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 The screen was little bit outdated in terms of resolution, but I did not mind much.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?
I am interested in buying the Raphael.
As i enjoy playing the ZX Spectrum emulator for ppc
(Pocket Clive, Fuse for ppc), i would like to know if anyone has tried this emulator with the Raphael....
Is the Raphael's keyboard working with the emulator??
Is the lack of hardware keys causing problems???
Is the emulator slow???
Thank you in advance for every answer.....
It actually runs pretty well. You cant use the hardware keyboard though; sliding it out causes it to hang rather than flipping it into landscape. I guess it only supports portrait. Unless you want to do some programming in BASIC though, the onscreen keyboard is good enough to navigate menus etc. The only hardware buttons you need are UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT and FIRE, so the buttons on the front are good enough if a bit close together.
I've got 5,090 games so I'm gonna have some fun with this. I'd suggest you install to storage card as the only directory you can use for roms is in the path it creates itself in Program Files, so obviously better where you have more space.
So in answer to your questions:
1. No, the hardware keyboard does not work
2. No, the lack of hardware keys does not cause a huge problem
3. No, it runs 100%, not too slow (nor too fast, and sound emulation is spot on too)
For anyone else who wants to try it, it's HERE
I would share my roms too, but I think this would be deemed as warez as I payed for them from HMV years ago (£10....bargain!) and also there's always that stipulation that if you download the ROMs you must delete them after 24 hours unless you either own the original game or bought the ROMs, (and therefore the respective license(s)).
Your answer was quite enlighting....although quite dissapointing...
I was dreaming of playing again my Zenobi adventures without using the stylus...
Anyway, do you find the on screen keyboard any better or larger in VGA screen -that the Raphael supports- than any previous 320x240 ppc screen??
Thanks again...
P.S. Have you tried the scummvm???
Does the keyboard work?
Any problems regarding the lack of hardware keys in the front????
there's always that stipulation that if you download the ROMs you must delete them after 24 hours
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh, that one again.. it's not true, you know.
Unless the game/application/product have been put in the public domain, made available as freeware, or is available as a demo/shareware/trial, or you own the license (as you mention) then downloading said product for any amount of time is technically piracy, regardless of if it is for 24 hours or not. The fact that it is "abandonware" does not mean it legal to download ROMs, even for "trial" purposes.
But isn't it OK to download and "try" ROMs for 24 hours? (MAME ROM FAQ)
I know you're not talking about MAME ROMs in this case, but the principles of copyright still holds. I also know you're not condoning piracy - just thought it worth mentioning this about the perceived legality of downloading copyrighted material for 24 hours.
So here I am coming to see what is new in "Raphael land 2008" and find someone is nearly as far back in personal computing as I was when I started. A ZX Spectrum Emulator!!!!
Hey - anyone got a ZX80 emulator?
If I can find the cassette tape backup - and if it still is readable - I have an old "Star Trek" game I wrote long time back. The stars twinkling outside the bridge of the Enterprise's view screen were my stellar achievement....
Mind I actually used to do statistical analysis in SOFOR (Southampton University's variant of Fortran IV) sitting in London at two in the morning because my computer budget lasted longer in the middle of the night. And I could actually get a console - instead of having to punchcard it and run it on a teletype terminal - that was an added bonus! Thirty years ago in 1978 to be precise.
I used scummvm with some success on my Wizard, Artemis & Tytn II, but as far as I am aware it doesn't support the hardware keyboard. I had to map the on-screen keyboard to a hardware button so I could use it while I was in game. Then again, that could have just been the Artemis as it has no hardware keyboard. Can't quite remember to be honest. Have to say I haven't tried it on the Touch Pro yet.
The Z80 keyboard in PocketClive is rather small too.
And one final thing about the legality of ownership of roms, as I said, I paid for my spectrum roms so I'm safe there. I do not condone illegal downloading of roms. Always believed you could 'legally' test them for 24 hours though. That's a new one on me.
Dear Fellows, I'm working on an extensive project regarding the x7510 optimizing, I will create a PDF File to be shared among all of us, once the project is through (1 week), I will post it here for all of us.
NOW:
these sub articles will be included in the project, please have a look:
File System
Video Performance
Startup Services and/or Applications
Performance Tweaking Tools
SSD Disk Performance Increase
Safe Over-clocking
- Optimizing WiFi and Opera
I need help from all users that can contribute to this project, cuz I want to make it as perfect and Safe as possible.
SO:
if you have any suggestions / additions, please don't hesitate to share, later on I will add the guides to make perfect use of the following to the same project:
1. RealVGA
2. Manilla 2D
3. Fixes
4. Essential Appz
- the AIM from tis is to make a single resort rather than flipping through 100 of pages and/or threads regarding a performance increase.
I'm working on it now, but any good and useful suggestions sent to me through this thread will be ADDED with the credits going in the main project for the users whom helped.
