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First thoughts of the Nokia N95 & I’ll, in the future, publish a lot of Symbian info
Now that the HTC folks have announced they will not release the HTC Omni in the next three months, that is, there is no real successor of the HTC Universal (my current workhorse and main Pocket PC) and, frankly, none of the current Pocket PC’s (or Smartphones) appeal to me (I already have several previous-generation PPC’s and SP’s and the current HTC models don’t offer significantly more than, say, my Universal or Vox), but I’m (still) severely addicted to electronic toys & gadgets like smart phones, I’ve decided to get the Nokia N95. After all, I needed a new toy (Yes, it’s certainly HTC to blame for my decision – why on earth did they have left us high and dry on the upgrade path?)
I received it about a week ago and now I understand why a lot of, otherwise, Windows Mobile freaks (for example, the folks over at MobilitySite) publish so many news items / articles on it. Despite it being over half a year old, the Nokia folks have managed to pack in a lot of functionality into this phone. Frankly, my HTC Vox (s710) MS Smartphone (which was released about the same time as the N95), hardware-wise, seems still to be in the stone ages compared to this beauty (much heavier, much worse camera, no GPS, no 3G (let alone 3.5G), no 3D hardware acceleration, no TV out, no FM radio, impossible to set the brightness level (the Vox is far too bright in a completely dark room), no call recording / answering machine support etc.) – except for, of course, the QWERTY keyboard.
Unfortunately, there are some problems with the N95. The battery life is pretty bad, for one. While, sometimes, I only charge my TI OMAP-based (and, therefore, non-3G) phones (OK, I don’t use them much for for example Web browsing and such – I mostly use my Universal for that because of the VGA screen) once a week, the N95 requires far more frequent recharges – at least a daily one.
The size of the RAM memory is another question. While the 22-23M RAM available after boot is enough for a LOT of things under Windows Mobile, multitasking in Symbian seems to be much more memory-hungry, particularly if you use the built-in, indeed excellent Web browser. If you open some (not very big) no more than two or three pages in the factory browser, the background tasks (for example, media player) inevitably shut down. In addition (still speaking of the browser), you can’t keep more than 3-4 pages in memory; they will need to be reloaded if you go back to them. Even the pretty much memory-hungry Internet Explorer Mobile behaves better and uses less memory on Windows Mobile, let alone other browsers (for example, the at least twice more memory-friendly Opera Mobile; and I haven’t even mentioned Opera Mini, which has at least two orders of magnitude less memory usage). Fortunately, both Opera Mobile 8.65 and Opera Mini work in a far more memory-friendly way. That is, if you do plan to multitask (a lot), never ever think of getting the N95.
Speaking of the built-in browser, it indeed rocks. It’s using a narrow character set like Thunderhawk and is really able to crunch a lot of text into the visible screen estate without the need for horizontal scrolling. Also, as opposed to almost all Windows Mobile browsers (except for the slow & memory hog Minimo, the, currently, unavailable NetFront, the still slow and buggy jb5 and the unofficial and the somewhat outdated (no full page view), Russian Opera Mini 2 Mod), it allows for in-page text searching – a feature REALLY missing from mainstream Windows Mobile(-compliant), recommended browsers (Opera Mobile, IEM and the official version of Opera Mini). Also, it has really good standards compliance. While the results it presented in the Acid2 (CSS2) test were a bit worse than those of Opera Mobile or Minimo, it, otherwise, turned out to be pretty cool – for example, it has passed all my AJAX (and also the CSS1) tests.
The A2DP support, while it certainly had no quality problems with any stereo headphones (as opposed to the Microsoft BT stack on Windows Mobile) I’ve ever tested it with, has severe AVRCP problems with the Plantronics Pulsar stereo headphones: you can’t just restart playing a title from the 590A. This seems to be an issue with Nokia’s A2DP-enabled products in general: the 5300 also had, albeit different, AVRCP issues with my Plantronics 590A (but, of course, not with Nokia’s own headphones). That is, it’s still pretty sad to see neither the MS BT stack-based Windows Mobile (sometimes severe sound quality problems) nor the Nokia / Symbian platform (AVRCP problems and, after a while, drop-outs) support Plantronics’ products well.
The (stereo) speakers are of very good quality and are VERY loud. Much better than on my HTC Wizard, HTC Universal, HTC Vox, Oxygen, x51v and even the Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket Loox 718 / 720, which, so far, had the best, loudest speaker.
The (Java) MIDlet support is excellent (much better than under Windows Mobile) and is hardware 3D accelerated. While there’re few real MIDlets making use of the hardware 3D acceleration support, it’s still nice to have a device around that does support MIDlet acceleration. (More on this in my forthcoming MIDlet Bible.)
As far as the generic (non-A2DP) Bluetooth support is concerned, it, unfortunately, lacks advanced features; for example, it doesn’t support BT PAN at all (not that the MS BT stack would on Windows Mobile – actually, it was only some weeks ago that one-direction (PAN server) support was, finally, added by some XDA-Dev hackers). It can’t use other computers in DUN mode and, as it seems, it can’t connect them via a wireless serial connection either. Note that I had no file exchange problems with neither Widcomm- nor MS BT stack-based Pocket PC’s, which is certainly good news if you take into account that this isn’t necessarily the case, not even on the Windows Mobile platform.
Wi-Fi-wise, p2p connections work, should you really need something like BT PAN. Otherwise, it isn’t as good, compatibility-wise, as that of Windows Mobile. I’ve encountered far more situations where it either didn’t connect or just disconnected after 10-20 seconds than with my Vox (the Vox having the best Wi-Fi support so far). The rumored 2.x ROM update, which should be released next month, is stated to fix this problem.
The camera – particularly when taken into account it’s a phone camera – is very good, particularly when used as a video camera. I especially like the fact that, in video mode, it uses the really advanced and great H-264 (a.k.a. MPEG-4) coding, as opposed to the M-JPEG most even high-end (Canon's expensive SD/IXUS range etc.) point-and-shoot digital cameras. For example, even the latest Canon 870 IS camera (the one I’ll purchase as it has far better optics than its predecessor and has wide angle – see the just-published DPReview HERE) burns around 1.7MB every second at the best quality setting (640x480 / 30fps). The N95 burns about 20 Mbytes every minute – that is, about five times less than M-JPEG encoders – using the same VGA resolution and 30 fps, with compression artifacts not really visible during regular playback. Another comparison: low-end digicameras like the HP R717 burn 13 Mbyte a minute with QVGA (320*240), 30 fps, pretty low-quality videos. The lack of stereo (or even better) microphones is really a shame, though (not that any point-and-shoot, "real" digicams had stereo mikes – you need to use a “real” videocamera for that).
The screen is equally bad outdoors and/or in direct sunlight than those of the current Windows Mobile phones. Quite a letdown after the bright, old 176*208 Nokia screens like that of the Nokia N-Gage, which were perfectly visible / usable outdoors and even in direct sunlight. Instead of pumping out 16 million colors, Nokia should pay attention to making their screens more usable outdoors. Fortunately, the AllAboutSymbian folks declared this problem has also been fixed in the successor, the N95 8GB.
Fortunately, the screen doesn’t have polarization problems in Landscape, unlike many Pocket PC’s (all Casio transmissive color screens; the Dell Axim x50v / x51v etc.). This, and the fact that the minimal backlight level you can set is pretty low make the N95 a great bedtime device – very few gadgets are better in these two respects (the HP iPAQ hx4700 being one of them – it has even lower minimal backlight level and the same lack of polarization issues in Landscape).
Gaming-wise (let’s not forget: the N95 will be compatible with all N-Gage platform games from next month, meaning a lot of high-quality games), the hardware has both pros and cons. First, the pro: it has is excellent 3D accelerator and, again, it’s officially part of the new N-Gage platform. Then, the cons: it has pretty bad controls. Even worse, I’d say, than on most Pocket PC’s (OK, I admit the Pocket Loox 720, the HP iPAQ 2210, 38xx, 39xx, 5450 and 5550 are even worse, D-pad-wise). The sole reason for this is as follows:
it’s very easy for your thumb to accidentally press the two Menu buttons, located to the left / right of the D-pad. There isn’t anything worse than accidentally pressing them during playing a game. Fortunately, games, in general, pause themselves in these cases, so, you can still return to playing them.
if you prefer playing in Landscape (fortunately, the built-in games all support this orientation; so do some MIDlets), the multimedia buttons on the left won’t be of real help: they are very hard to press. According to the latest reviews, the latter problem, to some extent, have been fixed in the N95 8GB.
the Action button isn’t very easy to press either.
I can’t comment on the phone part (particularly recording phone calls and/or using answering machines – the biggest problem with most Windows Mobile phones) as yet as I’m still awaiting T-Mobile UK’s official unlock code so that I can use the phone outside of the UK. This is why I’ll only elaborate on the data capabilities later; most importantly, how the HSDPA support really fares, compared to my Windows Mobile devices. And, of course, I’ll also comment on the call recording capabilities.
All in all, so far, the N95 has turned out to be a VERY positive surprise and, if it records my phone calls without problems, I’ll give my HTC Oxygen to my wife and promote the N95 to be my main phone.
BTW, All About Symbian has just published a quick review of the Nokia N95 8GB, the enhanced version of the N95, which will hit the shelves REALLY soon - certainly worth reading.
Finally, an important announcement
I’ll continue publishing a LOT of information on the N95, particularly software-wise (the above is almost exclusively hardware-related) – that is, Symbian-related stuff. That is, in my future roundups, I’ll also elaborate on the comparable / related Symbian s60 products as well, starting with my MIDlet Bible, which will be published, hopefully, tomorrow. Note that the charts (main chart; 3D games Compatibily Chart and JBenchmark Chart) of it already have excessive information on the MIDlet support of Symbian. This will help
both Windows Mobile and Symbian software developers in learning how the software titles on the other platform behave, what functionality has been implemented etc. Currently, my full software roundups and Bibles are, for Windows Mobile developers, probably the number one source of information on what they should implement / work further on (at least this is what I’ve been told by most Windows Mobile top developers and I, knowing the detail of the information contained in these articles, I don’t think they’re just flattering me ). Adding multiplatform coverage will further help developers on adding features they may have not been aware of because they may not have the necessary means / time to know what a completely different, alternative mobile platform offers. This applies to developers of both platforms, of course.
originally Symbian (or, WM) users learning the new / other platform and finding software titles that offer the same (or similar) functionalities they got used to on their old (other) platform
users that have devices from both platforms will find these tests useful. As has already pointed out, the N95 beats most (if not all) Windows Mobile devices in many respects – and, of course, vice versa (for example, the GPS locking speed of natively SiRFIII-based devices, the AVRCP compliance with my Plantronics 590A A2DP headphones or the, in general, better software availability on Windows Mobile); hence, I think in the future the N95 will be always in one of my pockets (along with some of my Pocket PC’s and MS Smartphones, of course). This will greatly help them in deciding what platform / device to use for a given task.
Recommended reviews
MobileBurn
My-Symbian
Gizmodo
Nice review. I've just bought an N95 too and agree with most of your points.
But I gotta say the screen isn't really that bad, the daylight readability is quite acceptable - at least it is a transflective not transmissive like the Kaiser or the G900!
But hey you've not mentioned anything about the GPS?
wywywywy said:
Nice review. I've just bought an N95 too and agree with most of your points.
But I gotta say the screen isn't really that bad, the daylight readability is quite acceptable - at least it is a transflective not transmissive like the Kaiser or the G900!
But hey you've not mentioned anything about the GPS?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I'll re-compare it to my devices.
