Impressions from HTC Cruise - Windows Mobile
Hello All,
I have been relatively new here, but I thought I could contribute in the forums by posting my (unbiased) views about HTC Cruise here, hoping other people may find them useful. I am a software developer, so although I do not have an experience with hi-tech PDAs and smartphones, (never owned such a device before), I am fine with the technicalities of such devices.
My everyday phone was a simple sony ericson K510i . What had always annoyed me was that in most "simple" phones, it was quite hard to control the phone via my PC, do backups, backup contacts, SMSes, etc. My sony was good, I had found "MYPhoneExplorer" which pretty much did all those things for my phone. The screen was little bit outdated in terms of resolution, but I did not mind much.
And then came iPhone (which I never owned). I was impressed by its design, usability and user friendliness. I also liked the idea of having WiFi on it. I was close to buying that phone and using one of the available tools to unlock it, (noway I would pay for a contract - I am UK based). My brother who is into mobiles and gadgets more than I am, commented on the fact that iPhone is an "old" generation phone in terms of phone technologies and overpriced. I soon realised it was quite overpriced and started looking at alternatives. I was happy to see HTC would release a really cool phone, which I could get as my Christmas gift (yes, dream on, I had my eyes on it since November and managed to get it this February)...
So, what are my impressions so far?
I dare to say, quite mixed...
On the one hand this device is really wicked and cool! It has all the things I had always liked and needed in a single device. Packing a GPS, a radio, 3G, WiFi in a nice package is just amazing. I can now listen to music, watch videos, find my way around using GPS and have a nice PDA. These are really cool things! No need to have my pockets filled with separate devices...
On the other hand, this phone costed me little bit less than 400 pounds. One can argue you can get a laptop for that price, but then again, a laptop is not a phone. The video issues has not been much of an issue for me, I encode my videos at QVGA and all is well. However, I do get *very* upset when I realise that there is hidden potential in the hardware platform which has not been utilised. What I found bad straight from the moment i used it, is that when i press the "phone-call" hard button, there really is a lag when drawing the blue rectangle above the dialpad, (I am talking about the area which shows the names of your contacts as you type the numbers below.) I mean, come on, so much CPU power, and I can see the blue area being drawn? The other things is that if a couple of applications are running, then the phone does not seem to be operating so smoothly. Again, in order to be fair, it is still very usable. However, as things stand now in the market, in terms of specifications this phone is easily on the upper part, so in my opinion it should be fast, not just "very usable".
My other bit of criticism is probably related to Windows rather than HTC cruise. I find this OS quite interesting on the device, there is a huge applications' base and the things that are missing can be coded by talented people. However, I find the platform a little bit of a pain to use in a pure phone context. Why do i have to check an option everytime I want to get back a delivery report for my SMS? Why do I have to hack the registry to make this permanent? I set a wallpaper in my phone, then I set its transparency, then I realise it is hidden by the today plugin, which I can of course disable. If I disable it I loose certain features which are accessible straight away. I can of course get a new plugin that matchs my needs. Why is it so hard to have tabs with incoming/outgoing/missed calls? This is a feature that phones that cost 10 times less have. Of course Windows 6.1 has this, but then I would have to "install" a new ROM. Simple question: Why do I have to do these things? Why dont' they get it right from the beginning? Don't get me wrong, I am a technology enthusiast and I am sure I will manage to set up the phone the way I want. A number of users out there will do the same thing. However, is this platform one that non-enthusiasts would find user-friendly?
Look at all those skins and modding. Really cool. And the moment you press a button on your really cool new Today plugin, an ungly Windows application will pop up.
I hope that my criticism will be received well here! I like the phone, Windows is cool on it, but I think Microsoft has quite some way to go in order to make their platform really simple to use and user-friendly (think iPhone for example, my parents could use that, but I am quite sure if I show them my phone, they will not know how to make a a phonecall with it!)
In many ways some requirements are contradictory: Being user-friendly means you may have to hide settings, having your platform run on a variety of hardware means you cut corners here and there. Hopefully Microsoft will get it right with version 7 and 8, screenshots look quite good.
