Related
IMPORTANT NOTE: this is the nth part of my MWC (Barcelona) report series (a lot more to come!). Of course, I’ll try to cross-post them here too (I couldn’t do so while in Barcelona because of the very slow & expensive Internet connection), but it’ll take a lot of time; in the meantime, feel free to check out the original articles. It’s REALLY worth checking out them: many of them contain info that you won’t ever read anywhere else. Furthermore, some of the more “thematic” articles discuss all the news of a given area (audio encoding, Web browsing, advanced Bluetooth etc.)
MWC Audio Encoding News Roundup; Skype cracked!
MWC: Breaking Sony-Ericsson XPERIA X1 news & pics!
MWC: Bluetooth news: A2DP news & reviews (e.g. Voyager 855); a new BT access point; Nokia’s new DVB-H transmitter
MWC: Web browsing: WebKit, Thunderhawk news; a dedicated Web browser handheld
MWC: the competition: BlackBerry (RIM) and Nokia
MWC: Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 to come with WM 6.5?
MWC: a really-really great e-paper & WindowsCE- based (!) phone & reader from Polymer Vision: Readius – the first foldable(!) e-book reader ever
MWC: more S-E Xperia X1 shots & info; it'll be based on the Qualcomm chipset?
MWC: more S-E Xperia X1 info & photos
MWC Report Part I: Opera Mobile 9.5 pics, i-mate, Nokia, MS Press Conference, MSN Direct news etc.
OK, now, to the article:
Samsung
Architecture-wise, it’s without doubt Samsung’s MWC announcement of a brand new, high-end chipset (also having a CPU), the S3C6410 (and its budget version, the S3C6430), that may be the most interesting to Windows Mobile users.
As you may already know, Samsung’s SC3244x (for example, the SC32442 used in the HTC P6300 (HTC Panda), E-Ten’s late 2007/early 2008 models like the X650 and the M800 etc – see the complete list HERE and HERE for the SC32442 and the SC32440, respectively), the chipset used in several current(!) Windows Mobile devices, is REALLY outdated. I’ve shown numerous examples and proofs of this (see for example THIS) - for example, the very bad CPU usage of A2DP (about 50% at 400 MHz) and the complete lack of advanced multimedia (MP3 / AAC) en/decoding support (this is why you can’t, for example, use the high-quality Resco audio codec pack with (old) Samsung CPU’s, as has also been pointed out HERE). These two tasks are all far better handled by any other, current CPU’s like Intel XScales (even the “old” PXA-2XX ones) and TI OMAP’s (again, even the oldest ones used in Windows Mobile 5+ devices). The only real advantage of the SC3244x is the CPU usage-independent power consumption – the other two, above-mentioned architectures can’t boast with this. (See the bottom section of THIS article for a proof.)
Before MWC, as far as their newer chipsets are concerned, only the S3C6400 was known. For example, E-Ten’s brand new, high-end, feature-packed V900 (to be released in April) will have this chipset. (Currently, there’re no other existing/announced devices (see THIS) with this CPU.)
This chipset is the base (the direct predecessor, parent) of the new S3C6410/ S3C6430 models. In this respect, it’s pretty much comparable to the Marvell XScale PXA270 as opposed to the PXA310, let alone the even more feature-rich PXA320.
The just-announced S3C6410, which is an even more advanced version of the S3C6400 , is even better; for example, it supports hardware 3D acceleration. Again, it’s like the PXA310 or the PXA320 compared to the PXA270. Unfortunately, currently, no future devices are known to have it.
(the 3D performance demo of the brand new S3C6410; you can see the S3C6410 flier I’ve also made some shots of here)
(multimedia demo on the older S3C6400)
(HD AX audio decoding demo on the older S3C6400)
(this is how an imaginary device could house the S3C6400)
Note that, currently, the only available online information is the above-linked one. While it does explain the advantages of the new S3C6410 platform over the “old” S3C6400 one, it’s definitely worth checking out their offline brochure I’ve taken a shot of (with my Nokia N95 – man, it DOES have a very nice camera. Hear that, Windows Mobile ODM’s? We want something similar on WM too!) Also note that Samsung’s portal doesn’t have any information on the S3C6430 at all. Finally, note that none of the other portals reporting on MWC have anything else on the new CPU than the above-linked press release (see for example MobileBurn, electronista.com, techon - these are the sites mentioning S3C6410 I could find via Google). That is, it’s in by me that you get a full rundown of the differences between the new CPU’s and the “old” S3C6400.
(again, click the pictures to get a full-resolution, readable one!)