BTW, the Kaiser is transflective too (not sure about the G900), as are all 2.8" QVGA HTC devices. It's just that their screen is pretty hard to read outdoors. Still, they are transflective - still much better screens than real transmissive screens like that of color, old Casio models.
wywywywy said:
Nice review. I've just bought an N95 too and agree with most of your points.
But I gotta say the screen isn't really that bad, the daylight readability is quite acceptable - at least it is a transflective not transmissive like the Kaiser or the G900!
But hey you've not mentioned anything about the GPS?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
BTW, how much did you pay for your N95? (Is it the "basic", N95-1 model?)
Menneisyys said:
Thanks, I'll re-compare it to my devices.
BTW, the Kaiser is transflective too (not sure about the G900), as are all 2.8" QVGA HTC devices. It's just that their screen is pretty hard to read outdoors. Still, they are transflective - still much better screens than real transmissive screens like that of color, old Casio models.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi
I'm very interested in buying the Kaiser. Is the screen really good readable in direct sunlight?
Thank you very much in advance.
Sincerely
JCD.SAG
Menneisyys:
You 100% sure the Kaiser is transflective? Every owner I talked to said its not? I am not doubting you but I need to make sure, as I dismissed it purely because of the screen. But... even if its transflective, if it is not readable in daylight then it might as well not be.
My Hermes is obviously 2.8" too and is definitely transflective, very readable in daylight.
I bought the N95 from Mobiles2yourdoor.co.uk for free, £35 a month on 12 months contract, £175 cashback. Yes it is the basic N95 (I think its refurbished too), not the latest sexy 8GB model.
So, any update on the GPS front? I am still trying to decide which sat nav software to go for But definitely not TomTom because it STILL can't use the internal GPS receiver.
How is the Nokia N95 an upgrade from the HTC Universal
Compared to the Kaiser I would say that the only advantages of the N95 are the camera (5MP, but with extremely bad noise reduction) and video recording ([email protected] with good sound quality). If you want a VGA screen then wait for the ETEN M800 but if the video recording capabilities of the N95 appeal to you then Nokia do not yet have serious competition, AFAIK.
(My i-mobile 902 can do VGA recording, but at a very low bit rate, i.e. the end result is comparable with Video CD quality.)
UPDATE (10/28/2007):
As promised, I've started publishing (comparative) info on Symbian / the N95. The first article, the MIDlet Bible, has already been published. I'll pblish an article on the just-released, EXCELLENT Opera Mini 4 beta 3 tomorrow and will publish the long-awaited Multimedia Bible next week. Both with extensive Symbian-related remarks.
I'd like to thank "Beck" from the sprites & bites blog. In addition to sending me the phone even by her leaving without a single mobile phone for one and half a day, she was really helpful in receiving an official T-Mo UK unlock code for the device and sold the phone really cheap - she didn't try to rip me off in any way. That is, a big THANKS to her, and, if you, sometime, would trade with her, I can assure you she's 100% reliable and is an excellent seller.
Thanks again for the N95, which, otherwise, I couldn't have afforded (at its recent street price) because, after all, I've only bought it to have another toy I sometimes write about, not a(nother) Windows Mobile device I constantly use.
Finally, don't forget to check out her above-linked blog if you're interested in desktop console gaming (currently, it officially discusses the MS Xbox 360, the Nintendo Wii and the PS3) and her occasional mobility-related posts.
I’ve continued playing with the phone. First, some short remarks and, then, I discuss call recording.
The memory problem IS an issue and makes (occasional) running of the built-in browser a pain in even if you only want to see one page. For example, its memory requirements very often result in the application the browser was invoked shut down. This is really a pain if you, for example, clicked a HTML attachment in Messaging or a download link in Opera Mini. Then, there won’t be anything you can return to after having finished reading the HTML mail or downloading the file. Therefore, the built-in browser, no matter how great it is, is pretty much useless (but not on S60 3rd ed. Devices with substantially more free RAM like the N95-3 or the N95 8GB.)
The battery life turned out to be much better than I thought at first. If you don’t actively browse the Net use Wi-Fi etc. all the time and aren’t in a 3G area, you may end up having to recharge the device “only” every second day. Yeah, still much worse than the battery life of the HTC Wizard or any other TI OMAP-based Windows Mobile device, I know.
Compared to the HTC Universal Pocket PC, it has a little bit more tolerance to really low-level signals. When the Universal displays around one bar signal level, GPRS is sure to be interrupted. Not so with the N95, it was able to pretty surely
Unfortunately, the same can’t be stated about its being able to use 3(.5)G (UMTS / HSDPA). In that (at least in using 3G), the Universal seems to be better – it is clearly more sensitive. (It’s another question the Universal can’t make a usable connection with one UMTS bar visible. It’ll constantly switch between the two (GPRS and UMTS) modes, rendering Net access (and sometimes the entire handheld) almost useless – an inherent problem with Windows Mobile, unless you manually disable all kind of 3G support.
That is, if you plan to use your handset exactly at the boundary of 3+G UMTS (HSDPA) and pre-3G (GPRS. EDGE) coverage areas, there might be better handsets out there than the N95.
Bluetooth Dial-Up Networking is implemented REALLY cleverly and in a much more superior way than under Windows Mobile because it allows accessing the Net on the N95 while another client is actively using it as a modem. This really rocks. See THIS for more info on Windows Mobile’s (clearly inferior) approach.
Finally, the question of call (auto)recording – compared to Windows Mobile: In this area, the N95 is orders of magnitude better than most (but not all!) Windows Mobile handsets because 1, it does allow for recording the other party 2, while it does beep every 15 seconds (as opposed to what the manual states, that is, 5 seconds), this is only heard by the local party, not the remote one. The remote party doesn’t hear a thing – not even the initial beep about 2 seconds after starting the recording. This also means you do NOT need to use any beep filter applications (BeepOff, which, currently, doesn’t have an S60 3rd-compatible version AFAIK or the beep filter function of Ultimate Voice Recorder itself) and you can even use the built-in Recorder app (in the Office suite) to (manually) record your conversations. No beeps will be heard on the other end of the line.
I’ve played a lot with the call recording facilities and thoroughly tested the already-mentioned built-in Recorder app (which needs to be manually started and lacks memory-saving output formats), VITO AudioNotes for Nokia S60 3rd ed 1.31 and the well-known Ultimate Voice Recorder (UVR) 4.01.
I’ve created a chart of these apps:
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"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
You’re supposed to directly compare the contents of this chart to that of my Windows Mobile VITO AudioNotes review. Note that, in the meantime, Resco Audio Recorder has also received MS Smartphone support. A quick, textual comparison & explanation follows:
Records to the card: of course, all of them do. In here, I’ve listed the directories they record to. As can clearly be seen, VITO AudioNotes uses exactly the same directory structure than under Windows Mobile, clearly separating incoming and outgoing calls. This is certainly good news – as we’ll later see, the other two solutions don’t store the direction of the call.
Format: in here, I’ve listed the output file format. As can clearly be seen, the built-in Recorder produces very large (one megabyte / minute) files unless you do know the call will take less than a minute OR are ready to always begin a new recording when the first times out; in this case, you can also use the most memory-effective MMS (physically, AMR) output format. The two other apps are far better in this respect, particularly UVR, which also allows for recording directly into AMR, unlike VITO’s app.
Distinction between incoming and outgoing calls?: as has already been mentioned, only VITO’s app supports this. However, I still don’t consider this to be a stumbling block with UVR as it’s, in general, very easy to decide who was the caller, particularly if you follow my advice below on trying to defer speaking with some 1-2 seconds.
Boot-time loading?: on Windows Mobile, both Resco and VITO automatically start themselves. With PMRecorder, you can easily do the same by creating a shortcut to its main EXE file (and, then, just minimizing PMRecorder’s main window upon restarting your handset). On Symbian S60 3rd ed, only UVR is able to auto-start itself, VITO isn’t. That is, you will always need to start the latter manually.
Shut down by the OS?: as with Windows Mobile, Symbian also shuts down background tasks when the memory starts to run out. This happens on the memory-constrained N95(-1) (NOT the 128M RAM-equipped N95-3 or the N95 8GB!) a lot of times.
Under previous S60 editions, there were call recorder apps that registered themselves (and, therefore, run) as services, not as high-level applications prone to be shut down. UVR has also followed this line. Unfortunately, that’s no longer the case – UVR will be shut down on the N95 too pretty early. Fortunately, this can be very easily spotted if you let it display its icon at the bottom of the screen – if it’s hidden, then, you know it needs to be restarted.
VITO’s app, on the other hand, was a VERY nice surprise: it isn’t shut down and keeps recording flawlessly. I’ve done some VERY serious tests mass program starting tests, spanning some 15-20 minutes, to be absolutely sure this is the case. VITO was never shut down. That is, if you don’t want to continuously restart UVR, go for VITO – it will surely be in the memory, ready for recording. A big thumbs up for the VITO folks!
Caller ID (or, if it lacks, phone number, including the case of unknown other parties) in the filename?: a decent call recorder app (as all the three recommended Windows Mobile call recorders) should make a Contacts database lookup, based on the caller / callee’s phone number, in order to insert her or his name in the file name, instead of the phone number. Both specialized apps support this.
Results of problematic chars in the contact name?: just like on Windows Mobile, Symbian apps refuse to record calls where the other party can be found in your local Contacts database and her or his name contain invalid characters like slashes (/).
As can clearly be seen, neither UVR nor VITO’s app knows how to deal with these cases – they simply won’t record anything. With UVR, this is particularly painful, as it DOES show it’s recording the conversation.
Results of beep elimination?: UVR (as opposed to the, in this regard, weaker VITO app) offers beep elimination, which is highly useful on (some) other models, where the other party does hear the beeps denoting being recorded. As, on the N95, beeps aren’t transmitted to the other party, the need for such an app isn’t so important on the N95. Therefore, you can safely turn off UVR’s beep elimination functionality (set Options / Settings / Warning beep to On; it’s Off by default) if you can put up with the beeps every 15 seconds. Note that I didn’t find this necessary: while some people complain of UVR’s beep elimination making the conversations a little bit stutter upon beeps, I haven’t run into this situation on the N95. Both parties were absolutely OK and pause-less with beep elimination on; so was the recording.
Visual feedback when (in)active?: UVR displays an icon at the bottom of the screen (this can be disabled); VITO doesn’t. With UVR, this is of particular importance because you’ll see at once if UVR gets shut down.
Lagging at start: along with the following, this row explains whether the recording starts at once, or, there is some kind of a lag, making the first (few) seconds unrecorded. While VITO’s app excels at this (no lagging at all), UVR has lost this test: it starts recording some 1.5-2.5 seconds after the call has been answered.
Note that you can’t fix this problem with URL by, for example, making it record to the internal memory (as opposed to the card) or disabling the beep elimination functionality.
Cutting at end: the situation is the reverse when the opposite case (“does the recorder app finish recording prematurely; that is, (long) before the call is hung?”). VITO’s app, unfortunately, doesn’t record the last 1.5 - 2 seconds. Make sure you keep this in mind when you want to be absolutely sure everything is recorded – try to insert a pause if you are to hang up the call and not the other party!
Other goodies: just like the built-in Recording, UVR is also able to password protect recordings and is able to do some similar niceties. VITO’s only real advantage is its ability to append a new recording to existing ones (both MP3’s and WAV’s). Of course, I haven’t listed essential functionality like playing back recordings.
Verdict: if you do need call recording, N95 supports it almost flawlessly. As neither UVR nor VITO AudioNotes are perfect, you will want to carefully compare their (dis)advantages and your needs to pick the one that better suits your needs.
abubasim said:
How is the Nokia N95 an upgrade from the HTC Universal
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Click to collapse
Nope, it's not an upgrade from the Universal, but from the HTC s310 (Oxygen) Smartphone, which I've bought in order to be able to record all my phonecalls. (Phone clal recoding is very important for me so that I can put them in my diary. It's great fun to listen to 20-30-year-old phone calls.)