As for HTC... They lost a little bit of their credibility with a couple of issues for me. First the sound issue with the french rom which was initially denied and then fixed by people in this forum, then of course the drivers issue. I intend to make good use of this cool phone and customise it to my needs, it just takes time.
For your information, I find these applications useful:
Coreplayer (obviously!)
TouchPal keyboard works good for me
WKTask (and get rid off that default task switcher)
MyMobiler installs on your PC and a little "daemon-service" on your phone, (which you can disable). Then it allows you to control your phone from your desktop.
PocketCM did not particularly appeal to me, so I removed it
FunContact was cool, and loved it. Unfortunately, two things were not so good:
a) Splash screen and loading time
b) sometimes it made my phone freeze
Thanks for reading this (long) post,
Michael
Good post...Here are my impressions as well.
I used to carry a Palm Tx and a Motorala SLVR. I have been looking for the most ideal device to "do it all", PDA, phone (quad band gsm, tri band umts), wifi, and gps. There was nothing realy that appealing on the market until I read about the HTC Touch Cruise.
I read about people's complaints about the "driver" issues and hardware acceleration, and decided to take the risk and bought the phone from a gsm seller online. The phone was unbranded and did not have any stupid carrier proprietary software.
For the most part, I am very happy with the Touch Cruise. I have dumped the palm pda and the slvr, and have not looked back.
I just spent the last 2 weeks traveling to UK (London), Germany (Frankfurt), and Italy (Padova). As a mobile phone, the Touch Cruise functioned flawlessly and had 3G connections where they were available. Couldn't have asked for better features out of a "world" phone.
The TomTom GPS also ran quite well (Western Europe maps). Had to drive alot in Frankfurt and never got lost. Even traffic reports were right on the money.
As for a PDA, it blows the Palm syncing and calendar features out of the water. I used to be a Palm pilot only person, but Palm has become a dinasaur in their attutude to features and interface. The pocket pc has in my opinion surpassed them.
As a portable media device, it does kind of ok . Core Media Player is a must install, microsoft's media players still suck and are not usable and dont support all codecs. This device is not really ideal for video in my opinion. You have to re-encode videos to QVGA for ppc level quality, then video will play fine. You cant simply take a wmv file and dump it on the device to view, it wont work. As for music/mp3's, it works great. I got on a 10 hour flight from UK to US, and used it play music and games, and still had 40% battery charge left over and used an hour of GPS on the way home, with 20% left over.
In all fairness, the HTC could run a little faster, but I blame Microsoft and HTC for hogging up the cpu and not using hardware acceleration.
Since media (video) is not high on my list of required features, I am quite happy with the HTC Touch Cruise.
darkazally, I tend to agree with you really...
I guess if one did not have such a device before or had a really old one, then HTC Cruise is really super. On the other hand I can see certain people's frustration with Cruise. It is mostly people who owned 3 or 4 PDAs before and were probably expecting to be blown away by its specs; I kind of sypathise with them....
I read in an article written by someone at Microsoft, that companies tend to overload Windows with their own propriatory software and then the whole experience goes downwards. He mentioned that for the next versions of windows mobile, they intend to post stricter requirements just because of this situation.
As I also read in these forums, people who got their devices from O2 (just to mention a single company), seem to have more issues with HTC's performance...
I enjoy using the phone everyday and I am in the process of customising it to my needs, though it takes some time!
Uhhh mymobiler is amazing thanks for posting that! That is frickin sweet!
Great review, I tend to agree.
As far as PIM Management, I came from using two devices, a slim panasonic phone and a Xircom Rex 6000 PDA in the early part of this decade (circa 2001), like you I converged them into a Sony Ericsson phone (T610>T616) which had limited capabilities and lacked a lot of features my Rex had. In 2006, I got my first Windows Mobile smartphone, a Qtek 8310 (HTC Tornado), and now I have the HTC Touch Cruise.