As can clearly be seen, the S3C6410 is a much more advanced version of the S3C6400: it uses 65 nm technology instead of the 90 nm one (most probably resulting in major power and size savings), it has advanced 2D capabilities (for example, H.264 hardware decoding – as is also explained in the online version) and even 3D hardware acceleration. The “budget” S3C6430 seems to be exactly the same as the S3C6410; the only difference seems to be the complete lack of 3D hardware acceleration. Hope we’ll still see the latter (that is, the S3C6410) with proper (!) 3D drivers.
Also see THIS for their roadmap and THIS for a S3C6400 datasheet. Note that these pages only list the “old” S3C6400 and (still) don’t link to anything related to the S3C6410/S3C6430. By the time you read this, however, they may have already added info / links to this new info, though.
The S5L8900
Also note that Samsung has also had another, pretty much mysterious chipset for over a year, the S5L8900. It is, therefore, a year older than the S3C6410/S3C6430 (and is of about the same age as the S3C6400); this may also mean it’s still using the old, 90 nm technology, not the new, 65 nm one. It’s being used in many Apple products (including the iPhone) and only one WindowsCE (NOT Windows Mobile!)-based, announced Meizu M8 miniOne high-resolution phone. Unfortunately, it’s still not out and, again, it’s WindowsCE-based only, meaning NO (hacking-less) compatibility with the vast majority of Windows Mobile programs. You can find a full list of the mobile devices using the S5L8900 HERE.
Interestingly, Samsung’s official pages have absolutely no information on this chipset either – just like the case with the brand new, but, because of the lacking 3D hardware acceleration, not very interesting, “budget” S3C6430.
It’s stated to have a lot of goodies; for example, hardware 3D acceleration (a PowerVR MBX 3D processor). See THIS for more info, links and for some speculations on why Samsung doesn’t even mention it on their homepage.
All in all, way to go Samsung, and DO force hardware ODM’s use your S3C6410 – NOT the old S3C6400 or the budget S3C6430! (For example, could you force E-Ten to switch to S3C6410 from the already-outdated S3C6400?)
Finally, a somewhat unrelated shot of their new, power-saving LCD technology:
Imagination Technologies's stuff (incl. PowerVR)
When discussing the S5L8900 above, I’ve already mentioned the PowerVR 3D hardware accelerator used in the top-secret, only-for-Apple S5L8900 Samsung chipset. Now, let’s see what they have on offer. A LOT!
Note that the PowerVR 3D hardware graphics accelerator is used in several other chipsets; for example, the (advanced) Texas Instruments OMAP2420 chipsets used in the Nokia N93/N95/N82.
They have announced several advanced designs at MWC (see their original press release HERE). The new chipset is about two times faster than the currently available one in, say, the above-mentioned Nokia phones. Therefore, of course, first, I’ve asked them when we’ll see see their latest 3D mobile (low-power) hardware accelerator chipset to appear in mainstreams CPU’s (or CPU architectures) like the above-mentioned TI OMAP 2420 chipset. There isn’t any information on this.
I’ve also asked them on what they think of the Nokia N96 I’ve elaborated earlier on and whether they think its lack of a dedicated 3D accelerator, along with the lack of 3D hardware accelerator support in Next-Gen N-Gage games, means the end of using the PowerVR hardware acceleration technology in Nokia’s highest-end entertainment / multimedia / gaming devices. They consider the N96 a niche product – one that is not really made for gaming fans, but more likely those of watching TV in realtime. They also explained the lack of the 3D acceleration in the N96 is deliberate: Nokia didn’t want to totally cannibalize the N95 8GB (which was only released less than half a year ago) sales. And, I should add, those of the N82 – albeit, the latter phone also has a Xenon flash. All in all, they aren’t afraid of Nokia’s completely stopping releasing 3D-accelerated devices. They have also added that, sooner or later, Next-Gen N-Gage games will also get hardware 3D acceleration support (currently, they’re software-only, which pretty much sucks).
Turning to the question of Windows Mobile, while more and more WinMo models are receiving the more up-to-date TI OMAP chipsets, it still remains to be seen if any of these will have a chipset directly supporting 3D hardware acceleration. They didn’t have any information on this.
Unfortunately, the same stands for their new, mobile H.264 hardware accelerator solution. If you’ve read my H.264 Bible, you know well enough that, currently, no Windows Mobile chipsets support accelerating H.264 playback by doing the decoding in the much more efficient hardware. (Yes, in theory, the new Marvel PXA310 and PXA320 in the iPAQ 110 / 21x Pocket PC’s do – but whether there will be players to utilize this still remains to be seen. Hope the CorePlayer folks indeed manage implementing this.)
Note that they have also shown a 3D demo (still with their old drivers) of a non-3D hardware accelerated Nokia and on an accelerated one. The video can be found for example in THIS pocketgamer.co.uk article. (I’ve also made a video of it, but will only make it available later, when I have some time for transcoding it into high-resolution H.264 to avoid the problems associated with the low resolution of YouTube or Google Video).
