 3rd-compatible version AFAIK or the beep filter function of Ultimate Voice Recorder itself) and you can even use the built-in Recorder app (in the Office suite) to (manually) record your conversations. No beeps will be heard on the other end of the line.
I’ve played a lot with the call recording facilities and thoroughly tested the already-mentioned built-in Recorder app (which needs to be manually started and lacks memory-saving output formats), VITO AudioNotes for Nokia S60 3rd ed 1.31 and the well-known Ultimate Voice Recorder (UVR) 4.01.
I’ve created a chart of these apps:
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"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
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"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
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You’re supposed to directly compare the contents of this chart to that of my Windows Mobile VITO AudioNotes review. Note that, in the meantime, Resco Audio Recorder has also received MS Smartphone support. A quick, textual comparison & explanation follows:
Records to the card: of course, all of them do. In here, I’ve listed the directories they record to. As can clearly be seen, VITO AudioNotes uses exactly the same directory structure than under Windows Mobile, clearly separating incoming and outgoing calls. This is certainly good news – as we’ll later see, the other two solutions don’t store the direction of the call.
Format: in here, I’ve listed the output file format. As can clearly be seen, the built-in Recorder produces very large (one megabyte / minute) files unless you do know the call will take less than a minute OR are ready to always begin a new recording when the first times out; in this case, you can also use the most memory-effective MMS (physically, AMR) output format. The two other apps are far better in this respect, particularly UVR, which also allows for recording directly into AMR, unlike VITO’s app.
Distinction between incoming and outgoing calls?: as has already been mentioned, only VITO’s app supports this. However, I still don’t consider this to be a stumbling block with UVR as it’s, in general, very easy to decide who was the caller, particularly if you follow my advice below on trying to defer speaking with some 1-2 seconds.
Boot-time loading?: on Windows Mobile, both Resco and VITO automatically start themselves. With PMRecorder, you can easily do the same by creating a shortcut to its main EXE file (and, then, just minimizing PMRecorder’s main window upon restarting your handset). On Symbian S60 3rd ed, only UVR is able to auto-start itself, VITO isn’t. That is, you will always need to start the latter manually.
Shut down by the OS?: as with Windows Mobile, Symbian also shuts down background tasks when the memory starts to run out. This happens on the memory-constrained N95(-1) (NOT the 128M RAM-equipped N95-3 or the N95 8GB!) a lot of times.
Under previous S60 editions, there were call recorder apps that registered themselves (and, therefore, run) as services, not as high-level applications prone to be shut down. UVR has also followed this line. Unfortunately, that’s no longer the case – UVR will be shut down on the N95 too pretty early. Fortunately, this can be very easily spotted if you let it display its icon at the bottom of the screen – if it’s hidden, then, you know it needs to be restarted.
VITO’s app, on the other hand, was a VERY nice surprise: it isn’t shut down and keeps recording flawlessly. I’ve done some VERY serious tests mass program starting tests, spanning some 15-20 minutes, to be absolutely sure this is the case. VITO was never shut down. That is, if you don’t want to continuously restart UVR, go for VITO – it will surely be in the memory, ready for recording. A big thumbs up for the VITO folks!
Caller ID (or, if it lacks, phone number, including the case of unknown other parties) in the filename?: a decent call recorder app (as all the three recommended Windows Mobile call recorders) should make a Contacts database lookup, based on the caller / callee’s phone number, in order to insert her or his name in the file name, instead of the phone number. Both specialized apps support this.
Results of problematic chars in the contact name?: just like on Windows Mobile, Symbian apps refuse to record calls where the other party can be found in your local Contacts database and her or his name contain invalid characters like slashes (/).
As can clearly be seen, neither UVR nor VITO’s app knows how to deal with these cases – they simply won’t record anything. With UVR, this is particularly painful, as it DOES show it’s recording the conversation.
Results of beep elimination?: UVR (as opposed to the, in this regard, weaker VITO app) offers beep elimination, which is highly useful on (some) other models, where the other party does hear the beeps denoting being recorded. As, on the N95, beeps aren’t transmitted to the other party, the need for such an app isn’t so important on the N95. Therefore, you can safely turn off UVR’s beep elimination functionality (set Options / Settings / Warning beep to On; it’s Off by default) if you can put up with the beeps every 15 seconds. Note that I didn’t find this necessary: while some people complain of UVR’s beep elimination making the conversations a little bit stutter upon beeps, I haven’t run into this situation on the N95. Both parties were absolutely OK and pause-less with beep elimination on; so was the recording.
Visual feedback when (in)active?: UVR displays an icon at the bottom of the screen (this can be disabled); VITO doesn’t. With UVR, this is of particular importance because you’ll see at once if UVR gets shut down.
Lagging at start: along with the following, this row explains whether the recording starts at once, or, there is some kind of a lag, making the first (few) seconds unrecorded. While VITO’s app excels at this (no lagging at all), UVR has lost this test: it starts recording some 1.5-2.5 seconds after the call has been answered.
Note that you can’t fix this problem with URL by, for example, making it record to the internal memory (as opposed to the card) or disabling the beep elimination functionality.
Cutting at end: the situation is the reverse when the opposite case (“does the recorder app finish recording prematurely; that is, (long) before the call is hung?”). VITO’s app, unfortunately, doesn’t record the last 1.5 - 2 seconds. Make sure you keep this in mind when you want to be absolutely sure everything is recorded – try to insert a pause if you are to hang up the call and not the other party!
Other goodies: just like the built-in Recording, UVR is also able to password protect recordings and is able to do some similar niceties. VITO’s only real advantage is its ability to append a new recording to existing ones (both MP3’s and WAV’s). Of course, I haven’t listed essential functionality like playing back recordings.
Verdict: if you do need call recording, N95 supports it almost flawlessly. As neither UVR nor VITO AudioNotes are perfect, you will want to carefully compare their (dis)advantages and your needs to pick the one that better suits your needs.
abubasim said:
How is the Nokia N95 an upgrade from the HTC Universal
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Click to collapse
Nope, it's not an upgrade from the Universal, but from the HTC s310 (Oxygen) Smartphone, which I've bought in order to be able to record all my phonecalls. (Phone clal recoding is very important for me so that I can put them in my diary. It's great fun to listen to 20-30-year-old phone calls.)