Ever since getting into Windows Mobile, I thought that HTC/Microsoft had delivered great functionality, but poor usability and way too much lag for such high powered devices. Take for instance the settings panel. There are probably over 8 programs (4+networking icons, 3+ button config icons, ect) in there that only have one check box, when I'm sure HTC/Microsoft could very easily put them into one or two easy to use program with a Help feature.
But at the end of the day, I don't care if no one can use my device as long as I understand it. Additional consolation is provided in the fact that this phone looks so damned sexy
My Own impression
First of all, I'm new here & let me introduce my self...
I'm Richard & i'm from Indonesia.
I've waited for +3 months, before I decided to buy HTC Touch Cruise.
My other candidate are Atom Life & Nokia N82.
Soon (2 days) after my pal (who own a PDA shop) introduce me to Touch Cruise, I bought it
First impression is luxury.
Second impression........Windows Mobile sucks......
I have done hard reset for 4 times now....due to mis configure the registry....
I've done quite intensive test on my Touch Cruise, including Video,Audio,GPS,3G & Internet,Battery life & Applications.
This is my score (0-10):
1. Stability : 3 -> Typical Windows product
2. Looks : 9
3. Dimension : 8
4. Features : 8
5. Usability : 8
6. User Friendliness : 6
7. Battery Life : 7
Average score : 7
The Driver issue doesn't bothered me yet, so I'm very pleased with my new Touch Cruise
NOTE:
FYI,try not to uninstall anything from your TC.
Microsoft Windows product tends to leave "garbage" into the Registry & it will slow down your TC.
Choose wisely before installing & if you have to uninstall,search & delete any leftover inside the registry.
d4rkkn16ht said:
1. Stability : 3 -> Typical Windows product
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What's wrong with stability? I'd have to agree that it is probably not the best device overall, but I didn't have a single stability issue with it. Maybe, you've got a defective one?
You know, there are certain lag things that I don't think are due to video drivers. I mentioned this in another thread "Why the lag" but I used to have a Cingular 8525 and supposedly that device had video drivers. It still lagged with a phone skin when you hit the phone button. Rotating the screen was still slow. I hate little things that lag like that. it should be smooth navigation / interface.
The device doesn't have a cohesive feel to it when we have to customize the **** out of it to get it to work the way we want to. You're right when we make a today screen look good then all the underlying apps are ugly windows apps. Your transparency issue, that can only be done from within the Windows picture viewer not the HTC photo viewer. You need to install your own video player. The HTC video browser app only shows videos with certain extensions. It's like you have to have a specific app for every little thing and then it feels like there isn't a streamlined feel to the device.
I gotta give credit to HTC for trying to improve the interface with their apps, the Windows interface is archaic. It's just the combo of the 2 doesn't allow for a polished interface.
hambola said:
The device doesn't have a cohesive feel to it when we have to customize the **** out of it to get it to work the way we want to.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On the other hand, thanks to HTC for a platform that allows us to do so and even greater kudos to all the xda-developer wizards who make it possible (and relatively easy for the most part).
Not enough can be said for xda. Although I'm a new poster I've been reading these forums for about a year now. Helped me out greatly with the 8525 and is proving to be helpful with the Cruise.
>You're right when we make a today screen look good then all the underlying apps are ugly windows apps.
I am happy we agree on this, I just wish it had a little bit of the Apple touch on it, that's all....
>Your transparency issue, that can only be done from within the Windows picture viewer not the HTC photo viewer.
All I wanted is a kind of minimal interface, so I can set my own wallpaper and not have it hidden by the huge HTC today plug-in. I have installed spb shell for a couple of weeks now and it looks great. I also discovered the HTC Home Customiser which looks cool, so, that's nice too.
>You need to install your own video player...
I think HTC should actually write a very generous paycheck for the people that developed CorePlayer. Without that one, Cruise would be a *little* bit of a disaster.
Overall I guess Windows is a versatile OS with lots and lots of space of customisation and at the end you do get it right, it just takes a lot of patience and resets to get there...
rev3nant said:
What's wrong with stability? I'd have to agree that it is probably not the best device overall, but I didn't have a single stability issue with it. Maybe, you've got a defective one?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After some intensive test, I found some irritating bug that caused stability issues.
