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ALL Secrets of making Pocket PC screenshots

It was a year ago that I’ve published my well-known (for example, it made to Sticky in the MobilitySite Applications forum) Making screenshots of the Pocket PC (alternates: MobilitySite, AximSite, PPCT, FirstLoox, BrightHand, PocketMatrix). Now that WM5 is out, I found it absolutely necessary to rewrite the old article to have, for example, WM5- and more gaming-related information.
In this article, you’ll find a LOT of secrets never published anywhere. You may already have been aware of all Compaq / HP iPAQ’s being able to take screenshots by themselves, but, for example, have you been aware of that you can take auto shots (shots taken one after another, without human intervention) by two Pocket PC-based screen capture applications, and with additional three with some manual “hacking” (don’t be afraid, it’ll be VERY easy!)? Did you know that, however much Vidya Pocket Screen Capture doesn't allow for suppressing the pretty annoying camera sound, you can get rid of it easily, by just deleting the WAV sound file it's stored in? Were you aware of the fact that many screen grabber applications that are considered NOT to be VGA compatible are able to be "forced" into VGA mode so that they take excellent VGA screenshots? Did you know Pocket Informant already has a built-in screen capture utility and the same developer has also released a free, stand-alone version excellent for taking periodic auto-screenshots? The list continues… Yes, you’ll find an explanation of all these in this article – and a lot more, never-before-published tips and tricks. This means that, as with all my similar roundups, this one will reveal a lot of secrets of the Pocket PC – read on!
Introduction: The basics
What's the point in writing so big an article on all these questions, you may ask. Isn't it as easy as just downloading an arbitrary screen grabber application off the Net, installing and starting it and just pressing its hotkey to take a shot (if it's a button based-application) or, if it has a timer, just quickly switch (before the timer is fired) to the application you'd like to take a shot of?
Yes, in many cases, it'll work, particularly if you "only" have a QVGA device, of which you'd only like to take screenshots in the default Portrait mode. As soon as, however, you will need to take shots of
full-screen games
VGA screens
Landscape screens
menus
screens that depend on the actual Internet (IP) address of the device
screens of the "HTC Camera" built-in camera client application (if any)
you will find that the screen gabber application you've chosen just doesn't work. It's particularly in these cases that you'll find this writeup useful.
Classification of screen grabber applications
First and foremost, there are two main kinds of screen capturer applications. The first group of them uses an active ActiveSync (or, in cases, any kind of TCP/IP (Internet) connection) and initiates screen grabbing from a desktop Windows PC; the second group only runs on the Pocket PC itself and doesn’t need any kind of desktop-based client. First, I elaborate on the first group.
1. PC & ActiveSync-based capture solutions
1.1 Introduction
You may already know at least SOTi Pocket Controller, the great PC-based application that makes it possible to control your Pocket PC hooked up to your PC (or being anywhere in the world if it has an Internet connection and your desktop is able to connect to it). SOTi Pocket Controller is one of the many applications that are not only controller apps but also themselves are able to take screenshots of the actual screen content of the connected Pocket PC device. In this article, I won’t discuss any of these programs (again, programs that not only allow for seeing the screen of your Pocket PC on your desktop computer, but also control it) because I’ve already done so. Please read this article for more information on how these applications can be used. Make sure you pay special attention to following the links to Part I of the series.
Seeing how I emphasized the word ‘control’, you may have already guessed there are desktop-based applications that don’t let for controlling the PDA (that is, you can’t use the PC’s keyboard and mouse to directly enter text / click objects on the virtual screen of the PDA), “only” passively show its screen. Or, more precisely, they don’t show it, “only” make a (savable) screenshot of it whenever you ask them to do so. This also means that, while “controller” applications (as they also need to show almost the same picture on the desktop as is on the PDA, with the least possible delay) may hugely slow down how the Pocket PC can be operated, desktop-based clients that only transfer the contents of the screen between the two devices can result in a much faster and more responsive Pocket PC. In this respect, solely screen capture apps (again, ones that can NOT be used to control the device) can be infinitely better: as they only transfer information between the PC and the Pocket PC when you do instruct them to take a screenshot, they don’t slow down the Pocket PC.
These applications (as with the “controller” type of applications; from now on, I’ll only talk about the ones that can’t control) all have the advantage of being able to capture (almost) anything. If you use a Pocket PC-only capture application, a lot of things may prevent you from taking screenshots on your device (for example, the given application’s blocking all hardware buttons or the inability to capture menus because they just close when you press the shortcut to make a screenshot). These problems are non-existent on applications that also have a desktop component. Then, you can, say, just open the menu or start the game you want to make shots of and just instruct the PC-side screenshot grabber to do the job when the screen / dialog you wanted to take a shot of is displayed.
Desktop-based screen capturer (or, again, controller) applications refuse to work in very-very few cases; for example,
when the given application (for example, Fathammer’s excellent 2700G-enabled 3D golf title, Toy Golf – it won’t start if the PDA is connected to the desktop PC via ActiveSync; the situation is the same with some other games that rely on the Intel 2700G GPU; for example, GeoRally EX) because it hates ActiveSync to be active. In this case, you can only make screenshots with Pocket PC-based tools. (In most cases, however, with a bit of playing with the time you connect the PPC to the desktop, you can still take screenshots through ActiveSync even with games like Toy Golf. For example, in order to take screenshots of Toy Golf from the desktop PC, start the game without the Pocket PC connected to the computer and only connect after the first “Loading” screen. Then, any server-side application will work – both specialized screen capturer apps and, as can be seen for example here, “full” Pocket PC controllers too. Note that, as far as this screenshot and the VGA 2700G-enabled devices – Dell Axim x50v / x51v – are concerned, if you use a plain screenshot tool, prefer the ViTO one (reviewed in this roundup) and start the game from native VGA mode so that the screenshots will be full-resolution ones. Forget GetPDAScreen, which, even as of version 1.1, is totally incompatible with VGA and will only take low-res screenshots.