I've only bought the N95 because Omni wasn't announced / released, I wanted to some new toy I can play with and I had some money to burn. In addition, "beck" sold it to me quite cheap (along with the official T-Mo UK unlock code) - so, my desire for new toys was fulfilled
abubasim said:
Compared to the Kaiser I would say that the only advantages of the N95 are the camera (5MP, but with extremely bad noise reduction)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Fortunately, edge hardening can be switched off; then, the effects of noise reductions can't be spotted on all shots (only on a part of them showing, say, lawn).
abubasim said:
If you want a VGA screen then wait for the ETEN M800
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Click to collapse
It's, unfortunately, quite a bit inferior to the Omni specs. The Omni is a real upgrade to the Universal; the M800 isn't.
wywywywy said:
Menneisyys:
You 100% sure the Kaiser is transflective? Every owner I talked to said its not? I am not doubting you but I need to make sure, as I dismissed it purely because of the screen. But... even if its transflective, if it is not readable in daylight then it might as well not be.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It depends on what you call "transflective". The Wizard screen (which, I think, is exactly the same than the one in the Kaiser - after all, both are HTC and both are 2.8" QVGA - why would HTC radically change its screen between models?) is transflective, but next to unreadable in full sunlight. I'm, however, absolutely sure the Wizard's screen isn't transmissive because, being an ex-Casio / HP Jornada 680/720 user, I know how transmissive screens behave outdoors / in sunlight. They are ABSOLUTELY useless, in no way can you make out anything on the screen. Unless, of course, you put for example your coat on your head, creating a small dark room
Well, the Kaiser is certainly better than as transmissive known models like the Casios in this respect. At least, something is readable on its screen. Definitely not a, say, Nokia N-Gage, the transflective iPAQ hx4700 / h2210 or the Pocket Loox 720, let alone a reflective screen like that of the iPAQ 36xx/37xx/38xx series, but still not as bad as old Casios.
All in all, technically, the Kaiser's screen is (or, should be) transflective.
(Also cross-posting this disclaimer as a collection of answers to the questions I’ve received on different forums.)
UPDATE / DISCLAIMER (10/28/2007): Some people have misunderstood the meaning of these articles (see for example XDA-Developers, HowardForums, MoDaCo).
Note that I'm only comparing the two platforms and NOT telling anyone to get an N95. I'm not a Nokia fanboy - if you want to see how real Nokia fanboys write and what kinds of reviews(?) they publish, look at some Symbian sites (no names mentioned ). No offense towards the reviewers of these sites, of course. If you know they’re, along with their verdicts and comparisons to other platforms, heavily biased, you’ll find their articles worth checking out. Otherwise, prefer reading my articles and direct OS comparisons and don’t let fanboys misinform you.
My reviews are to the point and do emphasize the problems with both platforms (as opposed to those of some Symbian pages), Symbian and Windows Mobile alike. As I’m, I think I can state this without being laughed at (after all, I have everything a decent WM guy should have: an MS MVP, the Nominations Manager at Smartphone & PPCMag etc.), one of the guys that knows the most about Windows Mobile (programming-wise too), I think I’m able to objectively compare operating systems.
An answer to another common question (some people thought I’ve purchased the Nokia to be a successor of my Universal): I've bought the handset NOT to be an upgrade from the Universal (it’d be pretty hard for a QVGA device to be an upgrade from a VGA one, wouldn’t be?), but from the HTC s310 (Oxygen) Smartphone, which I've bought in order to be able to record all my phone calls. (Phone call recoding is very important for me so that I can put them in my diary. It's great fun to listen to 20-30-year-old phone calls. That is, for phoning, I don't buy anything that isn't call recording-capable - this is why I've bought an, otherwise, very incapable phone (HTC s310) to be my current main phone.) As an s310 replacement, the N95 REALLY excels and offers WAY more in every respect (except for battery life and size).
I've only bought the N95 because Omni wasn't announced / released, I wanted to some new toy I can play with and I had some money to burn (that is, to get some new gadgets to play with). In addition, "beck" sold it to me quite cheap (along with the official T-Mo UK unlock code) - so, my desire for new toys was fulfilled That is, I haven't meant at all "the N95 is better than the Universal in every respect" - again, we're comparing apples and oranges.
I also recommend my remarks & comments HERE in the Comments section.
Menneisyys said:
It depends on what you call "transflective". The Wizard screen (which, I think, is exactly the same than the one in the Kaiser - after all, both are HTC and both are 2.8" QVGA - why would HTC radically change its screen between models?)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well it definitely isn't the same one as in the 2.8" QVGA Hermes.
wywywywy said:
Well it definitely isn't the same one as in the 2.8" QVGA Hermes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, good to know HTC has messed this up royally.
A friend of mine has just ordered one; I'll definitely take comparative screenshots when it arrives.
Have you ever wanted to listen to radio stations on the Net? With
the advent of the pre-3G technology EDGE, which, with most network operators, is sufficient for listening to most (if not all) radio stations on the Net (let alone 3G, of course),
the proliferation of unlimited data contracts
and, last but in no way least, the really revolutionary, bandwidth-saving, "high-quality stereo even over slow GPRS connections" AAC+ (also known as HE-AAC, aacPlus etc.) streams becoming common,
they have become accessible to almost everyone with a connected mobile device (for example, a mobile phone) on both the Windows Mobile and the Symbian platform. (Note that the final version of the article / chart will also have extensive info on the seriously enhanced Pocket Tunes 4.0 on the Palm OS – that is, it’ll cover no less than THREE mobile operating systems!)
In my forthcoming article, I discuss for example the following questions:
What radio stations there are?
How you can access them?
What should you pay attention to, depending on whether you’re on an unlimited contact, and/or super-slow GPRS connections?
Which radio client to choose, depending on your needs?
Note that I still haven’t decided whether I should publish the Multimedia Streaming Bible as a separate entity, or, part of my (even larger) Multimedia Bible. There are both pros and cons in both approaches:
Pros:
I can publish it in the next one or two days – you don’t need to wait some 1-2 additional weeks for the Bible to be, finally, published
Separating these pretty disjunctive subjects greatly help in reducing the size of the Multimedia Bible. This would be pretty much welcome as it’s going to be BIG. Very big.
Cons:
It’ll miss a lot of information I’ll only give you in the “big” Multimedia Bible like equalizer support, hardware button support, alarm / sleep shutdown functionality, screen dimming etc. That is, the Streaming Bible will only contain information strictly related to audio streaming and will not contain other info, which may make it easier to choose from the given apps. (This missing info, however, WILL be present in the final Multimedia Bible – sometimes later.)
And yes, before I forget about it: HERE’S THE CHART. Do check it out, do comment it, do send me flames and/or greetings. And, do enjoy the information not readily available anywhere else - for example, many people have been hunting for an AAC+-capable player for ages (see for example THIS). Yes, noone has actually published a tutorial on what players are able to play these streams.
It contains both protocol compliance reports, battery life-related remarks (with Windows Mobile, in CPU usage percentage; with Symbian, in Watts) and some other goodies like whether they’re able to record the radio stream.
Again and again, as has already been pointed out above, the chart mostly contains strictly (audio) streaming-related info. That is, I haven’t for example elaborated on stuff that I’ll discuss in the final Multimedia Bible. Subjects like these are equalizers, button handling, AVRCP compliance etc. I’ve mentioned SOME of these in the Pros / Cons rows at the bottom but, except for the links, the price and the MOST important compatibility information (for example, Mundu Radio’s not really supporting (W)VGA Pocket PC’s). These questions will ALL be covered in the chart targeted at the wider audience (not only those that want a radio client).
Also note that I don’t discuss Orb and the like in here; they’ll only be elaborated on in the final Multimedia Bible. The same stands for video streaming, LAN access and UPnP. With this Bible, my “only” aim is to give you a complete picture of listening to the already existing, remote radio stations on the Net.
Added the just-released Kinoma Play 1.0 and Spb Online 1.0 to the chart. See my Spb Online review for more info.
Introduction
What is Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) and why you might want to make use of it? To get a nice overview what it’s all about, spend some time on reading the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) tutorial’s first three pages HERE, HERE and, finally, HERE. These pages are also interlinked so you can just safely follow the “Learn how DLNA works” link at the bottom of the first page. I especially recommend the interactive “What can you do with DLNA products?” section at the bottom of the third page. Try selecting all the possible pairs to see what a particular device pair can be used for - this demo is really instructive. An example screenshot showing what for example the NAS & networked TV pairing can be used for:
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
Pretty instructive, isn't it? Again, I really recommend playing with the different pairings so that you get a clear picture of what UPnP can really be used for. In addition, please PLEASE do read the above DLNA intro (the three pages) so that you understand what UPnP is about and the terms used in this UPnP Bible. I’ve refrained from reproducing (almost) the same info in here so that I could concentrate on the more important and never-before-published subject: how this all works on the two most widely used mobile platforms: Windows Mobile and Symbian.
You might also want to take a look at the Wiki page (most importantly, the “UPnP AV (Audio and Video) standards” section) but it’s highly technical and, for a non-pro, in no way as comprehensible as the DLNA tutorial. Note that the DLNA tutorial doesn’t explain what “Controllers” are. It’s, as has also been explained in the Wiki (officially referred to by “MediaServer ControlPoint”), is like a remote controller between the source (the “MediaServer”), that is, typically a file store, and the target (the “MediaRenderer”); that is, typically, a TV set, a monitor or a home Hi-Fi.
On both Windows Mobile and Symbian (more precisely, the latest-generation, N-series Nokia handsets) all these three functionalities are supported:
a phone can act as the source (“MediaServer”) of multimedia content (for example, the pictures you’ve taken with the built-in camera; the MP3’s you have on your storage card etc.)
it can also act as the mediator (“MediaServer ControlPoint”) between the server and the renderer. That is, it can select the files on the server you’d like to, say, see on your TV / listen to on your home Hi-Fi etc. It also allows for basic playback control functionality like pausing/ resuming, previous / next etc.
finally, it can also function as the target of the stream: the device that actually plays back the video / audio / images on its own screen / audio unit. That is, it’s also a “MediaRenderer”.
As far as the two operating systems are concerned, all these functionalities are implemented. First, a birds-eye view on what’s available and supported.
For Windows Mobile (WM), currently, there are three apps with UPnP capabilities: Nero Mobile Pro, Conduits’ Pocket Player and Rudeo Play & Control (at the time of writing - December, 2007 - no preview of CorePlayer 1.2 was available. It will also have UPnP support.)
For the newer Nokia N-series Symbian devices (N95 (8 GB ), N81, N82), the OS already has built-in, pretty impressive (no third-party, commercial apps are needed) UPnP support.
[*]: with the N95, only starting with firmware version v20, not with previous OS’es; also see THIS. Note that the manual printed with the original N95 still reflects this (old) state.
[**]: limited presentation capabilities (while it has no problems with the much more important streaming): no library, not even file system folder-separated view
Now, let’s take a look at what functionalities the MediaRenderer-capable applications offer.
I'll later explain what the difference between pre-fetching and streaming is.
Incidentally, the second column ("Accessible for external controllers") is also clearly visible in the following Windows Vista screenshot:
It shows the following UPnP servers / renderers in order: Nero MediaHome (server), N95 (server), (the notebook itself, where the screenshot has been taken), the built-in UPnP server of the Vista on the notebook, the Conduits Pocket Player (PP) renderer (!) on the “wr-x51v” PDA; the same PP on the same PDA as a server; PP as a server on the “wr-univ” and, finally, PP as a renderer on the same “wr-univ”.