Finally, a big-big thanks to the Imagination folks. Being pretty busy at discussing the H.264 issues, I’ve left my highest-end P&S camera (the 12 Mpixel Ixus 960 costing over 530 US$ in Europe) on their booth. When I wandered backwards (still having not realized my camera is missing – I’ve had a ScottVest on me, fully packed with mobile phones and PDA’s and, therefore, I haven’t promptly noticed the missing camera), they came to me and handed my camera back. Great and sincere folks – again, I can’t express my gratitude enough!
Qualcomm
First and foremost, if you’re a user of a HTC-manufactured, Qualcomm-based device like the Kaiser/Tilt, your first question will surely concern the 3D and the graphics drivers. (If you aren’t aware of the issue, just look around HERE, particularly around the sticky threads) Let me elaborate on this question first.
I’ve also spoken to a device manufacturer (an ODM). Their name must remain unknown (upon their request). They have a pretty nice (albeit QVGA) device with all the necessary (wireless & connectivity) goodies and is built on the current Qualcomm MSM7200 chipset (the one that lacks the 3D / real display driver in HTC’s current devices). They stated – XDA-Developers folks (and anyone else wanting a proper video / 3D driver for their Qualcomm devices), attention! – it’s in no way impossible to create a 3D driver for it. Some of the framework has already been produced but they have to work on the drivers too. We’ll see the results pretty soon, if the hardware manufacturer in question indeed manages to ready the driver before their deadline – which will be before the XPERIA X1’s release (or the Kaiser’s getting outdated). This also means that, should they manage to create a driver, the XDA-Devs hacks will have a decent source to get the already-written driver from – at last.
I’ve also talked to the Qualcomm folks themselves about the driver issues with HTC-manufactured devices. They didn’t want (read: refused) to comment on anything (pretty much understandably).
New Qualcomm chipset?
Of course, I’ve also spoken to the Qualcomm folks on whether they have anything to announce as, right before MWC, I’ve heard of their releasing a supposedly new chipset, running at 560 MHz and having a lot of advanced features compared to their current MSM7200. The MSM7200A (notice the trailing “A”) might not be the chipset in question because it “only” runs at 528 MHz (as has been also explained HERE). Unfortunately, the person in charge of answering questions like this wasn’t present so we’ll need to e-mail each other; I fill you in as soon as I receive some new info.
MWC: Chipset Vendors & New Chipsets - Part II has been posted to http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=1980944
1. App news / rebates:
a. (still a preview, but still much more advanced than version 1.1.3 released a month ago) CorePlayer 1.2, finally, released for Windows Mobile. See THIS for more info. The Symbian version, as opposed to what was announced a month ago (then, the CoreCodec folks only promised a Windows Mobile release for February), seems to hit the shelves very soon too - see THIS thread. It, among other things, promises hardware acceleration. I'm really looking forward to the dramatic speed / efficiency increase this could mean on current high-end Nokias like the N95 using the latest TI OMAP & PowerVR-based chipsets.
b. ALL of VITO Technology's products are available for $7 (!!) only: go purchase them while the offer lasts! (I'm pretty unlucky, it seems: it was just before MWC that I purchased their AudioNotes for Symbian S60v3 for some $25... should I have known this GREAT rebate beforehand... )
2. Gaming & emulation news:
a. Creatonia made free!
Insenic, who, in the past, have already made two of their previously commercial titles free, decided to do the same to their pretty nice RPG title Creatonia. While the biggest problems (for example, the lack of in-game music, the dull graphics etc.) are still present, it's really worth getting for free. See THIS for a review (frontpaged on several sites).
b. a new version of Commodore 64 emulator for both the MS Smartphone (WM6 Standard) and Pocket PC (WM6 Pro / Classic) platform, PocketHobbit, is released, with a lot of niceties like native QVGA support (remember? It was me who wrote an extended, QVGA-enabled Smartphone version of the original) and frame rate settings. See THIS for a generic overview of emulating the Commodore 64 under Windows Mobile. It's available HERE (NOT on the old links).
c. Astraware has released a fully-fledged, very interesting strategy game Westward, which is certainly worth checking out. There is a great Just Another Mobile Moday review HERE. It runs on both Pocket PC's and Smartphones (and even Palm OS devices).
d. Beijing Huike Technology, the developers of Dark Street reviewed HERE, have released four additional games for both the Pocket PC and MS Smartphone:
- 3D Mad Cars (see THIS): a racing game
- 3D Anti-terrorist action (see THIS): a simple 3D first person shooter
- Treasure Island: a Japanese RPG
- Holy Beasts: a 2D side scroller.