I've only bought the N95 because Omni wasn't announced / released, I wanted to some new toy I can play with and I had some money to burn. In addition, "beck" sold it to me quite cheap (along with the official T-Mo UK unlock code) - so, my desire for new toys was fulfilled
abubasim said:
Compared to the Kaiser I would say that the only advantages of the N95 are the camera (5MP, but with extremely bad noise reduction)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Fortunately, edge hardening can be switched off; then, the effects of noise reductions can't be spotted on all shots (only on a part of them showing, say, lawn).
abubasim said:
If you want a VGA screen then wait for the ETEN M800
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Click to collapse
It's, unfortunately, quite a bit inferior to the Omni specs. The Omni is a real upgrade to the Universal; the M800 isn't.
wywywywy said:
Menneisyys:
You 100% sure the Kaiser is transflective? Every owner I talked to said its not? I am not doubting you but I need to make sure, as I dismissed it purely because of the screen. But... even if its transflective, if it is not readable in daylight then it might as well not be.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It depends on what you call "transflective". The Wizard screen (which, I think, is exactly the same than the one in the Kaiser - after all, both are HTC and both are 2.8" QVGA - why would HTC radically change its screen between models?) is transflective, but next to unreadable in full sunlight. I'm, however, absolutely sure the Wizard's screen isn't transmissive because, being an ex-Casio / HP Jornada 680/720 user, I know how transmissive screens behave outdoors / in sunlight. They are ABSOLUTELY useless, in no way can you make out anything on the screen. Unless, of course, you put for example your coat on your head, creating a small dark room
Well, the Kaiser is certainly better than as transmissive known models like the Casios in this respect. At least, something is readable on its screen. Definitely not a, say, Nokia N-Gage, the transflective iPAQ hx4700 / h2210 or the Pocket Loox 720, let alone a reflective screen like that of the iPAQ 36xx/37xx/38xx series, but still not as bad as old Casios.
All in all, technically, the Kaiser's screen is (or, should be) transflective.
(Also cross-posting this disclaimer as a collection of answers to the questions I’ve received on different forums.)
UPDATE / DISCLAIMER (10/28/2007): Some people have misunderstood the meaning of these articles (see for example XDA-Developers, HowardForums, MoDaCo).
Note that I'm only comparing the two platforms and NOT telling anyone to get an N95. I'm not a Nokia fanboy - if you want to see how real Nokia fanboys write and what kinds of reviews(?) they publish, look at some Symbian sites (no names mentioned ). No offense towards the reviewers of these sites, of course. If you know they’re, along with their verdicts and comparisons to other platforms, heavily biased, you’ll find their articles worth checking out. Otherwise, prefer reading my articles and direct OS comparisons and don’t let fanboys misinform you.
My reviews are to the point and do emphasize the problems with both platforms (as opposed to those of some Symbian pages), Symbian and Windows Mobile alike. As I’m, I think I can state this without being laughed at (after all, I have everything a decent WM guy should have: an MS MVP, the Nominations Manager at Smartphone & PPCMag etc.), one of the guys that knows the most about Windows Mobile (programming-wise too), I think I’m able to objectively compare operating systems.
An answer to another common question (some people thought I’ve purchased the Nokia to be a successor of my Universal): I've bought the handset NOT to be an upgrade from the Universal (it’d be pretty hard for a QVGA device to be an upgrade from a VGA one, wouldn’t be?), but from the HTC s310 (Oxygen) Smartphone, which I've bought in order to be able to record all my phone calls. (Phone call recoding is very important for me so that I can put them in my diary. It's great fun to listen to 20-30-year-old phone calls. That is, for phoning, I don't buy anything that isn't call recording-capable - this is why I've bought an, otherwise, very incapable phone (HTC s310) to be my current main phone.) As an s310 replacement, the N95 REALLY excels and offers WAY more in every respect (except for battery life and size).
I've only bought the N95 because Omni wasn't announced / released, I wanted to some new toy I can play with and I had some money to burn (that is, to get some new gadgets to play with). In addition, "beck" sold it to me quite cheap (along with the official T-Mo UK unlock code) - so, my desire for new toys was fulfilled That is, I haven't meant at all "the N95 is better than the Universal in every respect" - again, we're comparing apples and oranges.
I also recommend my remarks & comments HERE in the Comments section.
Menneisyys said:
It depends on what you call "transflective". The Wizard screen (which, I think, is exactly the same than the one in the Kaiser - after all, both are HTC and both are 2.8" QVGA - why would HTC radically change its screen between models?)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well it definitely isn't the same one as in the 2.8" QVGA Hermes.
wywywywy said:
Well it definitely isn't the same one as in the 2.8" QVGA Hermes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, good to know HTC has messed this up royally.
A friend of mine has just ordered one; I'll definitely take comparative screenshots when it arrives.
Related
I've long been looking for a solution to record my phone calls (for archiving for my electronic diary database - it's just fun to listen to, say, calls you've made twenty years ago. Yeah, I've archived my calls back even then - then, onto audio tapes, with my self-built automatic call recorder circuitry and automatic tape recorder controller).
As you may already know, except for some (in Europe / the States, rare, Asia-only Gigabyte models) NONE of the current Windows Mobile Pocket PC's (and only some MS Smartphone models) support this. It's just not possible to record the other party, let alone directly saving the GSM-based encoded stream to greatly preserve sound quality while keeping the same low speed (without recompressing it), just like how the vast majority of non-Windows Mobile-based call recorders do on both Symbian and in many "dumb" phones like the Sony-Ericsson t68i and the t610.
Yeah, sure, there're some software titles capable of recording conversations (most importantly, the brand new, 4.x series of Resco Audio Recorder, superseding PMRecorder, the, before the new release of the new Resco app, best phone call recorder app), but, as the restriction is hardware / OS-based, they can't lift the restriction either.
I've bought a Nokia N-Gage (got it for comparatively cheap with several original game cards - they're far better than I've previously imagined, particularly when you play multiplayer games at Nokia Arena! Highly recommended if you're into mobile phone-based multiplayer games - many titles are far better than anything else multiplayer-enabled on any other mobile platform) some days ago and played a lot with the current, compatible audio recorder solutions, most importantly, Ultimate Voice Recorder For Series 60. (The other, well-known solutions like ALON MP3 Dictaphone for S60 (2nd / 3rd), Total Recall (which, BTW, according to the homepage, will soon receive a Windows Mobile 5+ version too), LivePVR for Symbian Series-60 etc. are all Symbian S60 2nd / 3rd edition only and, therefore, don't run on the first-generation S60 OS of the N-Gage.) It worked just great (in automatic mode) and offered everything one may want to except from a decent automatic call recorder, except for the hardware-initiated beeps, which seem to be a non-fixable issue with the latest N-Gage firmware, unlike with some other Nokia models like the Nokia 6680, 6681, 6630 and N70 (and some more). (BTW, if you're interested, also see this thread on the beeping issue. Note that Beep Off can be found here for $20. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a trial version so you can't check for yourself whether it really eliminates in-call beeping during calls.)