1.1 Differences between traditional Remote Media Controllers (RMC’s) and full UPnP applications
Back in February, I’ve already published an extensive Bible on all non-UPnP applications. Now, let’s see what the real difference between a fully-fledged UPnP app and the, back then, reviewed remote controllers is!
First, as you may already have guessed (without even reading my previous Bible), RMC’s can only remotely control media player applications – they don’t offer built-in, local rendering (MediaRenderer) or file serving (server) capabilities. The best, UPnP-capable titles in this respect (currently, as of late December, 2007, Pocket Player 3.51 on Windows Mobile and the built-in UPnP client on the latest Nokia N-series models) offer both of these.
Second, their configuration can be much more complicated than those of UPnP clients, particularly when you need to manually (!) enter the local network address of the server (also containing the media player) you’d like to remotely control. This is true with almost all RMC’s not capable of discovery protocols to automatically discover controllable servers in the LAN. UPnP’s automatic discovery also greatly helps in this respect: you don’t need to do any manual work; just let the controller discover the servers / renderers and you’re all set.
Third, you can only remote control a Windows PC (in cases, other desktop OS’es are also supported) with those “old-fashioned” RMC’s because all the tested applications need server&renderer-side custom software to be installed. This also means it’s impossible to remote control for example Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices (file servers) or plain renderers like a flat TV. With UPnP, all these can be remote controlled.
1.2 Available UPnP-capable software
Now, let’s take a look at what’s available on mobile platforms. Note that as far as Palm OS is concerned, not even Pocket Tunes, by far the best music player support UPnP (and CorePlayer won’t support it either) – you need to go the manual route explained in my RMC Bible for being able to stream stuff from your local UPnP network. There’s a nice thread on this all HERE.
Please, Windows Mobile users, don’t be disgruntled because of including Symbian. Some of the, especially, multimedia / entertainment-centric smartphones like the Nokia N95, N81 and N82 have excellent capabilities well worth incorporating into Windows Mobile handhelds. For example, these devices support UPnP “out of the box”, which is only available (if at all – see for example the complete lack of, say, UPnP printer support in current WinMo apps) with (expensive) third-party applications on WinMo. A direct inter-OS (operating system) comparison like this will certainly help both Microsoft decide to, finally, include UPnP in Windows Mobile (not only on non-WM WinCE 6 devices) and also shows WinMo hardware manufacturers what they should concentrate their forces on – for example, at really (!!!) lowering Wi-Fi power usage when not actively used.
The same also states for Symbian users. I know you’d rather not see Windows Mobile contents in here, but, again, such a comparison is instructive for you too because, then, you’ll know what Nokia should be told in order to improve the facilities of its client. And, as I seriously doubt anyone (except me) would write a thorough feature comparison / buglist of these two operating systems, Symbian developers can make great use of this report.
1.2.1 Windows Mobile
1.2.1.1 Conduits Pocket Player 3.51
Currently (before the release of CorePlayer 1.2 and its UPnP support) this is definitely the best and most versatile UPnP client for Windows Mobile. It has definite advantages over the alternatives: first, as opposed to the two other WM solutions, it can act as a server. Second, as opposed to Nero’s app, it can act as a pure controller (without locally rendering anything), in which it can be pretty handy at just controlling the data flow between your home entertainment devices. After all, if you do have a UPnP-enabled flat TV (with an excellent H.264 decoder), why would you want to watch the same video on the small screen of your smart phone? On the other hand, your phone is one of the best tools to actually remote control the data flow in the network - you, for example, won't need to purchase additional, UPnP-only remote controllers if you already have a UPnP remote control-capable phone in your pocket.
The UPnP interface, accessible under Browse / Network, is pretty easy to master. In addition, moving between the pages (with the left/right D-pad arrows) is very easy too – not so with, say, the much more awkward (and VERY slow!) Nero Mobile Pro, where it's very easy not to be able to click the "Back" arrow at the top of every list.
It’s only at remote controlling that I’ve found it a bit lacking: the pure remote control user interface (UI) it uses isn’t as intuitive as that of Nokia or Rudeo: you need to use a separate, list-based UI. That is, not the native, well-known and familiar playback interface, but a completely different one depicted here:
In this regard, Nokia’s and the Rudeo apps are definitely better. Again, on these, you can use the well-known controls to control the multimedia stream flow between the media server and the renderer as if you played back a local stream as can be seen in the following screenshot:
As can also be seen, Nokia's (and Rudeo's too) not only displays the controls to control the rendering of a multimedia stream, but also displays its metadata, the progress etc. No such features are available with Pocket Player.
1.2.1.1.1 Additional screenshots & usage tips
An example of browsing my (Vista) notebook: the main category list. All these contain the usual categorization: the music list shows the traditional (example of the album view and, inside of it, the list of the individual songs) library view.
The list of videos is also shown; they, however, can’t be played back, not even WMV files (which are, by default, supported by PP with local playback) – only the sound will be heard. If playback starts at all, that is - it doesn’t seem to work on WM6 (only the list is shown, play controls don’t work) ; it does on WM5 as can also be seen in HERE (notice that the movie is being played back). Unfortunately, this also applies to viewing pictures – while their list is correctly displayed, “Play” doesn’t result in their being actually displayed.
PP is also able to use another renderer (screenshot of stepping into the menu); for example, in THIS screenshot, you can see the GUI for remote controlling a device.
1.2.1.1.2 Problems (as of version 3.51)
1. Even Western (äö, for example) accents in the title of the MP3 tags (the one needed to be displayed in the given situation) result in the clients not being able to connect. The Symbian client displays the server’s refusing the connection (“Selected device rejected the operation”):
The Nero Mobile client, when run from another PPC, just crashes and immediately exits when stepping into a view that would contain an accent anywhere. From the same PPC, it “only” refuses to display anything including and after the accent. For example, if you have the album “Hilapiäles” from the artist “Pömpeli”, then, only a single “P” will be displayed as an artist name (the second letter, ö, is already accented) and only “Hilapi” as the album name.
2. When (this is a very rare case but you may still run into it, particularly if you try to remote control a Windows Mobile PDA from, say, a Symbian phone, which defaults to remote rendering) it’s controlled from an external controller and its renderer module is instructed to connect to its MediaServer module, the connection will fail. During this, it just displays a local (192.168.0.1:51524) connection message for about 30 seconds; nothing happens after this, no playback / anything.
3. When operated in direct mode (NOT remote controlled! In the latter case, it has no problems accessing MediaServers!), it can’t connect to other Windows Mobile / Symbian servers (tested with both serving-capable UPnP apps: Pocket Player itself, running on another Pocket PC, and Nokia’s UPnP app). Then, it displays a “Server Error or Access Denied” error message.
1.2.1.2 Rudeo Play & Control 2.9.15
In my RMC Bible, I’ve already discussed the non-UPnP-capable version of this program, Rudeo Control for Windows Media Player. Rudeo Play & Control is entirely different as it’s specifically written for controlling UPnP-compliant servers and renderers – and to play back from the latter.
(playing back a song remotely; also showing the target renderer; note that the song title is only shown at the bottom)
(playing back a song locally, also showing the target renderer)
(server list)
During install time, you can also install a server-side component, which lets for some goodies well-explained in the user guide. It, however, didn’t work with my setup (XP SP2 + WMP 11).
Other screenshots: filelist of the, in the previous screenshot, listed two servers. As can be seen, it correctly lists the categories / files. Quickly playing a title is pretty easy (if you don’t want to fuss with playlists): just tick the given song, tap and hold it and select “Checked – Add and Play” as can be seen in HERE.
It seems it has severe problems with the CPU usage even in pure remote control mode (the same on the Wizard, in pure remote control mode; the red chart is the charted Rudeo executable). The situation is even worse when it locally plays back music (Wizard example screenshot HERE); then, the CPU usage can be so high that the player really quickly chews through the battery. Note that this seems to be a generic problem with all Rudeo products: Rudeo Control for Widows Media Player also had unpredictable, sometimes very high CPU usage (see my previous RMC Bible).
Incidentally, as has already been mentioned, like Nokia’s player and as opposed to Pocket Player and Nero and, it pre-fetches the songs before playing them. This can be a bit time-consuming, largely depending on the speed / optimization of the storage card. Unlike with the Nokia, where you can set where the fetched file should be temporarily stored (either the card or the, at times, much faster built-in storage), you can’t do the same on Rudeo’s controller.
1.2.1.3 Nero Mobile Pro 1.4.0.9
I’ve already reviewed the individual audio file playback and MPEG-4 ASP/AVC playback support of Nero Mobile Pro. Unfortunately, compared to the best (and, at times, even free like TCPMP!) titles, it didn’t really excel at them.
The case is pretty much the same with UPnP. First, it only has pretty basic UPnP support. It has absolutely no MediaServer and (purely remote) MediaController capabilties, unlike all of the alternatives (note that Rudeo can’t act as a MediaServer either; Pocket Player and Nokia can). That is, it can “only” connect to other UPnP MediaServers and play back (locally render) their contents on the PDA itself. That is, you can’t use it at all to, say, remote control the communication between your UPnP-capable flat panel TV and network storage – again, unlike with all the other alternatives.
1.2.2 Symbian (Nokia N-series)
The latest Nokia N-series (that is, multimedia-centric) phones have UPnP support built-in. Before the latest (2007 Autumn / Winter) batch of multimedia Nokia phones, they - in addition to being MediaServers and the ability to send files directly to, say, UPnP printers - were only able to remote control other UPnP devices. That is, they didn’t have local, on-phone rendering (playback) capabilities. Now, with the latest models (N81, N82, N95 8GB ) and firmware upgrades of older models (N95-1 with the v20 firmware), a (pre-fetching) renderer component has also been added.
(main mediaserver list; as can be seen in there, it saw Conduits Pocket Player’s server on my Dell Axim x51v; Orb, Nero Mediahome and the built-in UPnP server in Vista on my notebook called “WR-NOTEBOOK”; the Conduits Pocket Player’s server on my HTC Universal and, finally, the TVersity UPnP server on my notebook.)
A quick tip: by default, when you select a (single) song on an external MediaServer to be played back on the (local) Nokia, when you click on the song, the pop-up window displayed only lists the external renderers.
In order to play back the title on the local Symbian device itself, you must select Play / On device instead:
Note that the other menu item in this submenu, “Via home network”, results in displaying the available renderers on the network – that is, the same dialog as above. Also note that, if you select more than one song to play back with either Mark/Unmark / Mark all viewed or with the traditional multiple selection shortcut on your particular model (for example, on the N95, holding down the pen button while navigating down with the D-pad), you will only be able to use this menu for initiating playback. Simply pressing Action on a title to be played back on another, external renderer won’t work when more than one title are selected.
Note that, in order for the other devices to see your Symbian device (that is, it can act as a MediaServer), you must manually enable “Show phone” in “Visibility in network” in the settings as can be seen in HERE. This needs to be done every time you start Tools / Connectivity / Home media – this setting, unlike with Conduits Pocket Player’s similar setting (Browse / Setting/ Enable sharing), doesn’t stick.
Still speaking of PP, it’s also worth pointing out that, in Pocket Player, sharing your own contents is, by default, disabled; therefore, you may want to click all the three list elements in Browse / Network / Settings so that they become the following:
(the second list item makes Pocket Player controllable from another MediaController. If you don't need it, just don't click it).