As far as the first two (3D) titles are concerned, unfortunately, I've found both games rather poor for their price tag. Their 3D rendering, on VGA devices (tested this on the HTC Universal and Dell Axim x51v), is slow - even on the fastest Pocket PC's (for example, a 624 MHz x51v). On QVGA devices, they're pretty playable, on the other hand - even on lower-spec'ed devices like the HTC Vox. The 3D hardware acceleration capabilities of the Dell Axim x51v aren't used either. All in all, I recommend going for a better title - there are a lot of them in both the 3D car racing and FPS categories, some with even 3D hardware acceleration support (for example, the free (!) DoomPPC / DoomGLES / HereticGLES)
All in all, don't bother with these two titles - they are simply not worth the $11.99.
The two other titles are a bit cheaper ($8.99), but this doesn't mean they're worth purchasing either. First, Holy Beasts is one of the worse side scrollers (particularly on VGA devices, where it has major speed problems). It's just incomparably worse than "real" top-down scrollers like SkyForce Reloaded (or, for that matter, emulated 1942 clones (1944 / 19XX) run under the great console emulator Finalburn Alpha). Not worth purchasing.
Treasure Island is a Japanese RPG - probably the most remarkable and recommended of the bunch. However, it's not known whether it's a long one. Fellow blogger Eric Pankoke stated "So far I've probably got 1-2 hours in it, but I have no idea where I am compared to the end. If trends adhere to this game, however, I don't expect it to be very long. Look at Angel Sword and Knight Tales: both the same style of game, both very short." (He's referring to being VERY short, playable through in a few hours only.) In addition, it's pretty much unplayable on VGA devices because of the huge, pixel doubled fonts (as of version 1.0.1), which makes it very hard to read the conversations. (The same problem exists in all the other titles of the same developer, but, as the text doesn't convey much anything in them, the bug doesn't cause as big problems as in this title.) On QVGA devices, there aren't problems like this.
The in-game music is VERY short and repetitive in all the four titles (albeit still better than in the, in this regard, worst OmniGSoft titles) - as was the case with Dark Street.
All in all, for the time being, you should stay away from Beijing Huike Technology's titles. There're WAY better alternatives.
e. SNES emulator written in assembly - way faster than even before?
Some weeks ago, I've already reported on the announcement of the developer of SmartGear about adding either GBA or SNES support (or both?) for his really excellent console emulator. Now, he has announced he'd rewrite the most time-critical SNES emulation code in ASM assembly, which means way higher speeds. This means his emulator would become the only one with real, 100% working emulation on even lower-spec'ed Windows Mobile devices (see THIS for my SNES Emulation Bible for more info on the existing emulators). Make sure you post into the original thread asking him to do this feat if you'd like to see a 100% working SNES emulator on your phone.
f. TetraEdge's games for half the price!
Many of you like TetraEdge's adventure games. They're indeed very good (albeit, of course, I still prefer old-school textual games like those of Legend Entertainment - see my MS-DOS Emulation Bible for more info on them.) The links to the individual games can be found in THIS PocketPlayers Reloaded thread; also check out my article HERE on how you can purchase from Mobile2Day if you don't speak German and Google Translator / Babelfish don't help either.
3. MWC: more to come!
I plan to publish a big writeup on the new Windows Mobile PDA's / phones on Sunday but not before that as I'm really busy.
In the meantime, some external threads / videos I recommend:
MoDaCo's E-Ten thread & MWC news& videos
MoDaCo: Toshiba's new models (G710, G810 and G910)
MDA Compact IV specs
MsMobiles' main MS Press conference video
Tuedsay's Q&A Sony-Ericsson & MS conference video (MsMobiles)
Discussion of the HP 210; my remarks; links to other tests (particularly the Axim/MobilitySite and the BrightHand forums are worth checking out if interested in the new model)
A PPCT discussion of the new Samsung SGH-i780 (a pretty promising Pocket PC with a BlackBerry-alike thumbboard, a square 320*320 (yes, you've read it right: NOT those awful, incompatible-with-most-titles 240*240 screens!) screen, the latest-and-(almost the) greatest PXA310 CPU (as opposed to the old, PXA270 series) and an optical touchpad (as opposed to traditional D-pads). I've played a lot with the latter at Barcelona and didn’t quite like it but I’ve already been spoiled by the touchpad of the HP iPAQ hx4700, which I hated.
In THIS PPCT thread, we discuss the VGA vs. QVGA question and the new, just-announced/released VGA devices.
MoDaCo's XPERIA thread
WMExpert's What’s up with Qualcomm? An Insider Q & A!
ZDNet's Readius review (also see mine HERE, should you have missed it)
Qualcomm Strikes Again: New Family of Mobile Chips Offering Rich Multimedia and Wireless Capabilities - here's the new Qualcomm chipset I referred to in my last, chipset / 3D accelerator-related MWC report. Unfortunately, not even the S-E XPERIA X1 will have this chipset - you'll need to wait more.