Guys, Microsoft, hardware manufacturers, why do you want us to go for a Symbian device (or, for that matter, any "dumb" phone like the above-mentioned t610) for making phone calls? Can't you understand a LOT of people want flawless call recording capabilities? Why can't you enable this feature?
BTW, many ask whether it's legal to record phone calls at all. Please refer to this page - it's really useful. Well worth a read, particularly if you're in the United States (it lists all the states that allow for free call recording, and the ones that don't.) In Europe, to my knowledge, you're allowed to record calls in all countries without letting the other party know.
(Please do check out my already-mentioned PMRecorder article for more info on call recording issues. You may also want to explicitly check out the Windows Mobile Audio Recording Bible for alternative sound recorders. Note that, currently, I recommend the brand new, 4.x series of Resco Audio Recorder for call recording. Follow the link for a (linked series of) comparative reviews.)
Finally, I need to point out that it's the same issue that makes it impossible to implement a local voice mail / answering machine application for Windows Mobile, another highly demanded functionality. (There are several similar solutions for Symbian and Linux, where the hardware / API's allow for directly accessing and recording the incoming voice channel.) Just make a search for the words "answering machine" at XDA-Developers and HowardForums (the two most active Windows Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition boards) and you'll see these kinds of applications are in high demand too. Also impossible to implement on Windows Mobile. Check out for example THIS ARTICLE for more info on this question.
Menneisyys said:
In Europe, to my knowledge, you're allowed to record calls in all countries without letting the other party know.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In Germany that would be illegal. You HAVE to inform the other party. And that could lead to the situation, that nobody calls you anymore...
We had some troubles with recorded phonecalls in the past (especially eastern Germany for about 40 years... ), that would make such a product hard to sell here.
As nice as it may be to listen to past phonecalls, it would make a lot of people highly uncomfortable to know every word ist recorded.
Menneisyys said:
It's just not possible to record the other party,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Recording/playing sound from any analogue source is trivial with an AK4641-based
phone ( universal, hermes, athena, etc.) on the hardware level. Don't know about wince, but i've
done some tests on linux/universal and it works.
let alone directly saving the GSM-based encoded stream
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's a hardware design decision made by HTC,
and you can't override that without soldering and (most probably) heavy radio ROM patching.
The raw input/output phone sound is mono and analogue.
I wud like to add.All e-ten devices does record the calls.Also, imate PDAL, a bit of atom, Dopod P800w,D600,U1000.
All tested with Vito Audio Recorder.
We r at par with Symbian
hdubli said:
I wud like to add.All e-ten devices does record the calls.Also, imate PDAL, a bit of atom, Dopod P800w,D600,U1000.
All tested with Vito Audio Recorder.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the info. (BTW, are you absolutely sure they directly tap into the voice stream, and make a flawless recording of the other party, even in a very noisy enviroment OR when you use a Bluetooth headset)?
you could wait for q60 t600 from gigabyte and or get the i300 which is getting also a wm6 upgrade \o/
Why I Secretary can’t mute the microphone of my xperia x1 and why the caller can’t hear my answer message
How can I fix this using registry or any tweak tool for windows mobile 6.1
thanks
Yes, we all already know (see the sheer number of articles and rants I've published on the matter) most Windows Mobile phones, Pocket PC’s and Smartphones alike, lack call recording capabilities: they, in most cases (the only exception is the O2 XDA Flame, which only records the remote party, not the local one), only record the local party. It’s only very few current Windows Mobile phones that do record both parties at a good quality; most importantly, the brick and not very well selling HTC x7500 (Athena) Pocket PC and the VERY incapable, albeit, at least, cheap HTC Oxygen (s310) MS Smartphone. (In addition, some O2 XDA and Asus Pocket PC phones are also able to record calls, but they are in no way so broadly distributed / widely used as HTC’s products.) I’m absolutely dissatisfied by HTC because their current flagship model, the Kaiser (the AT&T Tilt) doesn’t support call recording either (in addition to its other, numerous (!) problems and omissions.)
Now, over at MoDaCo, some decent tips have been published. They’re certainly worth giving a read. They involve quite a bit of additional work, but, at least, they let for recording your calls, should you really need to do this and you don’t want to get a call recording-capable, inexpensive, separate handset (for example, the Oxygen or an older Nokia Symbian phone) to do the stuff.
Related articles
Review: decent phone call (!) / note / MP3 recorder VITO AudioNotes 1.3 out! - an article directly comparing the latest call recorder applications for both Pocket PC’s and Smartphones; make sure you follow the links backwards for my older, related articles!
The call recording part of my initial Nokia N95 article
Hmmm it's really a bit of work to record a voice call...
but it has some limitations - 1. no incoming calls can be recorded; and 2. damn it, my operator set a limit on how long you can record on a voicemail - just 2 minutes.
Yes, we all already know (see the sheer number of articles and rants I've published on the matter) most Windows Mobile phones, Pocket PC’s and Smartphones alike, lack call recording capabilities: they, in most cases (the only exception is the O2 XDA Flame, which only records the remote party, not the local one), only record the local party. It’s only very few current Windows Mobile phones that do record both parties at a good quality; most importantly, the brick and not very well selling HTC x7500 (Athena) Pocket PC and the VERY incapable, albeit, at least, cheap HTC Oxygen (s310) MS Smartphone. (In addition, some O2 XDA and Asus Pocket PC phones are also able to record calls, but they are in no way so broadly distributed / widely used as HTC’s products.) I’m absolutely dissatisfied by HTC because their current flagship model, the Kaiser (the AT&T Tilt) doesn’t support call recording either (in addition to its other, numerous (!) problems and omissions.)