Finally, in addition to multimedia playback / remote control, the Symbian UPnP client excels at something the Windows Mobile clients don’t support: handling non-multimedia UPnP devices like wireless UPnP printers. To make use of them, you can just copy any document to them with “Copy to home network”:
1.2.2.1 Problems with the Symbian client
Unlike with all (!) MediaServers (Windows Mobile and desktop alike), it doesn’t support media library or even file system-based file / media separation. That is, while it does have three main categories (Music, Images&Videos, Uploaded) (the latter for direct file transfer – the N95 supports it both as a client and a server – note that few other MediaController clients support this). (The same category screenshot is HERE, taken on the desktop running Cidero, which I’ll elaborate on later.)
Inside these categories, however, ALL the available files are shown without any separation (screenshots: Music; Images&Videos) – neither library-, nor file system-based. Hope the Nokia folks fix this VERY annoying issue some time and at least adds file system-based separation, if not the full Music Player library support.
1.3 Minimizing power usage – with benchmarks
1.3.1 Rendering: Pre-fetching vs. streaming
As has already been explained, a media renderer may opt for pre-fetching a file before / during playback so that it doesn’t have to stream the content all the time from the MediaServer. Two renderers follow this approach: Nokia’s and Rudeo.
Pre-fetching, while it’s certainly has its drawbacks (for example, pre-fetching huge media files may just fail because of the lack of storage space and/or can be lengthy at first), has some definite advantages; most importantly, the Wi-Fi power usage can be minimized – if it automatically powers down itself after a given inactivity time threshold. The following screenshot certainly shows this all:
I’ve played back several songs during the test; the power usage peaks definitely show the boundaries of these songs. (It was slightly before the end of each song that the Wi-Fi unit was activated and the next song was quickly pre-fetched.) As can clearly be seen, the average power usage was 0.57W, which is about only 0.18W more than playing back local MP3’s (see THIS for more info & never before published benchmarks on the latter). Pretty impressive, isn’t it?
Interestingly, keeping the N95 visible (again, it defaults to being invisible) in the Wi-Fi UPnP network (as a server device) was also really battery-friendly – only consuming some 0.11W’s (that is, almost the same as without Wi-Fi).
As far as Rudeo on Windows Mobile is concerned, it also does pre-fetching, which also allows for the Wi-Fi unit’s powering down. However, as the CPU usage of Rudeo is pretty high, the overall power usage will also remain high, particularly with non-battery-friendly CPU’s like the Intel XScale PXA-2XX series (their latest, PXA-3XX series, now, Marvel-branded CPU’s are stated to be better in this respect; I've elaborated on the huge power usage increase with increasing CPU usage when compared to, in this respect, much better architectures like the newer TI OMAP platform for example HERE, in section "1.1.1.1 Battery life considerations" - worth a read!). The following acbTaskMan screenshot (measured on a Dell Axim x51v with minimal backlight and moderate sound volume) clearly shows this:
This chart shows an about 2-3-minute-long initial pre-fetch session, when all the three demo songs were pre-fetched for playback on the local PPC (about 450 mA current, with 600 mA peaks). After the fetching has completed, the player switched to regular playback and the Wi-Fi unit was powered down to idle state, but the CPU usage remained very high (20% at 624 MHz, with much higher peaks) – hence the overall ~280 mA current.
It can clearly be stated that, battery usage-wise, prefetching is WAY better than streaming solutions. The following screenshot shows Nero Mobile Pro (in minimized state – let’s not forget that its graphics takes a LOT of CPU cycles, resulting in even worse figures) streaming (MP3’s from Orb) on the Dell Axim x51v (run without a charger). As can clearly be seen, the average Amperage was around 450 mA’s, while the CPU usage at around 60% - that is, not much higher than with Rudeo (let alone the N95, which has by far the best power management). Yes, prefetching surely has definite advantages.
The situation is similarly bad with Pocket Player, which also uses streaming:
As can clearly be seen, the Amperage has always been around 380 mA (with the lowest backlight level and default Wi-Fi sensitivity setting) – which is still about 100 mA’s more than with Rundo and its Wi-Fi power saving by pre-fetching contents. The somewhat lower CPU usage of Pocket Player doesn’t really help in this respect.
Note that the previous screenshot has been made on the 520 MHz HTC Universal because, on the x51v, for some reason, PP has produced far worse results, where the CPU usage is way more as can also be seen in HERE. Frankly, I don’t know what this is caused by.
Note that both Nokia’s engineers and Rudeo’s developers allow for continuous playback: Nokia pre-fetches the next song while still playing the last one and Rudeo fetches all the songs (and writes to the storage card) while playing the first (few) song(s). This results in no pauses between songs (if there are more than one of them) – only the starting of the playback of the first song will be delayed.
1.3.2 Remote controlling
The situation with pure remote controlling is pretty much the same as with above. The power saving feature of the Nokia kicks in quite fast and results in about 0.15-0.17W generic power usage (that is, about 0.07 Watts more than without Wi-Fi remote control activated). Windows Mobile-based devices, in this mode, fare far better than in the previous case as can clearly be seen in the following screenshot:
As can clearly be seen, the average current is 130-150 mA (just slightly more than without doing anything and a LOT less than the ~400 mA average of active Wi-Fi streaming), which clearly shows the Wi-Fi unit is idling and the CPU usage, which is very low, doesn’t contribute much to the overall power usage.
1.3.2.1 Try disconnecting / powering down your handset when not actively remote controlling!
Finally, a quick tip. As has also been explained in the RMC Bible, you can safely disconnect / power down your handset after initiating a (fully) remote playback – that is, between, for example, a NAS and a flat TV. Then, when you need remote control again, you just power on your device, let the Wi-Fi unit reconnect and you'll almost promptly be able to regain remote control on both the server and the renderer. This is pretty much the same as with traditional, non-UPnP RMC applications and, again, is thoroughly explained in the RMC Bible.
1.4 Networking
If you plan to use your handset in a “real” home environment (to, for example, control the multimedia data flow between a flat TV and a Network Attached Storage), you’ll end up having to use Wi-Fi.
You may (depending on whether your clients are Bluetooth PAN – see below – capable) also want to use Wi-Fi if you “only” have computers on your network. Then, you’ll have somewhat more choices: you can use both infrastructure and peer-to-peer (p2p) mode between the devices. The latter doesn’t require an access point and is supported by both Windows Mobile and Symbian.
However, if you strive for better battery life, you can also use Bluetooth (BT) Personal Area Network (PAN) if and only if all your UPnP components support it. Unfortunately, there’s no widespread support for BT PAN. Symbian devices don’t support it at all; neither do Windows Mobile ones with the MS BT stack in client mode (and, unrestricted, in server mode only with an additional hack). That is, it’s only with Windows Mobile devices with the (in cases, “hacked”, post-installed) Widcomm (Broadcom) BT stack that you can use this form of very battery-friendly form of multimedia sharing / control.
Please also see the related section in the old RMC Bible for more info on all these networking-related questions. Also, let me know if you don’t know how to set up these kinds of networks - but, of course, before asking, first, read the linked article (and all the backlinked ones - I've publsihed several, extensive tutorials on creating for example peer-to-peer Wi-Fi networks).
2. Desktop UPnP apps
Should you want to play with desktop (Windows, Linux, Mac etc.) servers / controllers / renderers, you’ll want to check out the following section. Note that you will in no way need these applications for your mobile UPnP clients to operate in an already-deployed UPnP home network; I’ve only presented it to you so that you know where to look for, say, a pure, but decent and free (!) controller running on any desktop or server OS (for that, I recommend Cidero’s app). These can help a lot with quickly seeing whether a given server is accessible / visible on the network, what content it offers etc.
Another great use for these apps (in this case, Nero MediaHome) is seeing what’s happening in the UPnP network, how many users / clients have connected to your server from which local IP’s. These apps greatly help in tracking down possible networking problems. For this kind of problem fixing, I recommend Nero MediaHome the most.
In the next three subsections, I elaborate on the three main components of the UPnP architecture: (Media)Server, (Media)Controller and (Media)Renderer. In general, there’re no software products implementing all these three functionalities (unlike, say, Conduits Pocket Player on Windows Mobile). There’s On2Share Pro - UPnP AV Suite that promises to implement all of this (it has a 14-day trial and is pretty cheap: only 19.95 euros), but I’ve never managed to make it really work – neither under Windows XP nor under Vista. (I’ve tried to do this on two different desktop PC’s, using two different networking topologies – both peer-to-peer Wi-Fi and using a standard access point. A no-go. While it did list the other UPnP-capable, visible (either a server (upper listbox) or a renderer (lower listbox)) participants:
(another screenshot of the lower part of the server list)
it wasn’t able to communicate with them in any way. (Note that the screenshot has been taken under Vista, using large fonts (a must on a 15" UXGA screen); this is why the lower left buttons are messed up; on XP, with normal fonts, it's correctly rendered. Also note that it displays 127.0.0.1 as the local IP, that is, localhost. This shows the computer had no active Internet connection when the app was started (I've, later, set up an Internet-less p2p Wi-Fi connection manually). Don’t let this make you think I’ve messed up the setup – in other tests, I’ve restarted it so that it received a real LAN IP address. Then, it didn’t work either.)
2.1 (Pure) Servers (MediaServers)
2.1.1 TVersity
Along with Sling (which I haven’t been able to test because it’s still not available in Europe, except for the U.K.) and Orb, TVersity is the most popular remote (WAN; that is, non-local (LAN) UPnP) streaming server, allowing for a lot of niceties; for example, dynamic radio / media transcoding. If you already know this app (because, for example, you’ve used its streaming capabilities over remote mobile networks), you’ll certainly welcome its UPnP capabilities.
(the share config screen; the second tab, with the list of the contents on the server, looks like this – as can clearly be seen, it’s pretty complicated to navigate between the server multimedia contents as there’s no scrollbar. A screenshot of browsing TVersity on a Symbian device is HERE)
TVersity, of course, has its own discussion forum; of it, I recommend THIS thread.
2.1.2 Orb
This is probably the most widely known, free (!!!) home streaming server also compatible with Windows Mobile. It also supports UPnP. It comes with UPnP enabled by default:
Unfortunately, it doesn’t have as nice debug / client configuration capabilities as Nero MobileHome either. But, at least, it’s free and, when it comes to transcoding, definitely more capable than the latter. All in all, highly recommended.
2.1.3 Nero MobileHome
It’s part of the, if you’re into AVC (H.264 / MPEG-4 Part 10) video encoding, pretty much recommended Nero 8 Ultra Edition.
Compared to the first two servers listed above, it has some goodies. For example, with the two servers, it’s impossible to see what clients have been connected, what they’re listening to / watching, what client they use etc. For example, HERE is a list of the renderers found.
The following screenshot:
shows a case in where it’s even more useful: it shows what clients have connected, what they’re streaming / downloading, what they really are etc. In the shot, the first client is Conduits Pocket Player running on my x51v and streaming “02 Track 2.wma” (at 35%); the second is Nero Mobile Pro running on another Pocket PC in the network and streaming “06 Track 6.wma” (at 14%). Also, it lets you define what network interface to use for streaming.
Otherwise, it has pretty much the same capabilities as the former two servers:
- manual addition of shared media directories (note that it also supports automatic refreshing via Nero Scout)
- streams TV
- supports a remote UI
- supports transcoding
(Note that in my forthcoming Multimedia Bible I will continue elaborating on these three products: they have excellent, remote (non-UPnP), smart phone-compliant transcoding and TV/radio streaming capabilities well worth exploiting.)