Quick Menu sometimes disappeared after running several applications.
System Hang at random cause.
Some system settings cannot be changed even if you've already change it.
Redundancy in Registry Entry that can cause stability issues if you change the entry. (not considered a bug if you don't change it)
and some other (not quite sure yet...)
Have you tried a different ROM?
Coming from my TYTNII yesterday
Based in part on answering other comments and my own observations......
Criteria - it has to earn a living - it has to be a miniature office on the move 24 x 7 x 365. TYTNII worn out after 14 months - replacement needed.
WARM - yes - a lot of electronics packed in a small package to make space for the large (relatively) 1340mAh battery.
Battery life - less than my TYTNII but not dangerously so in a 07:30 - 18:00 business day, lot of Direct Push, long calls, Bluetooth all day, WiFi OFF, Screen brightness higher than default, 4Gb SD card in standard power management, 10 minute top offs in the car when driving. Finished at 30% instead of my more normal 40%.
Stylus - nice magnetic "snick" as it is sucked into the holder. You would have to work hard to lose it. "Soft" feel top - nice.
JETCET printer configuration tool - Wow! If you are Canon or HP there seems to be a good range of drivers. It WORKS too if you know how to set up printing on a network.
Screen - STUNNING with the higher resolution. Looks Cleartype without the cleartype turned on (which only makes it better).
Bluetoothed to the car (BMW I-Drive setup) with no problems and the address book synched to car FASTER than TYTNII. Sound quality slightly poorer than TYTNII but still very acceptable and streets ahead of the old i-Mate K-JAM.
Touchflo - very nice, very cute, very hard on my big stubby fingers and disabled. Probably helps the battery life. I would prefer HTC Home but available CABS don't work on the screen resolution (well they work but look too small!). Anyone working on one?
MS Voice Command - I'm working the threads and registry hacks on this. There is an error on install which I'm trying to figure. (edit) - Just discovered it is non fatal. VC works fine to make calls - I don't care about the rest. Used the extracted 1.6.19209 CAB you can find on RapidShare (end edit). Hah! For the first time EVER with VC when I asked "What is the time" it told me the time - instead of the date!!!!
Only one assignable button folks. Button 1 (HOLD). Rest are presumably used to create the various actions on the zoom and shrink touches on the buttons and cannot be made available.
YouTube - well get hooked to WiFi first!! It will do it over Edge but only really in Low Quality mode. HQ mode (if availble) is a matching 640x480 and looks super.
Ripped 320x240 pixel DVD's in WMV rescale to the screen and look great.
Teeter game - addictive!
It is small, slightly heavy and smacks of quality. Build Quality is good. A good "heft" in the hand and good in the landscape belt clip (T-Mobile accessory for the Wing). Already got a lot of questions from those who noticed - "New Phone?" followed by "Nice" .
Overall - The extra horsepower and RAM, turn off the "fluff" and this is what the TYTNII didn't QUITE manage.
Build 19965.1.2.3
ROM 1.90.401.1 WWE
ROM Date 8/1/08 (US)
Radio 1.02.25.19
Protocol 52.33.25.17U
Keeper.....
48 Hour Review additional thoughts
==========================
OK the 5 row keyboard is REALLY worth it. Was doing a comparision of a lot of HTC product in a side by side with a few clients on Fri. The 5 row keyboard was the most wanted feature by all those who type seriously for meeting notes etc. The ability to produce numbers with out having to ALT - won this hands down for a few who ordered there and then.
Backlighting on keyboard - good and pretty even considering it looks like a point source is used to produce it. Numbers 5/6 are slightly brighter - the rest - evenly illuminated.
Battery life - I wish to clarify/confess to using the SaveBattery HTC Juno cab in creating the battery life figures I quoted earlier in the 24 hour review. I never even waited to find out how I did before.
I've been tweaking today with - Advanced_Configuration_Tool_v3.1.cab. Useful fine tuning tool.
Biggest annoyance - backlight going out 5 secs into a call. Real pain if you need to enter keys after call connects. There is a regitry tweak in the tweaks thread I'm going to try.