Now, over at MoDaCo, some decent tips have been published. They’re certainly worth giving a read. They involve quite a bit of additional work, but, at least, they let for recording your calls, should you really need to do this and you don’t want to get a call recording-capable, inexpensive, separate handset (for example, the Oxygen or an older Nokia Symbian phone) to do the stuff.
Related articles
Review: decent phone call (!) / note / MP3 recorder VITO AudioNotes 1.3 out! - an article directly comparing the latest call recorder applications for both Pocket PC’s and Smartphones; make sure you follow the links backwards for my older, related articles!
The call recording part of my initial Nokia N95 article
As many of you already know, the long-awaited, high-end, albeit “disconnected” HP iPAQ 21x series is out - currently, the only (standalone) PDA to have a 4", good-quality (if they use the same, excellent screen as in the predecessor, the hx4700 – that is, not a cr*ppy one, heavily suffering from severe polarization issues like the one in the Dell Axim x50v/x51v) VGA screen – at a pretty nice price point, compared to the high-end PDA phones of, say, HTC.
Some (not all – see for example THIS) of the initial discussions talked about the new, high-end, 210-series being based on the PXA320 CPU, the best of the new, Marvel PXA3x0 series. This is why I really was looking forward to this device - after all, it would have been the very first VGA device to sport a PXA320.
Currently, there is only one Windows Mobile model out there with the PXA320, the LG KC1, but it's just an, in my opinion, pretty much mediocre QVGA phone - really nothing to write home about (no 4” VGA and it’s Korean and WM5-only – and I don’t know of “hacked”, “cooked” ROM’s making it English – albeit I haven’t searched XDA-Devs for more info), except for the high (806 MHz) CPU clock, which can come VERY handy when running for example emulators like Masterall's excellent FinalBurn, the various SNES or GBA emulators or Mplayer playing back HTTP RealAudio streams, all requiring as much processing power as possible.
Using the new PXA320 instead of the 310 would have been a decent decision. Not only because of the higher CPU clock (and, therefore, the higher maximal speed) and other goodies like the large(r) cache, but also because of the seemingly superior video decoding capabilities, which help a lot with decoding for example full (not just “plain” 640-wide VGA), that is, PAL/NTSC-resolution (720 pixels wide) H.264 videos (please consult the just-linked H.264 Bible if you don’t but would like to understand this paragraph). Incidentally, the H.264 PXA320 is so powerful that it’s even rumored to be able to decode 720p (that is, 1280*720) H.264 videos on even an underpowered Pocket PC (!!) without problems. Quite a feat, isn’t it? Not that there would be any point in watching 1280*720 videos on a 640*480 (or, at most, 800*480) screen – let alone the huge storage requirements of these x264 files, which, in many cases, exceed the file size capabilities (4096 Mbytes at most) of the FAT32 file system used on current cards (because, initially, they were designed for NTFS or other file systems capable of much bigger files).
However, HP’s decision for going with the clearly worse 310 is pretty much understandable (considering the price difference between the two CPU’s) and acceptable – as long as you resize & reconvert your H.264 videos to be no wider than 640 pixels. Then, assuming CorePlayer (the premium video player for all major mobile platforms) indeed, as is promised HERE, receives support for WMMX in version 1.2, you’ll see a dramatic increase in decoding efficiency of at least inferior video formats like MPEG-1 and MPEG-4 Part 2 (a.k.a. DivX / Xvid; not to be mistaken for the much more advanced H.264 / AVC!). This subject, by the way, is also thoroughly discussed HERE – I really recommend sonichedgehog360’s posts in there.
Note that, currently, the CorePlayer folks only promise WMMX support (which, again, doesn’t help with decoding H.264). That is, no hardware H.264 decoding support has been announced. They have stated they will announce if and, if it’s possible at all, when this kind of support is added to CorePlayer after the release of CorePlayer 1.2. This means don’t run out to purchase the new iPAQ if you’re a H.264 buff: CorePlayer may not receive H.264 hardware decoding support at all.
Of course, even if no H.264 hardware decoding support is added to CorePlayer, the new CPU platform is still vastly superior to the old, PXA270 platform. Just take a look at THIS and THIS (the PXA310 and PXA320 specs, respectively). Note that some of the online comparisons are plain useless. For example, the PXA310 quick summary HERE doesn’t even mention WMMX2 or H.264 hardware acceleration support (as opposed to the PXA320 quick summary HERE). The above-linked PDF files, on the other hand, contain much more dependable information.
Otherwise, the device is pretty nice and the fact that it is no longer based on a touchpad (as opposed to the predecessor, the hx4700) makes it much more usable in everyday situations (for example, gaming, e-book reading or Web browsing using the D-pad). It also sports USB host capabilities, which, unfortunately, is a very-very rare feature among current Windows Mobile models and was REALLY useful on the Fujitsu-Siemens (RIP!) Pocket Loox series (for example, the most versatilye WM2003SE device ever, the Loox 720) and some other models like the Toshiba e750+ - and some current ones like the (otherwise, isn’t that nice) Toshiba G900.
I plan to publish the further installments of my Multimedia-related Bible series (of which I've already published several chapters of) only after 02/21 - that is, after the impending release of CorePlayer 1.2 (only the Windows Mobile version, unfortunately - that is, the Symbian / Palm versions will only be released later. See for example THIS for more info on the release date of the Symbian version). Version 1.2 promises a lot of great goodies: UPnP support, RTSP support etc. I’ve chosen not to publish the final Bible before the release so that it doesn’t get outdated in the very near future.
I’ve, in the meantime, purchased a BlackBerry 8800. This also means I’ll start working on the long-promised Push Mail Bible really soon, paying special attention to accessing BlackBerry servers from Windows Mobile and explaining the difference between BlackBerry and Microsoft Exchange, the advantages and disadvantages of both approach with a lot of never-before-published, real-life tricks and benchmark results.
Also, in my future Bibles, I’ll also elaborate on the differences between the BlackBerry (BB ) OS and Windows Mobile – as I’ve done with Symbian S60 in the last few weeks. This will be especially useful for both new WM users coming from BB and both WM software developers and Microsoft itself – just like with my WM vs. Symbian S60 comparisons.
Note that, in order NOT to completely mess up my all-in-one Bibles with the constant references to, currently, three mobile operating systems, I’ll use different text colors when referring to non-Windows Mobile operating systems. That is, if you have only had Windows Mobile devices and don’t want to know how a particular feature differs from, say, Symbian or BB, you will easily know what sentences / paragraphs / charts / columns in charts you can safely skip.