2.1.4 Other servers
MediaTomb: free, open source, non-Windows
TwonkyVision Media Server (the forum is worth checking out for generic UPnP-related discussions too)
DLink Media Server
Philips Media Manager
JRiver Media Center
Note that Windows Media Connect (still recommended on the Rudeo page) 2.0 is no longer available because the same functionality is built into Windows Media Player 11 for Windows XP or Windows Vista
2.2 (Pure) controllers (MediaControllers)
Cidero - Java-language, multiplatform controller. Don’t be afraid of it being written in Java – it’s very easy to install: just download the installer EXE, run it and you’re set.
It’s a very nice and free app. As it has no built-in renderer, you must use an external one to play back multimedia content.
2.3 (Pure) Renderers
Probably the most important is the Un*x-based GMediaRender; unfortunately, it has no desktop Windows version.
Hardware-wise, Sony PlayStation 3 (PS3) is generally considered one of the best media clients / AV (for example MP4 HD) renderers.
Whoa, AMAZING!
thank you!
this is very much to digest all at once, but i'll get into it and start trying it for myself
UPDATE (12/23/2007): There’s a nice quick summary of how a mobile device can be used for in a home environment HERE, in the first post of the thread. It’s worth a read if you still don't really understand what UPnP can be used for in everyday life. (Note that it discusses the Nokia N95 in this scenario. Of course, any other, UPnP- & remote control-capable mobile device can be utilized in exactly the same way. Also note that it still discusses the old, pre-v20 firmware of the Nokia N95. As has also been mentioned in the (currently) last post of the thread, the N95 has received real renderer capabilities in the meantime.)
Omnia
The Samsung Omnia now comes with uPnP control point software.
yannick said:
The Samsung Omnia now comes with uPnP control point software.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
cool, thanks, in a subsequent update, I'll post this piece of info.
By wikipedia, a list of hardware and software UPNP media server/player/renderer/...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPnP_AV_MediaServers
It hasn't a seccion for windows mobile, anyone for add our seccion for PDA?
great write up!
As many of you already know, the long-awaited, high-end, albeit “disconnected” HP iPAQ 21x series is out - currently, the only (standalone) PDA to have a 4", good-quality (if they use the same, excellent screen as in the predecessor, the hx4700 – that is, not a cr*ppy one, heavily suffering from severe polarization issues like the one in the Dell Axim x50v/x51v) VGA screen – at a pretty nice price point, compared to the high-end PDA phones of, say, HTC.
Some (not all – see for example THIS) of the initial discussions talked about the new, high-end, 210-series being based on the PXA320 CPU, the best of the new, Marvel PXA3x0 series. This is why I really was looking forward to this device - after all, it would have been the very first VGA device to sport a PXA320.
Currently, there is only one Windows Mobile model out there with the PXA320, the LG KC1, but it's just an, in my opinion, pretty much mediocre QVGA phone - really nothing to write home about (no 4” VGA and it’s Korean and WM5-only – and I don’t know of “hacked”, “cooked” ROM’s making it English – albeit I haven’t searched XDA-Devs for more info), except for the high (806 MHz) CPU clock, which can come VERY handy when running for example emulators like Masterall's excellent FinalBurn, the various SNES or GBA emulators or Mplayer playing back HTTP RealAudio streams, all requiring as much processing power as possible.
Using the new PXA320 instead of the 310 would have been a decent decision. Not only because of the higher CPU clock (and, therefore, the higher maximal speed) and other goodies like the large(r) cache, but also because of the seemingly superior video decoding capabilities, which help a lot with decoding for example full (not just “plain” 640-wide VGA), that is, PAL/NTSC-resolution (720 pixels wide) H.264 videos (please consult the just-linked H.264 Bible if you don’t but would like to understand this paragraph). Incidentally, the H.264 PXA320 is so powerful that it’s even rumored to be able to decode 720p (that is, 1280*720) H.264 videos on even an underpowered Pocket PC (!!) without problems. Quite a feat, isn’t it? Not that there would be any point in watching 1280*720 videos on a 640*480 (or, at most, 800*480) screen – let alone the huge storage requirements of these x264 files, which, in many cases, exceed the file size capabilities (4096 Mbytes at most) of the FAT32 file system used on current cards (because, initially, they were designed for NTFS or other file systems capable of much bigger files).
However, HP’s decision for going with the clearly worse 310 is pretty much understandable (considering the price difference between the two CPU’s) and acceptable – as long as you resize & reconvert your H.264 videos to be no wider than 640 pixels. Then, assuming CorePlayer (the premium video player for all major mobile platforms) indeed, as is promised HERE, receives support for WMMX in version 1.2, you’ll see a dramatic increase in decoding efficiency of at least inferior video formats like MPEG-1 and MPEG-4 Part 2 (a.k.a. DivX / Xvid; not to be mistaken for the much more advanced H.264 / AVC!). This subject, by the way, is also thoroughly discussed HERE – I really recommend sonichedgehog360’s posts in there.
Note that, currently, the CorePlayer folks only promise WMMX support (which, again, doesn’t help with decoding H.264). That is, no hardware H.264 decoding support has been announced. They have stated they will announce if and, if it’s possible at all, when this kind of support is added to CorePlayer after the release of CorePlayer 1.2. This means don’t run out to purchase the new iPAQ if you’re a H.264 buff: CorePlayer may not receive H.264 hardware decoding support at all.
Of course, even if no H.264 hardware decoding support is added to CorePlayer, the new CPU platform is still vastly superior to the old, PXA270 platform. Just take a look at THIS and THIS (the PXA310 and PXA320 specs, respectively). Note that some of the online comparisons are plain useless. For example, the PXA310 quick summary HERE doesn’t even mention WMMX2 or H.264 hardware acceleration support (as opposed to the PXA320 quick summary HERE). The above-linked PDF files, on the other hand, contain much more dependable information.
Otherwise, the device is pretty nice and the fact that it is no longer based on a touchpad (as opposed to the predecessor, the hx4700) makes it much more usable in everyday situations (for example, gaming, e-book reading or Web browsing using the D-pad). It also sports USB host capabilities, which, unfortunately, is a very-very rare feature among current Windows Mobile models and was REALLY useful on the Fujitsu-Siemens (RIP!) Pocket Loox series (for example, the most versatilye WM2003SE device ever, the Loox 720) and some other models like the Toshiba e750+ - and some current ones like the (otherwise, isn’t that nice) Toshiba G900.
I plan to publish the further installments of my Multimedia-related Bible series (of which I've already published several chapters of) only after 02/21 - that is, after the impending release of CorePlayer 1.2 (only the Windows Mobile version, unfortunately - that is, the Symbian / Palm versions will only be released later. See for example THIS for more info on the release date of the Symbian version). Version 1.2 promises a lot of great goodies: UPnP support, RTSP support etc. I’ve chosen not to publish the final Bible before the release so that it doesn’t get outdated in the very near future.
I’ve, in the meantime, purchased a BlackBerry 8800. This also means I’ll start working on the long-promised Push Mail Bible really soon, paying special attention to accessing BlackBerry servers from Windows Mobile and explaining the difference between BlackBerry and Microsoft Exchange, the advantages and disadvantages of both approach with a lot of never-before-published, real-life tricks and benchmark results.
Also, in my future Bibles, I’ll also elaborate on the differences between the BlackBerry (BB ) OS and Windows Mobile – as I’ve done with Symbian S60 in the last few weeks. This will be especially useful for both new WM users coming from BB and both WM software developers and Microsoft itself – just like with my WM vs. Symbian S60 comparisons.
Note that, in order NOT to completely mess up my all-in-one Bibles with the constant references to, currently, three mobile operating systems, I’ll use different text colors when referring to non-Windows Mobile operating systems. That is, if you have only had Windows Mobile devices and don’t want to know how a particular feature differs from, say, Symbian or BB, you will easily know what sentences / paragraphs / charts / columns in charts you can safely skip.
Note that, in the future, I also plan to add
- Apple iPhone – as soon as third-party apps (like CorePlayer, which is being ported to iPhone and already has a working (!), already MPEG4 Part 2 (DivX) video playback-capable prototype – see THIS, THIS and THIS for, for example, YouTube demo videos) become common on it and/or
- Android if and when it gets more support and/or
- (at least) Nokia’s Linux implementation when and if they release the rumored successor to their current, flagship Internet Tablet N810, which MAY contain a built-in phone unit. This, incidentally, will also allow for discussing Linux running on the, unfortunately, discontinued Sharp Zaurus line, of which I have the SL-C860 – a truly excellent, clamshell, VGA device with unparalleled screen quality. Yes, I’ve long been promising articles on Zaurii; now, with the advent of Nokia’s Linux platform on their Internet Tablets, I may indeed start paying attention / devoting articles / comparisons to the old, but still popular Zaurus platform along with the new Nokias.
With references to so many mobile operating systems, the new, colorized text will be a life-saver for people only interested in one (or some) of the covered OS’es. And, a gold-mine for multi-platform geeks & gadget freaks like me
There has long been a new and, on the protocol level, vastly improved, 6.x version of I’m InTouch, one of the best remote desktop and, particularly, PIM info / mail access tool for Windows Mobile. I’ve already made the tests & comparison to the previous version reviewed in the Remote Desktop Access Bible; as soon as the developers review / comment on the draft of my article, I publish it.
Bitbank Software have released the brand new, 4.0 version of their, for long-time Windows Mobile users, known VirtualCE PDA controller. I post a detailed review & comparison to SOTI’s highly recommended Pocket Controller and My Mobiler as soon as I get feedback from the Bitbank folks on my preliminary comparison & feature chart I’ve sent them. Speaking of My Mobiler, it has received a very decent upgrade – much more bugfree and has a lot of nice features – since I’ve reviewed it and, now, is pretty much recommended if you don’t mind the somewhat lower speed, particularly with VGA devices.
If you speak Finnish and follow one of the best, multiplatform Finnish mobility-related blogs (that of Tero Lehto), you may have already heard of Strategy Analytics Inc.’s 5-Star Safari Leads Mobile Browsing Experience. The results of the study have resulted in a heated discussion (and a lot of flames) in the Finnish blogosphere. I’ll also publish an article on this issue as soon as the author, Paul Brown, answers my last two mails asking for more thorough information on how the tests have been conducted, why Opera Mini was completely neglected and whether the testers were aware of the keyboard shortcuts of Opera Mobile. The latter is key to using Opera Mobile as effectively as possible – no wonder I’ve always, in all my Opera Mobile-related articles, strongly emphasized to learn its default button shortcuts – or redefine / reassign them if you’d like so. (The same stands for Opera Mini, by the way. If you do learn the button shortcuts, it’ll become the fastest-to-operate browser.)
I, along with the linked-to Finnish blog, feel Internet Explorer Mobile (IEM) certainly doesn’t deserve the excellent (second) place, which is far better than that of both Opera Mobile and Nokia’s Web (Browser) in S60v3 FP1. The latter two browsers are without doubt FAR superior, in most respects, to IEM – if you learn to master their controls and shortcuts, that is. It’s the latter that I certainly lack from the users’ report in the Strategy Analytics Inc. report / summary. That is, it seems they didn't really try to learn to master all these shortcuts; instead, they used the menu system to access, for example, the favorites, go back to the previous page or enter a URL. In these respects, IEM is indeed easier to use (requires less screen taps / button presses) than both Opera Mobile and Nokia Web. However, if you do master the, on the Internet (for example, in my MS Smartphone Web Browsing Bible - see the related chart HERE, covering IEM and the two Operas on devices with a built-in dialpad), well-explained button shortcuts, the situation will be radically reversed and Opera Mobile / Nokia Web both become easier & faster-to-use than IEM. (The same stands for the non-reviewed/compared Opera Mini, of course.)