Original 24 Hour Review Below
======================
Coming from my TYTNII yesterday
Based in part on answering other comments and my own observations......
Criteria - it has to earn a living - it has to be a miniature office on the move 24 x 7 x 365. TYTNII worn out after 14 months - replacement needed.
WARM - yes - a lot of electronics packed in a small package to make space for the large (relatively) 1340mAh battery.
Battery life - less than my TYTNII but not dangerously so in a 07:30 - 18:00 business day, lot of Direct Push, long calls, Bluetooth all day, WiFi OFF, Screen brightness higher than default, 4Gb SD card in standard power management, 10 minute top offs in the car when driving. Finished at 30% instead of my more normal 40%.
Stylus - nice magnetic "snick" as it is sucked into the holder. You would have to work hard to lose it. "Soft" feel top - nice.
JETCET printer configuration tool - Wow! If you are Canon or HP there seems to be a good range of drivers. It WORKS too if you know how to set up printing on a network.
Screen - STUNNING with the higher resolution. Looks Cleartype without the cleartype turned on (which only makes it better).
Bluetoothed to the car (BMW I-Drive setup) with no problems and the address book synched to car FASTER than TYTNII. Sound quality slightly poorer than TYTNII but still very acceptable and streets ahead of the old i-Mate K-JAM.
Touchflo - very nice, very cute, very hard on my big stubby fingers and disabled. Probably helps the battery life. I would prefer HTC Home but available CABS don't work on the screen resolution (well they work but look too small!). Anyone working on one?
MS Voice Command - I'm working the threads and registry hacks on this. There is an error on install which I'm trying to figure. (edit) - Just discovered it is non fatal. VC works fine to make calls - I don't care about the rest. Used the extracted 1.6.19209 CAB you can find on RapidShare (end edit). Hah! For the first time EVER with VC when I asked "What is the time" it told me the time - instead of the date!!!!
Only one assignable button folks. Button 1 (HOLD). Rest are presumably used to create the various actions on the zoom and shrink touches on the buttons and cannot be made available.
YouTube - well get hooked to WiFi first!! It will do it over Edge but only really in Low Quality mode. HQ mode (if availble) is a matching 640x480 and looks super.
Ripped 320x240 pixel DVD's in WMV rescale to the screen and look great.
Teeter game - addictive!
It is small, slightly heavy and smacks of quality. Build Quality is good. A good "heft" in the hand and good in the landscape belt clip (T-Mobile accessory for the Wing). Already got a lot of questions from those who noticed - "New Phone?" followed by "Nice" .
Overall - The extra horsepower and RAM, turn off the "fluff" and this is what the TYTNII didn't QUITE manage.
Build 19965.1.2.3
ROM 1.90.401.1 WWE
ROM Date 8/1/08 (US)
Radio 1.02.25.19
Protocol 52.33.25.17U
Keeper.....
Thanks for the review!
graemesmith said:
Keeper.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the review! i have a question.. the TyTN II is too big for me to slide out the keyboard and with one thumb reach the other side of the key board.. basically one handed typing.. how does the Touch Pro fit?
thanks!
Great review and I see you are in the US so I do have a question. How does the GPS work? Does the GPS updater work properly and does the A-GPS help with obtaining a lock? Just wondering how fast the unlocked version connects in the US right out of the box or if it requires tweaks to make it lock faster. Also, how long does it take to load a youtube on edge. I already know it degrades the quality like the iphone but I would still like to know how fast does it take and if it can stream on edge even with the lower quality. Thanks.
Jedidiah said:
thanks for the review! i have a question.. the TyTN II is too big for me to slide out the keyboard and with one thumb reach the other side of the key board.. basically one handed typing.. how does the Touch Pro fit?
thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well the form factor is smaller than TYTNII so my big (ex)sailor hands can push it open and single thumb type OK. Sitting in palm of hand, fingers curled around screen edge and keyboard nearest you. 5 row keyboard makes for smaller keys though - it is a good feel but I wouldn't want to do a lot of single thumb typing - but you can. Guess it depends on your hands!! But you are going to LOVE the 5 row keyboard - no messing around to get numbers anymore. This is already a HUGE plus for entering IP addressing etc.