Note that, in the future, I also plan to add
- Apple iPhone – as soon as third-party apps (like CorePlayer, which is being ported to iPhone and already has a working (!), already MPEG4 Part 2 (DivX) video playback-capable prototype – see THIS, THIS and THIS for, for example, YouTube demo videos) become common on it and/or
- Android if and when it gets more support and/or
- (at least) Nokia’s Linux implementation when and if they release the rumored successor to their current, flagship Internet Tablet N810, which MAY contain a built-in phone unit. This, incidentally, will also allow for discussing Linux running on the, unfortunately, discontinued Sharp Zaurus line, of which I have the SL-C860 – a truly excellent, clamshell, VGA device with unparalleled screen quality. Yes, I’ve long been promising articles on Zaurii; now, with the advent of Nokia’s Linux platform on their Internet Tablets, I may indeed start paying attention / devoting articles / comparisons to the old, but still popular Zaurus platform along with the new Nokias.
With references to so many mobile operating systems, the new, colorized text will be a life-saver for people only interested in one (or some) of the covered OS’es. And, a gold-mine for multi-platform geeks & gadget freaks like me
There has long been a new and, on the protocol level, vastly improved, 6.x version of I’m InTouch, one of the best remote desktop and, particularly, PIM info / mail access tool for Windows Mobile. I’ve already made the tests & comparison to the previous version reviewed in the Remote Desktop Access Bible; as soon as the developers review / comment on the draft of my article, I publish it.
Bitbank Software have released the brand new, 4.0 version of their, for long-time Windows Mobile users, known VirtualCE PDA controller. I post a detailed review & comparison to SOTI’s highly recommended Pocket Controller and My Mobiler as soon as I get feedback from the Bitbank folks on my preliminary comparison & feature chart I’ve sent them. Speaking of My Mobiler, it has received a very decent upgrade – much more bugfree and has a lot of nice features – since I’ve reviewed it and, now, is pretty much recommended if you don’t mind the somewhat lower speed, particularly with VGA devices.
If you speak Finnish and follow one of the best, multiplatform Finnish mobility-related blogs (that of Tero Lehto), you may have already heard of Strategy Analytics Inc.’s 5-Star Safari Leads Mobile Browsing Experience. The results of the study have resulted in a heated discussion (and a lot of flames) in the Finnish blogosphere. I’ll also publish an article on this issue as soon as the author, Paul Brown, answers my last two mails asking for more thorough information on how the tests have been conducted, why Opera Mini was completely neglected and whether the testers were aware of the keyboard shortcuts of Opera Mobile. The latter is key to using Opera Mobile as effectively as possible – no wonder I’ve always, in all my Opera Mobile-related articles, strongly emphasized to learn its default button shortcuts – or redefine / reassign them if you’d like so. (The same stands for Opera Mini, by the way. If you do learn the button shortcuts, it’ll become the fastest-to-operate browser.)
I, along with the linked-to Finnish blog, feel Internet Explorer Mobile (IEM) certainly doesn’t deserve the excellent (second) place, which is far better than that of both Opera Mobile and Nokia’s Web (Browser) in S60v3 FP1. The latter two browsers are without doubt FAR superior, in most respects, to IEM – if you learn to master their controls and shortcuts, that is. It’s the latter that I certainly lack from the users’ report in the Strategy Analytics Inc. report / summary. That is, it seems they didn't really try to learn to master all these shortcuts; instead, they used the menu system to access, for example, the favorites, go back to the previous page or enter a URL. In these respects, IEM is indeed easier to use (requires less screen taps / button presses) than both Opera Mobile and Nokia Web. However, if you do master the, on the Internet (for example, in my MS Smartphone Web Browsing Bible - see the related chart HERE, covering IEM and the two Operas on devices with a built-in dialpad), well-explained button shortcuts, the situation will be radically reversed and Opera Mobile / Nokia Web both become easier & faster-to-use than IEM. (The same stands for the non-reviewed/compared Opera Mini, of course.)
I also find that the lack of Opera Mini – currently, probably the most popular Web Browser even on Windows Mobile; see for example the latest voting results HERE, which also emphasize this – makes this report conveying pretty much questionable results. Finally, I also miss Netfront and, to a lesser degree, Thunderhawk and Picsel on Windows Mobile (and, the latter, on Palm OS as well). While, personally, I don’t particularly prefer these browsers (Opera Mini is far faster and more usable, particularly on a device with a dedicated dialpad – that is, a Blackberry, a Symbian phone, a MS Smartphone or one of the very few Pocket PC’s – for example, the Asus P525 and the LG KC1 – with a dialpad on the front), they still have a lot of fans.
As far as games are concerned released / announced since my previous all-in-one news post, Amiga Inc.’s Invasion is definitely worth mentioning, which has received a trial version available for download HERE. Note that, should you want to purchase the game, do it on Amiga Inc.’s own page, in there, the title only costs $5.99 – as opposed to the twice more expensive Clickgamer.
It’s the best and most enjoyable Space Invaders clone I’ve ever seen on Windows Mobile (see THIS, THIS, THIS and THIS for the alternatives) – for the price, a definite keeper. Its strengths are mostly the stylus-based control; the fact that you can also go upwards (should you want to kill your enemies faster – remember, your fire rate is restricted, as you can only have two missiles on the screen at the same time), the excellent animation, good sound effects and the in-menu, tracked, stereo, “scener” music (no in-game music, unfortunately).
Unfortunately, it isn’t compatible with pre-WM5 operating systems. Note that it’s one of the very few titles to support 240*240 square-screen phones.
Also note that, while the official homepage (or ClickGamer) doesn’t mention it with a word, it’s also compatible with the MS Smartphone platform: both QVGA and 176*220 devices (I’ve tested it on both my HTC Vox / s710 and Oxygen / s310). It runs flawlessly even on slow, non-overclocked TI OMAP CPU’s.
All in all, make sure you give it a try. Again, download the demo from ClickGamer, but purchase the game itself from the developer’s homepage to save some money!
Another gaming news: the new, in addition to the venerable and no-longer-developed Pocket Humanity, Civilization-alike, Revival (see the links to (p)reviews HERE), has still not been released. It’s promised to be released today, after some last-minute bugfixes. Hope they indeed manage to achieve this.