I also find that the lack of Opera Mini – currently, probably the most popular Web Browser even on Windows Mobile; see for example the latest voting results HERE, which also emphasize this – makes this report conveying pretty much questionable results. Finally, I also miss Netfront and, to a lesser degree, Thunderhawk and Picsel on Windows Mobile (and, the latter, on Palm OS as well). While, personally, I don’t particularly prefer these browsers (Opera Mini is far faster and more usable, particularly on a device with a dedicated dialpad – that is, a Blackberry, a Symbian phone, a MS Smartphone or one of the very few Pocket PC’s – for example, the Asus P525 and the LG KC1 – with a dialpad on the front), they still have a lot of fans.
As far as games are concerned released / announced since my previous all-in-one news post, Amiga Inc.’s Invasion is definitely worth mentioning, which has received a trial version available for download HERE. Note that, should you want to purchase the game, do it on Amiga Inc.’s own page, in there, the title only costs $5.99 – as opposed to the twice more expensive Clickgamer.
It’s the best and most enjoyable Space Invaders clone I’ve ever seen on Windows Mobile (see THIS, THIS, THIS and THIS for the alternatives) – for the price, a definite keeper. Its strengths are mostly the stylus-based control; the fact that you can also go upwards (should you want to kill your enemies faster – remember, your fire rate is restricted, as you can only have two missiles on the screen at the same time), the excellent animation, good sound effects and the in-menu, tracked, stereo, “scener” music (no in-game music, unfortunately).
Unfortunately, it isn’t compatible with pre-WM5 operating systems. Note that it’s one of the very few titles to support 240*240 square-screen phones.
Also note that, while the official homepage (or ClickGamer) doesn’t mention it with a word, it’s also compatible with the MS Smartphone platform: both QVGA and 176*220 devices (I’ve tested it on both my HTC Vox / s710 and Oxygen / s310). It runs flawlessly even on slow, non-overclocked TI OMAP CPU’s.
All in all, make sure you give it a try. Again, download the demo from ClickGamer, but purchase the game itself from the developer’s homepage to save some money!
Another gaming news: the new, in addition to the venerable and no-longer-developed Pocket Humanity, Civilization-alike, Revival (see the links to (p)reviews HERE), has still not been released. It’s promised to be released today, after some last-minute bugfixes. Hope they indeed manage to achieve this.
Emulation news: Masterall has released a preview of the brand new, 0.12 version of his EXCELLENT FinalBurn, by far the best (advanced 2D) arcade gaming console emulator. Make sure you give it a try – and provide feedback in the original thread. (And, if you don’t know the excellent games Finalburn is able to run, do check out the Arcade Emulation Bible!)
Are you coming to the GSMA Mobile World Congress 2008 in Barcelona? Then, we can even meet I’ll be there with my brand new, shiny Canon PowerShot SD950 IS (but will also take my Nokia N95 with me as another “video camera”) and posting long-long reports on the latest gadgets of the mobile worlds (mostly Windows Mobile, but, given that I’m really interested in other operating systems as well, I also plan to report on at least Symbian and BlackBerry). Yeah, be prepared for a LOT of news. (Megathanks for Hal Goldstein at Smartphone & Pocket PC Mag for the financial help; without him, I couldn't really attend the conference.)
A short offtopic thought (on high-end point&shoot digicameras): some time ago, I’ve stated I’d go for the SD870 IS mostly because of the wide lens and the excellent DP review. However, after reading through a lot of user opinions and direct comparisons of the two devices, I’ve realized the Canon folks still haven’t managed to produce a lens with flawless wide-angle. While some other manufacturers like Fuji and Panasonic have managed to produce a lens with better wide-angle; however, their Finepix S8000fd and TZ3 are suffering from some severe problems (for example, the, with Pana, ever-present, huge noise); so, I didn’t see the point in going for them. And, for portability / pocketabilty reasons (and the fear for the mechanical mirror’s getting worn out much faster than with a non-DSLR camera – I tend to take hundreds of photos a day, meaning several tens of thousands of photos a year, so, it’s a concern for me), I didn’t want to go with the, otherwise, tempting and great Oly E-510 either.
So far, I'm pretty much impressed with the camera. The 12 Mpixel CCD is definitely an overkill in a P&S camera with such a small lens system (it's the optics that puts a physical threshold on the maximal resolution, it seems) but is certainly a big step ahead of my old HP R717.
UPDATE (01/25/2008): PG frontpage
The WM version of CorePlayer 1.1.3, now, with the above-mentioned WMMX optimizations in place, has just been released.
It, among other things, has FULL HTC Kaiser / AT&T Tilt support (and support for all Qualcomm 7200-based Windows Mobile devices, for that matter - see for example THIS for more info on this issue). See for example THIS thread for more info on the Kaiser / Tilt opinions.
Note that it has a lot of other goodies as well; however, some of the advanced (mostly networking: UPnP, RTSP etc.) stuff is still missing. See THIS for more info on this - what the new version contains (of 1.2) and what it doesn't.
Well done, CoreCodec (Now, I only hope you'll release the Symbian version of 1.2 as well - or, at least, an interim, bugfix version just like 1.1.3 for WM...)
UPDATE (02/01/2008):
I, after more than a week’s waiting, still haven’t received any feedback from the Strategy Analytics Inc. folks regarding the lack of Opera Mini in their 5-Star Safari Leads Mobile Browsing Experience, which, in many Windows Mobile users’ (including me) opinion, is the most useful / quickest Web browser for the Windows Mobile platform. And, for other mobile platforms too – on my Symbian Nokia N95 and BlackBerry 8800, I almost exclusively use this browser to access the Web. Not including it in the test makes the entire report pretty hard to depend on – it’s like completely ignoring, for example, Ferrari (a top-performing car) when evaluating the cars of Formula-1.
And, of course, I’ve already elaborated on the bad ranking of Nokia Web (running on Symbian S60 3rd edition devices – that is, NOT on Windows Mobile) and, particularly, Opera Mobile (running on all major mobile platforms). Again and again, if you do learn the dialpad shortcuts and/or, with Opera Mobile running on a dialpad-less Pocket PC, use a third-party tool to assign its key functionalities (accessing favorites, current tabs, back etc.) to Pocket PC hardware buttons, they both become quicker and easier to operate than Internet Explorer. It’s clearly at this point (in addition to the lack of Opera Mini) that Strategy Analytics Inc.’s report severely lacks – it’s evident the test folks didn’t really make an attempt at learning the dialpad shortcuts / configure Opera Mobile for easy and much quicker access / use.
UPDATE (02/01/2008):
As far as running Invasion on MS Smartphones is concerned, you can’t use any of the dialpad buttons for firing (or controlling the ship). This makes the game pretty hard as you will need, in addition to pressing the Action button to keep firing, use the D-pad to control the ship. On Pocket PC’s, this isn’t an issue because, there, you can use the touchscreen for the latter. (Unless you have a 2.8”, non-Intel Xscale-based HTC phone – that is, almost all of their 2.8” WM5 and WM6 phones, including, for example, the Trinity, the Kaiser and the Wizard. Then, the well-known touschreen CPU usage bug will make the game pretty slow. Unfortunately, the HTC folks don’t seem to be bothered about the bug – I’ve been reporting it for two years to them but, so far, they haven’t fixed it.)
Last Summer, upon the release of the brand-new, 6-series of SOTi Pocket Controller Pro and the free My Mobiler (click the links for a review!), I’ve already pointed out the “let’s control your Windows Mobile device from your desktop!” scene is really thriving.
Since the above reviews, here have been major upgrades. First, My Mobiler has been greatly enhanced (for example, TCP/IP connections have been added) and the bugs I’ve elaborated on in the review have all been fixed – while still maintaining its free status. In this article (and the accompanying chart), I also thoroughly elaborate on these changes.
Even more importantly, the, for long-time Windows Mobile users, known VirtualCE has been greatly upgraded and enhanced.
As VirtualCE has been written by the same developer as the well-known and very fast PQV and SmartGear – one of the best titles in their respective categories (picture viewers and pre-SNES home and handheld console emulators). I wasn’t disappointed: while there is indeed some missing functionality in the new version, its price, CPU usage and, at times, speed, speak for themselves. It’s evident it has been written by a Windows Mobile & C / assembly language guru that knows how to optimize code and, therefore, reduce the CPU (and memory) usage.
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(The main interface screen and an example of remote controlling a HTC Vox / s710. The latter displays the VirtualCE client on the handset.)
VirtualCE is, feature-wise, somewhere between the free My Mobiler and the pretty expensive, albeit VERY capable and highly recommended SOTi Pocket Controller. In some respects, it’s definitely more capable than SOTi’s app (for example, see the parallel multicontrol feature, which is only present in the even more expensive Enterprise version of SOTi’s app; also, the much lower CPU usage should be mentioned); in other respects, it’s inferior to even My Mobiler (see for example the complete lack of handheld / handset -> desktop PC clipboard synchronization).
Installation, usage
Installation-wise, there isn’t much to do. Just download the trial version HERE (note that there is a different one for Pocket PC’s and MS Smartphones), start the installer on the desktop computer and make sure your handset is connected via ActiveSync so that the (handset-side) server can be installed.
Should you want to activate the connection, then, you’ll need to start Start / (on Pocket PC’s) Programs / Virtual CE on your handset and. Then, just start the VirtualCE client on your desktop computer.
Should you want to remote control your device via ActiveSync, just cradle / connect it to your desktop and double-click the default “ActiveSync” entry in the list. If you establish the ActiveSync connection between the desktop and your handset before starting the desktop VirtualCE client, it'll automatically connect.
Should you want to create a non-ActiveSync connection, go to Connection / New… and, after naming the next entry (you don’t need to do this, but is still recommended), select the connection type in the Connection Type drop-down menu:
Should you want a remote TCP/IP connection, select WAN / Internet; then, you’ll also need to enter the IP of the handset as can be seen in THIS screenshot. Should you “only” want to control a, say, Wi-Fi-connected device on the LAN, you can also select LAN (Auto Discovery). Note that the latter will make initiating the connection a bit slower, as, as will also be explained in the “SOTi vs. VirtualCE” section, you’ll always need to select the device from a list whenever you try to initiate a connection to it.
Functionality
VirtualCE supports most functionalities one can expect of a non-high-end controller: taking screenshots, rotating the screen to be able to take screenshots / control games using GAPI to switch to Landscape mode and/or Web browsers like Thunderhawk that also use the landscape orientation. Also, just like all the other, most recommended alternatives, it allows for TCP/IP connections, which means you can remotely access a (connectable; that is, non-NAT’ed / firewalled) Windows Mobile device anywhere in the world. This is of extreme importance particularly for Customer Service and/or enterprise folks, who may need to access the handsets of their customers / workers somewhere else in the world (that is, not connected to the local desktop, where ActiveSync would (also) work.)
It also supports connecting to several clients at the same time. This is pretty unique. An example is shown in the following screenshot (click for the original size!)
In here, I’ve shown an example of controlling no less than five (VGA WM5 x51v, VGA WM6 HTC Universal; QVGA WM2003 HP iPAQ 2210; QVGA WM6 Vox/s710 Smartphone; QVGA WM6 HTC Wizard) devices at the same time. Note that I’ve left the main server screen of VirtualCE on all the handsets to reduce the size of the screenshot (PNG’s don’t really like colorful, “natural” pictures, and I didn’t want to use the, for making technical screenshots, inferior JPG); I could have controlled these devices freely. Also note the different IP’s visible on the phones.
However, it lacks some basic functionalities; most importantly, the ability to copy some text from the handheld to the desktop. While I agree the opposite direction is far more widely used (think of, say, quickly pasting loooooooooong registration numbers to your just-purchased app!), in cases, the opposite may also be desirable, particularly with folks that publish a lot of articles on Windows Mobile devices. (For example, I need to copy text from, say, Web browser User-Agent strings like in THIS thread.)