MoDaCo's revised Athena (Advantage)/ x7510 thread; a similar one from MobilitySite.
A quick note: I've also tested the new model at MWC and found the keyboard less-than-stellar. Don't expect anything similar to, say, the HTC Universal or the Kaiser/Tilt. See the linked threads for more info.
NVIDIA Announces the APX 2500 for Windows Mobile: in my last 3D hardware accelerator chipset roundup, I still haven't discussed NVIDIA (see their GoForce 5500 in, say, the O2 XDA Flame and the two new Xscale-based i-mate models: the 8150 and the 6150).
I can only hope that it's compatible with the GoForce 5500 so that the (unfortunately, currently, still very few - see their list HERE) GF 5500-compatible games / emulators will also work on it without explicitlly adding support.
BTW, speaking of the O2 XDA Flame (XDA-Devs thread HERE, dedicated independent forum HERE) I've asked the O2 folks at MWC about both the successor to the Flame and the possible official (!) WM6 upgrade to the device. Nobody had any information. Interestingly, while O2's homepage some months ago still listed XDA Flame 2 as "coming", now, I can't find this ad any more. They, it seems, don't plan to release an upgraded version of the Flame any more.
wow Menneisyys, you're on top of things! Tons of thanks for all of this highly-condensed, yet incredibly interesting info! I popped through a handful of links and it's all good news to me!
Now I just gotta be patient for the Xperia X1!
1. Machines at War (see review of a previous version HERE), probably the best RTS (Real-Time Strategy) for Windows Mobile, has been updated to version 1.2, introducing even some new units. Well worth checking out.
2. the free and excellent (!) Doom clone, DoomGLES, has also been updated, now delivering far better GoForce performance.
3. if you still haven’t purchased Orions (the best turn-based strategy game for Windows Mobile) during the last, 40% rebate, now, you have a chance of getting it for free if you post a reply to THIS thread
4. PDAmill has released Pachinko Go!. The blurb is as follows: "What the heck is Pachinko? Gravity, Skill, and Luck! It's a unique game which is kind of a cross between a vertical pinball game and a slot machine which is extremely popular in Japan (and growing more popular worldwide every day). This simple, yet addicting game contains 3 unique Pachinko games in one package, including many unlockable extras to acquire, extending the gameplay even more!"
5. Still speaking of PDAmill, now, after a year of their completely stopping porting their games to the platform, they’ve made available all of their Palm titles for free (!). You can find them HERE.
6. SOTi’s Pocket Controller, which is without doubt the most powerful PDA remote controller solution (see THIS for more info & comparison to the alternatives), is offered for 10 euros (about $15), incl. VAT for EU residents, only till 05/11/2008. Go get it – it’s really a bargain for this price.
7. There’s a new, free platform game Greedy Penguins HERE for both Windows Mobile Pocket PC’s / Smartphones and Symbian S60 / UIQ3.
8. If you’ve read the latest updates to my iPAQ 210 review, you already know this, but it’s still worth devoting a separate bullet in here too: I’ve thoroughly benchmarked the brand new Marvell Xscale PXA310 platform and found out that, unlike even Samsung’s low-end CPU’s, it has the same (high) power consumption upon high CPU load. It’s certainly bad news. The good news is that it’s certainly faster than the PXA270, particularly at playing back AVC stuff now that CorePlayer 1.2.x has added WMMX optimizations. And, according to the CorePlayer folks, this is just the beginning – a lot more optimizations and performance enhancements will follow! (Also see my related, new chipset reports HERE and HERE)
9. The DivX folks have released a new (0.90) beta of their free (!) DivX / XviD player DivX Mobile Player for Windows Mobile and Symbian (note that while they state there’s no 0.90 for the latter, only 0.89, the internal version number does state it’s too 0.90). Note that you’ll need to register yourself in order to be able to access the app; after this, click the URL that comes in the e-mail, change your password and, then, go HERE to directly access the downloads.
I’ve quickly tested it on several real-world (high-resolution; mostly 576- and 640-wide) DivX- and XviD-encoded videos. It delivered acceptable results on both the two Windows Mobile handsets (HP iPAQ 210 and HTC Universal running Ranyu’s 7.6 of WM6.1) and Symbian (Nokia N95 with firmware version v21) when playing back most DivX videos. There were rarely dropped frames (albeit the playback wasn’t as smooth as under CorePlayer).
Playing back my XviD-encoded test video, however, was painfully stuttering under Windows Mobile and a little stuttering under Symbian. (I REALLY recommend THIS video; pay special attention to the camera moving in the second sketch with the office dialog). The same videos played back flawlessly under the latest versions (1.2.3 for WinMo and 1.2.0 for Symbian) of CorePlayer.