Raspster said:
Great review and I see you are in the US so I do have a question. How does the GPS work? Does the GPS updater work properly and does the A-GPS help with obtaining a lock? Just wondering how fast the unlocked version connects in the US right out of the box or if it requires tweaks to make it lock faster. Also, how long does it take to load a youtube on edge. I already know it degrades the quality like the iphone but I would still like to know how fast does it take and if it can stream on edge even with the lower quality. Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
GPS - Yep this is the UK/EU unit through Expansys/Mobileplanet. GPS lock time in my part of the world (USA New England) is 30 secs after running HTC QuickkGPS to get satelitte updates. Comparable to TYTNII and tested with GoogleMaps "Use GPS" feature.
YouTube - Well - first understand that a lot of YouTube videos are available in Standard Quality and High Quality. I'm not 100% sure - but standard looks like HEAVILY compressed 320x240 or REALLY heavily compressed 640 x 480. High Quality is pretty much low compressed 640 x 480.
The player in the phone has an option to autoselect or force High Quality streaming.
In High Quality on Edge it takes about 5 mins to get a 10 min video (from the few I have tested). There is a clear "loading" icon that is a circle running around with a % indicator in the middle. When enough of the video is in - it gets to 100% and will start playing. 100% does NOT mean the whole video - just enough buffered to get going. If you view ahead of available data then it stops playing and starts buffering again. Just like on a PC with slow Internet. There is no permanent cache to replay a video from. Close and reopen and you have to start again - but that is just like YouTube on a PC - I'm sure it is designed to stop you "acquiring" videos! While I am sure someone out of sheer intellectual interest will figure a workaround. It is WAY easier on a PC with capture tools and a ton of horsepower.
Let's put it this way - YouTube in a neat extra. Go back to MY personal criteria stated at the start of my original review and it is not really important!
But that Teeter game....... Now there is a real time waster. I suspect as much as BubbleBreaker........
I've had my iPAQ 614c for a little over two years now, and while it has served me incredibly well, and I have no complaints (mostly thanks to this forum making 6.1 and 6.5 upgrades possible) it is really starting to show it's age - physically and technologically.
As such, I'm looking to get a new phone. I've come to the realization that I don't need the absolute best, 100% beast phone, but if that's what my needs dictate, that's cool too.
Must Haves
Great Camera - I would like a camera that takes great pictures, and possibly video, but mostly just great pictures. And I would PREFER it to be able to do so in dark situations (aka, a good flash).
Music Playback - I want it to have a good music playback experience. This means plenty of storage, great sound reproduction, and preferably a 3.5mm jack (not necessary though, I'll use an adapter if i have to.
Good Email - I'd like something that works nicely with email. I have everything (all 6 of my mail accounts) routing into my Gmail address, so whatever will work well with Gmail will be what counts.
Good Battery - I'd prefer it last at least a whole day, instead of the ~1/2 day I'm getting with my current phone. The more the better.
GPS - Of some sort.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Preferred but not necessary
Unlocked for AT&T - Still in a contract, would prefer not having to ETF (but will if necessary)
Physical Keyboard - I like physical keyboards, preferably just a numpad (non-qwerty) but if it's all touchscreen, I am perfectly fine with that.
Large, high resolution touchscreen - I really don't see a phone not coming with touchscreen under my previous requirements, but I can see it being QVGA like my current phone. Would REALLY like a VGA or better, and would like something greater than 3 inches, but if its not, that's fine.
I am open to any and all suggestions.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=5254582
Rhodium!!!
The htc TP2 would be good for you...
Greetings,
I have been on the look out for a tablet for quite some time now.
Some background information:
I am currently a University student, and I enjoy power hungry video games like Diablo3 (if you think d3 isn't power hungry, ok. It isn't the point of the thread.)
I owe a gaming pc - Nvidia 660Ti, and a Tablet / Ultrabook Hybrid - Asus Taichi 31.