CPU usage
Traditionally, PDA controller apps have had high CPU usage. The two other, highly recommended controller apps (SOTi, My Mobiler) too have high CPU usage – particularly when controlling a VGA device.
Not so with VirtualCE. It has the least CPU usage of all; in this regard, it’s way the best. If you have problems because another remote controller app (either SOTi’s or My Mobiler – but are way worse in this respect) takes too much CPU time (which, for example, results in a very bad slowdown), make sure you give VirtualCE a try.
Speed
The screen refresh rate has always been causing the most problems with most remote controllers. (Actually, this is why I don’t recommend any of the alternative controllers at all: they’re plain slow, even with low-resolution (QVGA) devices, let alone high-resolution ((W)VGA) ones.)
In this regard, VirtualCE fares pretty well. Compared to (the free) My Mobiler, it’s faster in every respect; this is particularly visible in the full-screen animation video (see later). On QVGA devices, the difference isn’t that big, though – My Mobiler is perfectly usable on the latter.
Compared to SOTI’s much more expensive, but, apart from the CPU usage and the inability to control several devices at the same time and LAN discovery, vastly superior remote controller, there are two remarks.
1. If you need to control an application with frequent full screen upgrades (a game or even wildly scrolling the, say, Programs screen), SOTi’s app is much better and faster on high-resolution ((W)VGA) devices.
2. If, on the other hand, the changes are only restricted to a comparatively small area of the screen, VirtualCE updates the desktop-side screen somewhat faster than SOTi.
Again, the speed difference between these three apps are only really visible on high-resolution devices like WVGA or even VGA ones. On low-resolution (QVGA or 176*220 Smartphones) ones, there won’t really be (at least annoying) differences. There, My Mobiler will be the slowest but still really well usable.
I’ve made several, easily comparable test videos of all these results so that you can see I’m not lying. Two of them (the one based on my self-written test counter suite; the other on the new, excellent game Nanobotz) show changes restricted to a small area on the screen; the other shows a small portion of a full-screen animation. (Note that I’ve run the counter test twice on the VGA Dell Axim x51v: underclocked to 208 MHz and at the default 624 MHz to emulate slower and/or underclocked VGA devices).
Use the built-in Windows Media Player to play back the sample benchmark videos (all of them are linked from the chart). Unfortunately, the otherwise free and highly recommended (VideoLAN) VLC client isn't able to play them back.
How does it compare to Pocket Controller Pro?
Pros
First, it’s way less expensive, particularly if you have more than one Windows Mobile devices. In the latter case, you would need to purchase a license to each of these devices from SOTi.
It has way less CPU usage, resulting in a far snappier client. This is especially useful on (W)VGA Pocket PC’s, where the CPU usage of SOTi can easily become an issue.
It allows for controlling more than one Windows Mobile client at a time. This is only available in the significantly more expensive version of SOTi’s app.
It not only supports (remote) TCP/IP connections, but also LAN discovery (for example, Wi-Fi connected handsets on the same local area network). An example of this:
This frees you from having to enter the client IP. However, this also makes initiating the connection a bit slower as you’ll always end up having to select the LAN-connected device you’d like to control from a list whenever you try to connect a LAN-autodiscovered device.
It doesn’t display a connection message when you start the connection. In SOTi’s app, this can’t be suppressed, which means you can’t start the control session in several games / other, mostly full-screen programs without, say, the top taskbar being imposed over the image displayed by the controlled application. (BTW, in this regard, My Mobiler is also better than SOTi’s app.)
Cons
While, particularly on (W)VGA devices, VirtualCE clearly beats SOTi’s app in capturing and transferring changes restricted to a very small screen area, the latter is much faster when there are (nearly) full screen changes. This means you may want to prefer SOTi’s app when, say, you want to take screenshots of a game.
There are no built-in video recording features. While with an external, desktop-side application capable of recording any screen area into a video (like SnagIt or Fraps), you can easily record what the controller shows, built-in video recording capabilities would be even better. This regard, SOTi’s app is way better / more convenient.
Note that, as far as other controller apps are concerned, the non-recommended dotPocket and the free and, now (as of version 0.91b), WM5-compliant VH PocketPC Capture are both capable of video recording. They, however, are significantly inferior to the most recommended “Holy Trinity” of handheld controllers (SOTi Pocket Controller Pro, VirtualCE and MyMobiler). Should you still want to give the latter two apps a try (I wouldn’t bother with dotPocket; VH PocketPC Capture is a tad better), see THIS for more info. (Note that the article still discusses the previous, 0.9b version of VH PocketPC Capture; it wasn’t, back then, WM5-compliant. Now, it is.)
How does it compare to My Mobiler?
Pros
Lower CPU usage
Ability to control several devices at the same time in wildly different networking topologies (again, in these two respects, it’s better than even SOTi’s Pocket Controller Pro).
Definitely faster in every scenario
Ability to custom rotate the screen
Doesn’t display an icon on the Today screen on Pocket PC’s / on the taskbar on Smartphones
Cons
It isn’t free (albeit $10 is REALLY cheap if you take into account its capabilities)
No PDA -> PPC clipboard synchronization
Impossible to reduce the zoom factor to 0.5 (when, for example, you’d like to take a QVGA-sized, low-res screenshot of a VGA devices without manual resizing in another program like ImageMagick.)
Comparison / feature chart
As usual, I’ve created a comparison / feature chart. Because of the size and the useful links inside, I can’t include it in here. IT IS HERE – CLICK THE LINK!.
Verdict
Now that there is another, highly recommended remote controller application, it’s even harder to choose from the “Holy Trinity”: SOTi Pocket Controller Pro, VirtualCE and MyMobiler. There are tasks one of them is best and there are tasks when the others.
Just some cases / examples showing you which of the three controllers you choose, depending on your particular needs:
for example, if you need to take a video / animation of a screen, particularly if it’s a VGA; then, your best choice will be SOTi’s app (or, probably, VirtualCE, if there aren’t frequent full-screen changes or animations and you can put up with using an external, generic video recorder like SnagIt).
(Note that, in this case, absolutely the best and fastest solution is using a PDA with a VGA (an example: Dell Axim x50v/ x51v (see THIS); you’ll also need an external VGA-to-analogue converter) or an analogue (non-VGA) output like that of the HTC x7500 / Advantage / Athena. If you plan to make a video of, say, a fast-paced action game where the quality degradation introduced by the double digital -> analogue -> digital conversion isn’t a problem, this might be the best solution. If, on the other hand, you can’t introduce analogue artifacts (blurred screen), you will still need to stick with a PDA controller app to take your videos. Unless, of course, you use so high a video compression rate in the final output file that effectively hides the artifacts introduced by the dual D/A and A/D conversion.
Note that some of the PDA’s with a built-in VGA output are pretty slow; an example of them is the (old) e800/e830. Also note that the old(ish) CF / SD-based video output cards or Bluetooth-based video output solutions like the Mobility Electronics Pitch Duo Presentation Device, Colorgraphics Voyager CF, Video Output SDIO Card From Spectec, Pretec VGA CF, or the discontinued Margi Presenter-to-Go and Presenter-to-Go SD for Select (see THIS for more info & links on all these) are, in general, pretty slow too and can’t match the speed of the video output speed of the Dell Axim x50v/ x51v or the HTC x7500.)
if you need absolutely the least CPU usage (because you don’t want the app / game you control / take screenshots of to be executed with a snail’s speed), your best choice might be VirtualCE
if you need to paste a LOT of text from the handset’s screen to your desktop (and you don’t want to use a file-based, very awkward transfer method), go for anything else than VirtualCE
should you need an easy way of editing / accessing the Registry, running keyboard macros etc. on your handset, get SOTi’s app
if you have more than one handset you’d like to control, but don’t have much money, you won’t want to go for SOTi because of the increased price (need a license for each and every client)
if you need to make screenshots of a WM game well into the game, but running it under a remote controller would really slow it down to a crawl, you will want to go for a controller that doesn’t mess up the game screen when activated – well into the game. SOTi’s app, in this respect, might turn out to be the worst solution because the dialog it displays on the handset may fully mess up the screen of the currently running application – or, at least, alter it to some degree. In this case, you may want to go for either VirtualCE or My Mobiler.
should you need PNG or JPG output with selectable (!) quality, either go for anything non- VirtualCE or, if you stick with the latter, make sure you install a third-party app to convert the output images (I recommend BMP) to PNG’s or JPG’s; now, with the needed quality.
Albeit I’ve already elaborated on this issue in some of my articles, let me quickly recite what you’ll need. First, get and install ImageMagick. Then, copy all the files you’d like to convert to a directory and put one of the following commands in a batch file (change http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Controllers/Program Files\ImageMagick-6.3.1-Q16\convert.exe to the path of your version):
FOR /R %%X IN (*.bmp) DO "C:\Program Files\ImageMagick-6.3.1-Q16\convert.exe" "%%X" "%%X.png"
(this converts from BMP to PNG)
FOR /R %%X IN (*.bmp) DO "C:\Program Files\ImageMagick-6.3.1-Q16\convert.exe" -quality 50 "%%X" "%%X.jpg"
(this converts from BMP to JPG, with settable output quality – here, it’s 50%).
By just running the batch file(s) in the directory you’ve collected your VirtualCE screenshots to, you can easily fix the complete lack of PNG / settable-quality JPG files.
Finally, note that VirtualCE excels in that it allows for one-click screenshots with auto-numbering. This can prove to be extremely useful in some cases.
etc. – the list continues
This also shows there simply isn’t an all-the-best application. Everything depends on your needs. What I recommend is the following: if you have the money, get both SOTi Pocket Controller Pro and VirtualCE. Then, you’ll have the best of both worlds – all your future needs will be satisfied. If you can’t afford SOTi’s app but can still afford VirtualCE, don’t’ hesitate to purchase it – it’s still better and faster than the free My Mobiler and is really cheap. Then, however, just in case you’d need (frequent) handset -> PC text copy/paste, also make sure you download and install My Mobiler. (You won’t need the latter if you go the first, that is, the SOTi + VirtualCE route as SOTi’s app also supports this direction.)
Finally, if you have absolutely no money, My Mobiler is still way better than any other, free alternative like Microsoft’s remote controller or the various VNC-based tools. That is, go get it and forget all the other, free alternatives, no matter what some other people say – believe me, it’s vastly superior to them.
(Note that the current, tested, 4.0.2 version occasionally crashes, mostly upon saving into BMP24 screenshots, rotating the view and when, after having connected to a Portrait device, connect to a Landscape one in multiple device control mode. I haven’t encountered similar problems with connecting devices using strictly the Portrait orientation. Hope these bugs will be very quickly fixed by the developer.)
UPDATE (01/31/2008): MoDaCo frontpage
UPDATE (01/31/2008): Thanks to beemer on my blog, the just-released My Mobiler 1.0.70821.010 has the following enhancements compared to the version reviewed above:
-It now rotates the screen manually
-It uses 50% CPU on a G900 against 90% CPU of SOTI pocket controller.
-It allows to hide the icon on the PDA Today screen tray bar from the desktop tray bar icon menu.
UPDATE (02/01/2008):
Pocket Controller 6 IS able to (auto-)discover other clients in a (for example, Wi-Fi) LAN.
Unlike with ActiveSync, when connecting thru Wi-Fi (which may mean other kinds of TCP/IP connections - I haven't tested this), in PC6, the connection dialog isn't displayed.
(thanks to 3pears on my blog for the info!)