It isn’t able to play back standard ASP videos created in Nero Recode (after renaming them to .AVI’s so that the player finds them); it complains about being incompatible. (The same videos, of course, play back OK under CorePlayer, as has also been explained in my H.264 Bible.) Of course it won’t play back the much more advanced AVC (H.264) videos either.
All in all, you may want to give it a try if you prefer free stuff – but don’t forget: CorePlayer is still much better, more compatible and more efficient. The only drawback of the latter is not being free.
10. New hardware-wise, there is a plethora of new information. See for example THIS (a generic overview), THIS and THIS (HTC Diamond) etc. Of course, these threads / articles will be outdated today with HTC’s official announcements, which will be reported on by many portals; see for example MoDaCo’s related thread HERE and MsMobiles’ HERE).
11. There’s a nice hands-on review of the DVB-T receiving capabilities of the Gigabyte gSmart t600 HERE at MsMobiles. Before I finally publish my Digital TV Bible, it gives you a clear picture of what you can expect of DVB-T-capable handsets, reception capabilities- and battery life-wise.
12. The Xperia X1 will be released in mid-September; see THIS and THIS. According to one of my sources, who received it for beta testing, it does have 3D hardware acceleration, which is certainly very good news. It, however, has a rather bad thumbboard – much worse than those of the HTC Universal or the HTC Kaiser / AT&T Tilt. Now, I only wish it had a digital TV (DVB-T and -H at least for us Europeans; MediaFLO / DVB-H for Americans, T-DMB for Koreans etc.) receiver.... Too bad S-E’s engineers didn’t bother including one or don’t plan to offer a version (even with slightly bigger size) with one.
13. Pocket PC Thoughts runs a Win a Copy of SpaceTime 3.0 contest HERE – might be worth checking out if you need the best calculator available for Windows Mobile and have missed Valentine’s day’s excellent ($7) offer.
14. Spb Mobile Shell has been updated to v2.1
15. Desktop grade IE6 coming to Windows Mobile 6.1 by the end of 2008 – at last. See a related thread HERE, where I’ve also posted my remarks.
UPDATE (05/07/2008 1:00AM CET): Sorry guys and gals, I’ve forgotten to provide a link to the SOTI sale: it’s HERE. (Don’t be afraid of it listing an iPAQ 5455 / 5550; it runs on everything.) Let me know if you need with the German - I've provided some instructions on downloading / purchasing in for example HERE.
Incidentally, there’re a lot more excellent titles in their "10 (apps) for 10 (euros) special" list offer; for example, for Windows Mobile, Documents To Go Smartphone, Resco Explorer and Photo Viewer 2007; for Blackberry, MSDict Concise Oxford American Dictionary and, for Symbian, ALON MP3 Dictaphone for S60 3rd Edition 2.85. I’ll definitely review the latter and compare it to VITO’s AudioNotes and the other call recording-capable apps I’ve reviewed for Symbian. By the way, as far as the Blackberry version of MSDict Concise Oxford American Dictionary is concerned, the link on the 10 (apps) for 10 (euros) special page doesn’t work; follow THIS instead.
Thank you for another great informative post!
The DivX player is quite nice, and they have a converter online that works great with shrinking files to mobile format.
Hardware
There’s a really interesting article comparing the built-in camera of the four most widely discussed new Windows Mobile phones: HTC Touch Diamond, HTC Touch Pro, Samsung Omnia, Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1. There is also a dedicated PPCT thread HERE, with some of my comments.
Games
(game announcement heads-up source: PocketGamer.org)
1. Xassar's Quest is a new RPG from ClimbWalls. I’ve played it a bit. Unfortunately, the developers’ being a newcomer definitely shows: it’s quite bug-ridden. It’s really slow on my VGA HTC Universal while it offers no high-resolution VGA support. It isn’t faster on my HTC Wizard either. Also, it very often shows just a white screen to the gamer, which, fortunately, goes away after a screen tap. I could only make it faster by disabling both the sound engine and the “high graphics”. The latter, fortunately, only resulted in a much uglier “fog of war” effect and had no effect on the character / enemy / object sprites. After this, I wasn’t able to re-enable sounds / music to see whether it’s the sound engine that really slows the game down.
On the other hand, it has nice, stereo music; might be worth a try if you’re into top-view RPG’s. Otherwise, forget it and wait for a heavily bugfixed, optimized version – currently, it’s just too slow. There’re several other RPG’s for Windows Mobile offering much better playability. Or, if you have a (preferably high-res) Palm or a sufficiently powerful VGA Pocket PC, go for EDGE (on Pocket PC’s, with the Palm emulator StyleTao), the probably best RPG ever released for PDA platforms.