Any POSSITIVE INPUTS are welcomed!
Will
No disrespect intended, but I think if you want the project to be as complete as possible, with collaboration from others here, then you'd be better off updating and extending the Athena wiki, as opposed to posting a static PDF.
Other than that I think it is an excellent idea.
do you wana cook a new rom then dont forget to include
youtube
msn
opera
office
guys, I will be waiting 2 more days for opinions, please include yours if you have any.
Thx NanoRuler for your idea, I will do what you said later, after lots of users input their feedback regarding the STATIC FILE, that its SAFE & EFFECTIVE!
Will
Great initative. I have been following the TouchFOL 2d for VGA Devices (sticky on this forum) so an improved Manila 2D interface is a must. With the power on our devices 3D should also be included on the wish list - I see from the Develpment & Hacking forum others are now getting that to work on other VGA devices.
Also I advocate a skinning section. Perhaps in the first instance we can round up the necessary tools and find or write some "how to" guides with particular reference to VGA so that we can start to get some color on to our x7510s.
Agree totally with RealVGA, but generally I believe we should only include apps into Ext ROM that prove to improve performance because they are there instead of being loaded into other forms of storage. We should, however, start a depository of apps and cabs which we know work with our VGA devices and perhaps split it between working under RealVGA and those that do not.
One significant item that does not work under RealVGA is Comm Manager. vidmabal's VCommManager has been a welcome replacement in the interim.
robjhellis:
I Totally AGREE with you, our x7510 is just an ass hole without RealVGA, and thus we need to Compile a list of appz that proven to utilise the RealVGA.
I will ADD another section to my project regarding the Fully Compatible Appz on VGA, and/or using RealVGA.
Keep it up, and if you have other suggestions, let me know asap.
KInd Regards;
Will
hi
is your project cancelled?
x7510 SOLD
HTC Touch HD -----> IN ..... (Great!)
*********************************************************UPDATE**********************************************************************
Read if your interested in some one else's whining, but as far as sixaxis use is concerned, most of the issues i complained about have been resolved by Dancingpixels the developers of sixaxis in the 0.5.2 release, now includes a touch emulation system that is just Sheer Genius, and resolves most of the issues i complained about with games devs having to get their finger out at all ......... typical.
*************************************************************************************************************************************
Hi folks
Been kind of goaded into this rant due to mounting frustration with the general direction most (almost all) Android games developers seem to be taking . I love my phone (HTC Desire Z) and am now a confirmed Droid Zealot (I'll side with ANYONE against Apple ) But i am getting increasingly frustrated with droid native games, crappy touch controls without any keyboard options. I wanna use my PS3 pad !!!
I cannot be the only one who feels this way?!?!?!
My basic point is 'Touch controls suck for games'!!!!
IMHO much like the gamepad verses mouse argument, for me its not even a debate. Touch controls are ok until you need to make fast precise movements of some kind (usually involves not dying), or you need to make a highly coordinated movement involving changing position and changing POV at the same time.Then it usually all falls apart.
Fingers leave the digitiser, interface routines get confused as thumbs get too close to each other, digitisers just plain ignores some inputs, or your thumbs just end up meeting in the middle !!!!!!
I know touch has the advantage of reconfigurability, and convenience but for games those are its only good points, it scores very low on speed and precision in almost all situations.
Now am not naive i completely understand most Androids have few hardware buttons these days, so it makes sense to develop for the one guaranteed interface device all Androids have. But the problem is that almost the entire Android games dev community seem to suffer from the same problem what i call 'Touch screen Myopia' in that they develop solely for the touch screen, completely ignoring the fact a lot of serious smartphone gamers deliberately choose phones with QWERTY hardware keyboards and standalone Bluetooth controllers are becoming way more popular ( BT controllers usually need native support or a t least a set of keyboard keys that you can config the pad driver to use). So it seems to me about time developers added one or two small additional element to all Android games.
#1: A set of hard coded keyboard keys for all games controls (very simple)
AND/OR
#2: A simple, robust, full controls config system (not that much harder)
Now why this wasn't established as a best practice way back in Android history is beyond me, but maybe it leads me onto another pet peeve. I can't help the suspicion that part of the reason these kind of more adaptable control schemes are rare on native droid games is the rather unfortunate 'Apple Aping' that seems all too common around droid dev.
'Apple does everything with touch (indicative of how seriously Apple take gamers IMHO) so we should too' SCREW that !!!!!!!
Yeah am aware that many devs develop for IOS too and often port to android, but what am talking about isn't hard to implement its less than a days work for a competent programmer. Its a bog standard function in just about every emulator in existence.
Last i want to point out how awesome games like N.O.V.A, Destroy Gunners, ShadowGun, and so many others could be if they had one or both of my suggested control improvements implemented.
There are some games already that implement keyboard keys scheme like 'Turbo Fly 3D' (awesome future racing game) its not technically difficult, its just a matter of devs doing it.