Emulation news: Masterall has released a preview of the brand new, 0.12 version of his EXCELLENT FinalBurn, by far the best (advanced 2D) arcade gaming console emulator. Make sure you give it a try – and provide feedback in the original thread. (And, if you don’t know the excellent games Finalburn is able to run, do check out the Arcade Emulation Bible!)
Are you coming to the GSMA Mobile World Congress 2008 in Barcelona? Then, we can even meet I’ll be there with my brand new, shiny Canon PowerShot SD950 IS (but will also take my Nokia N95 with me as another “video camera”) and posting long-long reports on the latest gadgets of the mobile worlds (mostly Windows Mobile, but, given that I’m really interested in other operating systems as well, I also plan to report on at least Symbian and BlackBerry). Yeah, be prepared for a LOT of news. (Megathanks for Hal Goldstein at Smartphone & Pocket PC Mag for the financial help; without him, I couldn't really attend the conference.)
A short offtopic thought (on high-end point&shoot digicameras): some time ago, I’ve stated I’d go for the SD870 IS mostly because of the wide lens and the excellent DP review. However, after reading through a lot of user opinions and direct comparisons of the two devices, I’ve realized the Canon folks still haven’t managed to produce a lens with flawless wide-angle. While some other manufacturers like Fuji and Panasonic have managed to produce a lens with better wide-angle; however, their Finepix S8000fd and TZ3 are suffering from some severe problems (for example, the, with Pana, ever-present, huge noise); so, I didn’t see the point in going for them. And, for portability / pocketabilty reasons (and the fear for the mechanical mirror’s getting worn out much faster than with a non-DSLR camera – I tend to take hundreds of photos a day, meaning several tens of thousands of photos a year, so, it’s a concern for me), I didn’t want to go with the, otherwise, tempting and great Oly E-510 either.
So far, I'm pretty much impressed with the camera. The 12 Mpixel CCD is definitely an overkill in a P&S camera with such a small lens system (it's the optics that puts a physical threshold on the maximal resolution, it seems) but is certainly a big step ahead of my old HP R717.
UPDATE (01/25/2008): PG frontpage
The WM version of CorePlayer 1.1.3, now, with the above-mentioned WMMX optimizations in place, has just been released.
It, among other things, has FULL HTC Kaiser / AT&T Tilt support (and support for all Qualcomm 7200-based Windows Mobile devices, for that matter - see for example THIS for more info on this issue). See for example THIS thread for more info on the Kaiser / Tilt opinions.
Note that it has a lot of other goodies as well; however, some of the advanced (mostly networking: UPnP, RTSP etc.) stuff is still missing. See THIS for more info on this - what the new version contains (of 1.2) and what it doesn't.
Well done, CoreCodec (Now, I only hope you'll release the Symbian version of 1.2 as well - or, at least, an interim, bugfix version just like 1.1.3 for WM...)
UPDATE (02/01/2008):
I, after more than a week’s waiting, still haven’t received any feedback from the Strategy Analytics Inc. folks regarding the lack of Opera Mini in their 5-Star Safari Leads Mobile Browsing Experience, which, in many Windows Mobile users’ (including me) opinion, is the most useful / quickest Web browser for the Windows Mobile platform. And, for other mobile platforms too – on my Symbian Nokia N95 and BlackBerry 8800, I almost exclusively use this browser to access the Web. Not including it in the test makes the entire report pretty hard to depend on – it’s like completely ignoring, for example, Ferrari (a top-performing car) when evaluating the cars of Formula-1.
And, of course, I’ve already elaborated on the bad ranking of Nokia Web (running on Symbian S60 3rd edition devices – that is, NOT on Windows Mobile) and, particularly, Opera Mobile (running on all major mobile platforms). Again and again, if you do learn the dialpad shortcuts and/or, with Opera Mobile running on a dialpad-less Pocket PC, use a third-party tool to assign its key functionalities (accessing favorites, current tabs, back etc.) to Pocket PC hardware buttons, they both become quicker and easier to operate than Internet Explorer. It’s clearly at this point (in addition to the lack of Opera Mini) that Strategy Analytics Inc.’s report severely lacks – it’s evident the test folks didn’t really make an attempt at learning the dialpad shortcuts / configure Opera Mobile for easy and much quicker access / use.
UPDATE (02/01/2008):
As far as running Invasion on MS Smartphones is concerned, you can’t use any of the dialpad buttons for firing (or controlling the ship). This makes the game pretty hard as you will need, in addition to pressing the Action button to keep firing, use the D-pad to control the ship. On Pocket PC’s, this isn’t an issue because, there, you can use the touchscreen for the latter. (Unless you have a 2.8”, non-Intel Xscale-based HTC phone – that is, almost all of their 2.8” WM5 and WM6 phones, including, for example, the Trinity, the Kaiser and the Wizard. Then, the well-known touschreen CPU usage bug will make the game pretty slow. Unfortunately, the HTC folks don’t seem to be bothered about the bug – I’ve been reporting it for two years to them but, so far, they haven’t fixed it.)
IMPORTANT NOTES:
1. a cleaned-up, much improved version of this report will be published in the forthcoming iPhone Life (papermag) issue. As it'll be a joint effort on my and the mag's part (cleaning up the English, making the text as easy to digest as possible by adding additional references / explaining things etc.), I won't be able to post it online, unlike this (initial) version, which is (still) entirely my work. Sorry about this.
2. the article not only refers to the iPhone; for example, the games section (Gameloft) equally applies to Windows Mobile and Java (including Symbian and, probably, even BlackBerry) as Gameloft releases its games to all these platforms as well, not only the iPhone. The same stands for some hardware manufacturers (chargers, cases, or, Parrot with their car kits) and TV broadcast solution companies. That is, you might want to read it even if you don't have an iPhone or an iPod Touch.
3. as usual, a. you can click most shots to get a much bigger and higher-quality version; b. if you download the additional video clips I provide (outside YouTube) and your media player can't play it back, use the free and excellent Videolan VLC to play them. (They use the highest-quality H.264 for video.)
Several software companies developing for the iPhone have attended the Mobile World Conference this year; also, there have been some very nice hardware accessories for the device. First, I introduce some of the software and, then, the hardware news.
1. Generic software
1.1 Gaming
Thanks to the business model of Apple's AppStore and the more or less (the only problem is the lack of a directional pad) gaming-friendly, 3D accelerated hardware, the iPhone enjoys the most game releases with some really high-quality titles. At MWC, some of the gaming companies were also present.