2. There’s a new adventure game, Igor, from a new Windows Mobile gaming publisher company, Summer Goth Studios. I’ve played the demo through (it took me about 10 minutes – yes, the demo is VERY short). I’ve requested a review copy; the developers promised it, along with a lot of enhancements, would be sent to me in about a week. I’ll keep you posted as soon as I manage to play it though. At a first glance, it seems to be better than some of the anti-adventure games like Lost in the Pyramid. As the demo was really short, making it impossible to get a real picture of the quality and abundance of the in-game sounds (the demo was pretty bad in this respect), music (if any – I haven’t encountered any) and whether the storyline is (any) good, I can’t say more about the title.
3. It was some three months ago that GameZoneProject has released Towers Trap for multiple smart phone platforms (both Windows Mobile platforms, Symbian and desktop Windows), a real-time strategy game. A new, 1.1 version with a sound bugfix has recently been released.
It’s looks a bit like PocketMoreGames’ Tower Defence and is highly recommended, the most recommended game of the bunch. Make sure you give it a try. Note that it makes use of the high resolution of VGA screens, which is pretty much welcome in games like this. Unfortunately, the tutorial message boxes don’t display the end of several messages; fortunately, you can still do some guesswork, which means you can easily absorb the tutorial. This isn’t a problem on QVGA devices, where, in addition, the game is MUCH faster than on VGA ones.
4. ConcreteSoft has come out with another camera-controlled (remember their 3D Lawn Darts?) game, PBA Bowling, for both Windows Mobile platforms and, in addition, the BlackBerry. As I am not a big fan of bowling titles, I don’t really want to review it. I’m not a big fan of camera-based control either. However, as some other people have had much more success with the 3D Lawn Darts’s camera control than me, I think with some patience you’ll learn how to control the swung / force.
5. Rowanvale Software's Danger Dan is a platformer game. It’s certainly worth checking out if you like light, entertaining puzzle / platformers - you most probably will like it. It also has a great tracked scene music.
Hacks, projects
Some people have been trying to make the add-on applications coming with the HTC Diamond work on other devices. So far, without success. The dedicated threads are as follows:
- the Diamond YouTube player. I, as the author of the YouTube Bible, am especially interested in this project. So far, very few people have managed to make it work. See THIS for more info.
- the new (v. 3.3.5) JBlend MIDlet Manager coming with the Diamond is stated to render Opera Mini with large fonts on VGA devices, which is a must on (W)VGA phones with a physically small screen. See THIS.
There is also a thread on hacking the RMVB decoder from the Samsung i780 HERE. I haven’t managed to make it run on my HP iPAQ 210; hope you have more luck.
The XDA-Devs ROM hackers have managed to release a decent WM 6.1 ROM for the HTC Oxygen (s310). I haven’t tested it before making absolutely sure the ROM upgrade won’t kill my call recording capabilities – currently, the main reason for my sticking with the s310 as my main phone. Feel free to provide any feedback on this issue.
My projects
I’ll attend a three-day lecture series of Osman Nuri Ucan (Istanbul Unversity) on "New approaches in turbo codes and their applications" in a week. I’ll report on it in my (hopefully) really soon-to-be-published Digital TV Bible, which will heavily discuss turbo and other kinds of coding. (Only for die-hard Electric Engineers - that is, not for the faint-hearted!)
I’ve also written a full Multiplatform Modem Bible for three smart phone operating systems. A preview version is available HERE. I plan to publish it as soon as I get feedback from the Joiku folks (and cleaning up the style / the English a bit). If you really want to check it out even in its half-baked state, feel free to do it / comment on the factual contents (but not the structure / English – they will still be fixed) - hopefully in 16-20 hours.
A quick update: Towers Trap is 6,47 € instead of 9,95 € (that is, about 10 US$) until 07/13/2008 at http://www.mobile2day.com/en/product_1018501_details.html
Well worth the price, I'd say.
We emulator freaks have been waiting for version FpseCE 0.10 for at least two and a half years. Back in May-June 2007 when I published my (almost) all-in-one article series on emulating other computing platforms (see THIS) on Windows Mobile, everyone was already waiting for FpseCE 0.10. This is why, back in 2007, I chose not to publish a PS Emulation Bible back in 2007, by the way – I didn’t want to end up having to (completely) rewrite it after the imminent release of the brand new version.
The waiting turned out to take more than two years; during this, frankly, I’ve given up all my hope to ever see the emulator out. (I, however, actively helped the developers to continue working on the project – I’ve donated them about $20.)
Nevertheless, last Christmas (a few days ago), it was, finally, released to the public and I need to say it’s indeed as good as expected.
It's available for download HERE. It doesn't necessarily need a ROM BIOS file, unlike psx4iphone on the iPhone.