I live in Malta. (A&T and T-Mobiles are not available, I have yet to contact them wheter they are willing to offer their services from abroad regarding a data plan) (to my knowledge acquired from these forums, there is currently no possible way to integrate voice calling / smsing with the mini sim. The mini sim is only used for data transfer correct?)
I understand barely nothing about android, roms and kernals, I am studying for a pharmacist. What little I know is mostly about desktops from my interest and sources are typically the internet and some local technicians I enjoy chatting with. (if any1 can point me to a good beginner guide, that would be great)
I am currently looking for something that is able to:
replace my phone - just calls and sms. My lack of education on android devices and a very narrow google search lead me to believe there are apps with this ability if you are always connected to an internet connection? which wouldnt be a problem with the LTE/4G?
good alternative for an mp3 player - main issue: buttery life - size doesn't matter because I use bluetooth headphones
use XBMC hub - i think this tablet can easily handle it
take decent quality photos
stream games from long distances (when I am at university example, from my home) - is the only limiting factor the speed of the internet connection? Is it possible to connect the internet via a cable? (ethernet to mini usb converter?)
My two main priorities are calling/texting and battery life.
I am yet to find a store who has this tablet on display so I can have a feel of the tablet, I do not know if 8'' is ridiculously large to carry around. And I think it also falls within personal preference.
What would you, if in my shoes, get? Should I look for a phablet? I personally find smart phones have a small screen, and the only use I have out of a phone is to text and call, so I would like to have the good out of both ends.
Thank you.
botno4 said:
Greetings,
I have been on the look out for a tablet for quite some time now.
Some background information:
I am currently a University student, and I enjoy power hungry video games like Diablo3 (if you think d3 isn't power hungry, ok. It isn't the point of the thread.)
I owe a gaming pc - Nvidia 660Ti, and a Tablet / Ultrabook Hybrid - Asus Taichi 31.
I live in Malta. (A&T and T-Mobiles are not available, I have yet to contact them wheter they are willing to offer their services from abroad regarding a data plan) (to my knowledge acquired from these forums, there is currently no possible way to integrate voice calling / smsing with the mini sim. The mini sim is only used for data transfer correct?)
I understand barely nothing about android, roms and kernals, I am studying for a pharmacist. What little I know is mostly about desktops from my interest and sources are typically the internet and some local technicians I enjoy chatting with. (if any1 can point me to a good beginner guide, that would be great)
I am currently looking for something that is able to:
replace my phone - just calls and sms. My lack of education on android devices and a very narrow google search lead me to believe there are apps with this ability if you are always connected to an internet connection? which wouldnt be a problem with the LTE/4G?
good alternative for an mp3 player - main issue: buttery life - size doesn't matter because I use bluetooth headphones
use XBMC hub - i think this tablet can easily handle it
take decent quality photos
stream games from long distances (when I am at university example, from my home) - is the only limiting factor the speed of the internet connection? Is it possible to connect the internet via a cable? (ethernet to mini usb converter?)
My two main priorities are calling/texting and battery life.
I am yet to find a store who has this tablet on display so I can have a feel of the tablet, I do not know if 8'' is ridiculously large to carry around. And I think it also falls within personal preference.
What would you, if in my shoes, get? Should I look for a phablet? I personally find smart phones have a small screen, and the only use I have out of a phone is to text and call, so I would like to have the good out of both ends.
Thank you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It can meet your needs. You can use Google Voice # and hangouts to make/receive calls. It is a beast at gaming and the nvidia game stream is great, however its huge. In my opinion WAY to big to be used as an everyday phone, and would only allow speak phone calls or through a blue tooth. The call quality is good though.
If you want a tablet I recommend it. However if you want a phone I suggest using a phone.
I would get the tablet then get a Moto G or a Moto E for free and use it as your phone.
Sent from my SM-N910T using XDA Free mobile app
OP did say they were in Malta. GV numbers are not available outside the US.
gerrykv said:
OP did say they were in Malta. GV numbers are not available outside the US.
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GV is google voice? Yes I live in Malta, and thank you I didn't know that.
Is there any other way possible to have voice call / texting possibilities on this tablet?