1.1.1 Gameloft
Gameloft is one of the biggest players in the iPhone gaming industry. It’s they that published titles like Asphalt4, the racing game I recommend to everyone. The company has other, excellent titles like Guitar Rock Tour, Real Football 2009 (which has also been awarded a GSMA 2009 award) and CSI:NY (a detective game; not as sophisticated as real text/puzzle adventure games like those of Legend Entertainment or, as far as the iPhone is concerned, 1112 (AppStore link; quick review) a complete rewrite of the very popular, quality Windows Mobile title, Fade).
In addition to their recently released simple 2D shooter game "Wild west Guns”, they also showcased their forthcoming (it should hit the AppStore in early March) golf title "Let’s Golf!” Compared to the other golf title, RESETgame’s "Par 72 Golf”, I’ve played a bit ago, it was much-much faster. The game is excellent in other respects too; for example, it has nice, non-repetitive in-game music in stereo.
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(presskit screenshots; I wasn’t allowed to take direct shots / videos of the game as it's still a work-in-progress)
I’ve also played their Prince of Persia remake, POP HD, on the Windows Mobile platform (more precisely, the forthcoming Toshiba flagship and 3D powerhouse, the TG01). It turned out to be a really well done game, which, hopefully, is very soon ported to the iPhone. Please see our blogs for a game video.
As far as the Windows Mobile ports of Gameloft are concerned, as is explained HERE (the PocketGamer.org link is also worth checking out for David's additional thoughts on the issue), while the company does port its games to Windows Mobile (that is, this one will too be ported), it only offers them thorugh mobile operators, not via traditional, well-established channels like ClickGamer, Mobile2Day (or even Handango). I really hope they do change this as, for example, their forthcoming Prince of Persia HD really rocks on 3D hardware accelerated phones. (Their big hit on the iPhone, Asphalt4 Racing, wasn't accelerated on the Samsung Omnia, though - it used software rendering, meaning ugly, pixelizated and very slow graphics.)
1.2 Remote desktop control
iPhones can not only be used to play games and make phone calls, but also remote control any desktop computer to, for example, quickly look up data you’ve left on your office or home computer. (You might want to check out THIS Windows Mobile-specific roundup for more info.) There have already been some implementations of doing this - for example, VNC clients like Veency (in Cydia) or Mocha (in the AppStore) - or the RDP client Jaadu.
1.2.1 LogMeIn Ignition
LogmeIn Ignition is pretty similar to previous remote controller solutions: it makes it possible for you to remote control any desktop Windows PC. It, however, entirely builds on the LogMeIn framework, which has some advantages over "traditional” access methods like VNC or RDP; for example, it allows for gaining access to any desktop computer even through firewalls, without having to remember the Internet address of your computer – which is particularly useful when it’s dynamically changing. LogmeIn has a very easy-to-use interface you’ll quickly familiarize yourself with.
Some goodies, like file transfer, already implemented in the desktop (or the Windows Mobile) client are (still) missing from the current version; nevertheless, the developers promise they’d look into implementing at least file transfer.
1.3 Adobe Flash
One of the biggest problems with the Web browser of iPhone, Safari, is the lack of Flash support. While Adobe announced last November they have created an iPhone version of Flash and all they did was waiting for AppStore approval. At MWC, they have only announced support for alternative platforms (Windows Mobile, Symbian and Android). Many analysts consider this as a revenge on Apple for not allowing the official client to be entered in AppStore.
1.4 Viigo
One of the better RSS readers and podcatcher apps (please see THIS for more info on what the latter means), which, incidentally, has recently received a major update on the BlackBerry (also including podcasting and Twitter support), will also be ported to the iPhone.
1.5 Yahoo Mobile
Yahoo has also announced porting their all-in-one Yahoo Mobile solution to the iPhone. This AppStore-downloadable program (slated for release later this Spring) installs on the iPhone and lets the user access everything Yahoo (for example, Mail). This greatly speeds up for example accessing your personal mail account – no need to go through a Web interface any more.
Two videos I’ve made:
First (not that recommended; high-resolution/-quality original in H.264 HERE)
Second (much more recommended; high-resolution/-quality original in H.264 HERE)
2. Video streaming, TV
Unfortunately, the vast majority of current TV stations use Windows Media Video (WMV) for broadcasting, which can’t directly be played back on the iPhone. Third-party solutions highly popular on other mobile platforms (for example, CorePlayer) still don’t support these kinds of streams. Also, the iPhone (iPod) completely lacking TV receiver hardware, you can’t directly watch TV broadcasts available in your region. Fortunately, there are some just-announced solutions that, in the future, may fix these issue.
2.1 PacketVideo
While PacketVideo (just like all the other, similar companies at MWC), basically, is targeting mobile operators, their standalone offering may still be released for end users.
First, they have a dongle containing a DVB-H/T receiver. This receives digital TV broadcasts and transferring them via Wi-Fi to (also) iPhones and iPod Touch devices. Note that, currently, they only support DVB-H/T, which is only common outside the US. In the States, DVB-T is not at all used and DVB-H is very scarce, MediaFLO being the main method of mobile TV broadcasts. Hopefully, if PacketVideo indeed makes its product available to individual customers, they will also offer a MediaFLO-specific version for American users.
Another (and pretty much independent of the above-explained DVB receiver/Wi-Fi transmitter) of their new products is a complete TV transcoding solution they currently offer to mobile operators only. It allows operators to offer (paid-for, iPhone-compatible) versions of TV programs to their customers. What really makes this especially interesting is that the PacketVideo folks have managed to implement a WMV decoder for the iPhone, which, basically, opens up the huge inventory of existing TV streams to watch right on your iPhone – without having to pay anything extra for your mobile operator (if they at all offer the channels you’d like to watch). The importance of this is enormous for an iPhone user – after all, currently, very-very few TV stations / programs offer iPhone-compatible streams. Actually, I only know of the Finnish Web "video recorder” service "TV Kaista” that offers all the recordings of most Finnish TV channels from the last two weeks as iPhone-compatible streams.
(the PV booth)
(the DVB receiver & Wi-Fi transmitter next to my iPhone 3G [in a case, making it slightly larger])
Note that a lot has changed since the first announcements and demos of the service; this also means the currently available demos you can see on YouTube are outdated and no longer reflect the current user interface of the program. Now, they use a completely redesigned interface with the list of the available channels on the left and other goodies.