I’ve run several compatibility and comparative speed tests. For example, I compared to the also pretty new (version 1.1.0 was released in late November 2009) psx4iphone running the emulator on the iPhone 3G S. (Note that, despite what some people state, psx4iphone is plain useless on previous-generation devices, as is also explained in my article on the previous (1.0.0) psx4iphone version – and a quick note on the initial (0.8.0) one). The results show FpseCE is way more powerful and efficient than psx4iphone: it’s only the latest and greatest, current hardware (the iPhone 3G S or the third-generation iPod touch) that the latest psx4iphone version offers approximately the same emulation speed than FpseCE on very old (for example, the five (four)-year-old Dell Axim x50v / x51v) hardware. This also means FpseCE is, in most cases, waaay faster than psx4iphone on current high-end (read: 1 GHz Snapdragon CPU) Windows Mobile devices – for example, the Toshiba TG01 and (probably) the HTC HD2. (Of course, the lack of D-pad / external controls is a big issue with these devices.)
Kudos to the developers of FpseCE – it indeed rocks! Please consider donating to the developers – they do deserve it!
Note that it’s not only with emulating the Playstation that Windows Mobile is (currently) certainly better at. The same states for all(!) other emulated platforms – the emulators are just far better, faster, featureful and more powerful for Windows Mobile than for the iPhone (even including the superfast iPhone 3G S). I, for example, haven’t reported (in a separate article) on the currently released version 1.2 / 1.3 of the Commodore 64 emulator. (Please see my remarks on the playability of Uridium and Paradroid, both coming as an in-app purchasable title, HERE). The only platform that Windows Mobile is completely unable to emulate (unlike the iPhone 3G S / iPod Touch G3) is Nintendo 64 (see ZodTTD‘s thread and info HERE); in all the other respects, Windows Mobile is way ahead of Apple’s mobile platforms.
As has already been mentioned, the emulation speed is roughly the same on the four-year-old Dell Axim x51v (which, CPU/GPU-wise, is exactly the same as the one-year-older Dell Axim x50v) than on the iPhone 3G S (the latest and greatest iPhone with a really powerful CPU and GPU) running the latest (and, to time, greatest and fastest) psx4iphone version. For example, Gran Turismo runs with 18…20 fps with sound on the 3G S (both full screen landscape and portrait modes tested; interestingly, full emulation mode didn’t visibly reduce the frame rate); on the Dell Axim x51v, it’s noticeably faster (25 fps), less sluggish and WAY better playable. (Note that, on the video, I deliberately switch to manual mode in psx4iphone on the iPhone 3G S. Otherwise, I just coulnd’t ride forward, only backwards with the “back” button – the emulator would constantly switch me back to “reverse” mode after approaching more than 3-4 mph speed. I couldn’t find a fix for this. No such problem exists under FpseCE – it runs just great in automatic – the default – mode.)
Medal of Honor, on the other hand, is the exact opposite: the 3G S runs it decidedly better (around 28 fps), while it’s much more sluggish and less pleasing on the x51v (around 22 fps). Interestingly, in the latter, in-game videos are played back flawlessly on the x51v; not so on the iPhone. This seems to be a consistently existing problem with the iPhone: while the game itself is (almost) perfectly playable, demo videos all have stuttering sound.
In the demo video, I’ve also made a quick demo (at the end of the video) of showing Assault Rigs (with the, in this game, flawless in-game sound under psx4iphone). The demo certainly shows while it’s pretty well playable (again, with sound) on the 3G S, under FpseCE 0.10, it just doesn’t get past of the intro screen.
Note that all this has been measured without any tweaking of the x51v – I haven’t tried modding the ini file to speed up emulation.
By the way, does anyone know how to make Metal Slug X work (that is, entering ‘1’ or ‘2’ players?) Based on the in-game demo, it seems to be even faster than under masterall’s FinalBurn, the – so far – only way to play the great game Metal Slug on Windows Mobile (please see THIS for more info). Or, at least, up until version 0.12 of the latter – if I remember correctly, that was the last version I’ve played the Metal Slug series with. 0.14 (the current version) is stated to have some speed optimizations. I don’t know whether this makes Metal Slug audio stuttering-free (which certainly wasn’t the case with 0.12 running on exactly the same x51v.) Incidentally, there’s a native Metal Slug port for the iPhone, Metal Slug Touch, but it pretty much s*cks (see THIS).
The demo video (please see THIS) shows the following games, in this order:
Gran Turismo (shown in both orientations on the iPhone)
Medal of Honor
Assault Rigs (again: it’s incompatible with FpseCE 0.10)
Again: check out the head-to-head iPhone 3G S vs. Dell Axim x51v video – click HERE!
Please see the following threads for more info / compatibility lists:
FpseCE 0.10
psx4iphone 1.1.0 (note that this seem to be a bit outdated; for example, it lists Gran Turismo to be incompatible, which is (no longer?) the case. Keep this in mind while reading the list!)