A YouTube video of a demo of the player in action is HERE
2.2 Qualcomm
Describing the dongle of PacketVideo, I’ve already mentioned MediaFLO, the US de facto standard for digital video broadcasts for mobile handhelds (not to be mistaken to ATSC, which is meant for non-mobile receivers). Qualcom, the main company behind the technology, has showcased a reference design of a MediaFLO receiver and transmitter based on their chipset. As It uses Wi-Fi to broadcast its transcoded contents, the iPhone is also compatible.
A video is HERE (YouTube version; high-quality/resolution original HERE)
The Qualcomm folks stated there still aren’t any retail products utilizing their chipset doing all this (they just showcased a concept device with it).
Also note that, as with most of the similar solutions, this isn't an iPhone-only transcoder - most? all? of the alternative smartphone operating systems will be able to access the same content.
Speaking of transcoding and playing back mobile digital broadcasts on handsets not having a built-in receiver, I’ve also asked the Nokia folks whether their Bluetooth DVB-H receiver will receive at least DVB-T compatibility (for non-American users) and support for significantly more and not only Nokia handsets. Unfortunately, the answer is no. See THIS for more info.
2.3 1cast and wit Software
I’ve also seen some other companies’ demo of their, similar solutions; for example, that of 1cast and wit Software. The latter has also demoed their mobile operator-side solution. It was low-resolution (QCIF) only because of the mobile operator’s restrictions. I’ve taken a video of it; it’s available HERE and HERE (YouTube; much higher-quality original of the former HERE). Note that, however, the quality of the reception severely suffers from the network congestion (at MWC, everybody is accessing mobile networks) – the service works far better in a far less stressed (congested) environment. That is, in real-world situations, wit software's solution fares far better.
3. Hardware accessories
3.1 Car kits
Parrot has come out with some new designs for controlling, docking and recharging the iPhone: the MKi9100 and the MKi9200. They have also come up with a pretty decently designed set of stereo speakers, along with an iPhone / iPod dock, the Zikmu by Philippe Starck (slated for Spring 2009 release). See product page HERE for more information on all this.
This is a decent addition to the T605, IHF1000 by Motorola and the Parrot CK3000 Evolution, CK3100 and the 3200LS Bluetooth car kits by Parrot.
3.2 Chargers and cases
There have been several companies offering chargers for the iPhone; for example, FreePlay (a company specializing in solar chargers and quick-to-recharge external chargers):
(their rapid charger and iPhone solar charger available to end users)
(the iPhone solar charger from the back)
(…and the bottom)
(their other products having very strong retro-feeling: two digital radios [without a shortwave tuner] and a stereo, battery-operated "audio box” with a built-in iPhone stand)
… and IDAPT-INOITULOS (homepage HERE; it’s still pretty basic; a CES article with video HERE), with their all-in-one solution: swappable charger sockets and a charger also functioning as a stand / cradle:
It’s already available for end users for US$ 50.
As with third party chargers, there have been several companies offering iPhone cases; for example, Trexta:
3.3 Audio enhancement, A2DP
3.3.1 Bluetooth stereo audio transfer
One of the biggest omissions of the iPhone (3G) is the lack of high-quality Bluetooth audio transfer (A2DP) and remote multimedia playback control (AVRCP). By using these, you could get rid of the cables while listening to music on either stereo headphones or external speakers; also, you gain a way to control (volume up/down, stop/restart, next/previous) the playback of your media.
There are two ways of fixing this problem. The easier and non-iPhone-specific one is getting a pair of A2DP headphones (for example, the Plantronics Pulsar 590A or the latest, just-released and astonishingly high-quality Altec 906 - see review HERE) coming with a Bluetooth adapter that plugs into the 3.5mm audio socket of the iPhone. This will make it possible to listen to music, but you won’t be able to remotely control the player with the headphones buttons. To allow for the latter, you’ll need an iPhone/iPod-specific dongle that plugs into the cable connector of the handset. (Technically, it’s there that the handset also allows for controlling playback.)
So far, only few dongles of the latter (AVRCP-capable) type have been released: the Infinxx Icombi AP21 and its enhanced, improved version, Infinxx AP23 iBluon Bluetooth Dongle Adapter (also known as iBluon TD02; review HERE). Another announced one, 8Bananas’s BD-906, doesn’t seem to be available and the homepage of the manufacturer is down.
Now, iSkin (webpage HERE) has announced another dongle that does the same, the CERULEAN TX ( homepage: http://www.iskin.com/ceruleantx/ ). They also offer a pair of Bluetooth speakers, CERULEAN RX. Note that there are several other similar Bluetooth A2DP loudspeakers – they have lately, become pretty common. That is, you don’t need to purchase the RX to listen to your tunes – as the TX utilizes the industry-standard A2DP and AVRCP protocols, any other set of speakers (or headphones) can be used.
3.3.2 SRS
SRS is a well-known company for its audio enhancement software and algorithm(s) – if you’re coming from Windows Mobile, you may already have heard of them as several WM handsets come with it preinstalled. They have come up with a headphones-only iPod / iPhone dongle (connecting to the system socket of the device) doing essentially the same.
4. The competition
There have been some remarkable, multimedia-capable phones comparable to the iPhone well worth mentioning.
On Windows Mobile, the WVGA (800*480 – the iPhone’s resolution is 320*480) 3D hardware accelerated Toshiba TG01 is worth mentioning. It has a whopping, new-generation 1 GHz processor, which greatly speeds things up. On the negative side, though, the device is huge, albeit leaner than the iPhone. Also, Toshiba has a pretty bad record of updates and bugfixes and the TG01 having no Start button, it’s questionable it’ll ever get the next operating system updates.
HTC, the biggest player in Windows Mobile, has also announced two new models. They are pretty nice but can go nowhere near the revolutionary TG01.
On the Symbian operating system, it’s mostly Samsung’s Omnia HD that is worth mentioning. It has an OLED screen capable of rendering colors far better than traditional handsets (including the iPhone), a high-resolution touchscreen and an excellent camera not only able to take 8 Mpixel shots, but also 720p (1280*720) videos. Its multimedia features are topped by allowing for 720p video playback and a pair of stereo(!) speakers.
Please see our blogs for more info on the competition: the last TG01-related article is HERE, the Symbian all-in-one one is HERE.