when the additional network connection ActiveSync creates can cause problems. For example, if you take screenshots of an application or a game that displays or relies on for example a local network address, you can’t use an ActiveSync-based tool. The sole reason for this is that ActiveSync (as has also been pointed out by several of my ActiveSync & networking-related articles; for example, this) assigns another IP (Internet) address to the device. Then, the Pocket PC will have two addresses: one in the “real” network it’s supposed to talk to the outer world (in the following case, other PDA’s running the same game) and the other is that of ActiveSync. An example screenshot of this is here, where I took a screenshot of pocketadventures.com’s Travel Collection (also see The Definitive Multiplayer PPC Game Roundup). There, two IP’s are shown; one of them being assigned by ActiveSync, while the other being the “real” address of the device.
You will also need to keep this in mind when taking screenshots (or, for that matter, operating) local area network-based programs like the excellent 4Talk (review here) , or, when taking screenshots of for example the IP configuration screen of vxUtil, probably the best networking tool on the Pocket PC.
In most (all?) of the other cases, desktop-based screenshot taking will work just great.
1.2 Screen grabber / saver, desktop-based applications
There are, as far as user-friendly apps are concerned, two such applications (and one strictly for Pocket PC Phone Edition devices) right now (again, the rest also have controlling capabilities and, therefore, aren’t listen in here – check out the above roundup for a complete overview of them): GetPDAScreen and VITO ScreenCapture, both free and, unfortunately, both incompatible with the standard (SE) VGA mode of WM2003SE/WM5 VGA Pocket PC’s.
Note that Microsoft also has a (free - it comes with the free eVC 4.0) remote screen capturer application. It, however, is far from being user-friendly (particularly the connection initiation is a real pain in the back as it requires the user to always use different port addresses and, therefore, doesn't really allow for static .lnk files just to invoke \Windows\cemgrc.exe on the PDA) and offers really nothing additional compared to these applications. It supports landscape and native VGA as can be seen in here. it is, however, hopelessly QVGA in standard (SE) VGA and, therefore, not at all recommended.
If you really want to give it a try, you need to know the following: install eVC and execute c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows CE Tools\Platman\bin\cezoom.exe. Go to Connection / Configure CE Platform Manager and, after highlighting "Default Device" under "Windows CE .NET Default Platform" (there may/will be other top-level roots), click Properties. Change the settings to TCP/IP... in the top and Manual Server in the bottom drop-down menu. Click OK two times and select Connection / Connect to Device, highlight the same device and click OK. Now, you'll be presented the two DLL's and the one EXE file you'll need to copy from the c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows CE Tools\Platman\target\ subdirectory according to your CPU type to the \Windows subdirectory on your PDA. In the bottommost, non-editable textfield, you'll be presented the parameters (the IP address of your PC and the port the server will be listening on) you will need to pass to cemgrc.exe on your handheld. For example, in this example, you must supply the "/T:TCPIPC.DLL /Q /D:169.254.2.2:3359" parameters to cemgrc.exe; for example, via a link file with the following content:
99#"\WINDOWS\cemgrc.exe" /T:TCPIPC.DLL /Q /D:169.254.2.2:3359
Then, start the server on the PDA and immediately after this the client on the PC. Click OK and the connection will be built up. You can any time refresh the view by pressing F5 (or Connection / Refresh).
Note that the port number will change every time you reconnect the PDA to the desktop PC; this is one of the reasons I don't recommend this solution at all for simple screen grabbing purposes and haven’t even included in the comparison chart.
1.2.1 GetPDAScreen 1.1 by NewMad
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Its biggest problem is that it’s strictly QVGA (it doesn’t even take full-resolution shots in native VGA mode) and Portrait only. (The latter, fortunately, doesn’t mean it won’t be able to make screenshots of (most) games running in Landscape full screen – it will). It only takes QVGA shots of VGA devices, which is unacceptable in most cases. If you force \Windows\GetScreen.exe (the EXE component the desktop client, behind the scenes, deploys on the Pocket PC to grab the screen and send it over the ActiveSync connection) into VGA (with Tweaks2k2.NET or just copying the standard .mui file into \Windows), the result will only contain the upper left quarter of the screen as can also be seen in this screenshot.
Therefore, you will only want to use it on QVGA devices, preferably in Portrait only (or with landscape games).
1.2.2 VITO ScreenCapture 1.0
This application doesn’t support taking full-resolution screenshots of VGA devices in SE (standard) VGA either; only in the native VGA mode. It supports non-Portrait screen orientations. That is, it’s much more useful than GetPDAScreen. It is only able to export screenshots into BMP files; therefore, you will want to convert them further with, say, ImageMagick on the desktop or XnView on the Pocket PC (see the tips in the Full Roundup of Picture Viewers/Editors for the Pocket PC for more information & tips on conversion!) to the much more compact, say, PNG format.
1.2.3 Jeyo Mobile Companion 1.1
This application is a well-known, excellent Pocket PC Phone Edition SMS / contacts manager for the PC - highly recommended if you want to, say, backup your SMS messages or call history to your desktop PC or manage your phone contacts directly on the PC.
Unfortunately, it is only compatible with Pocket PC Phone Edition devices - that is, not with standard, phone-less Pocket PC's.
It, in addition to PIM handling, also has screen capturing capabilities, which is accessible via Tools / Capture Screen. It captures landscape screens without problems and is able to directly save images to both BMP and JPG files.
While, by default, it's not capable of capturing VGA screens in standard (SE) mode, forcing \Windows\CommMan.exe (the file auto-deployed by Jeyo to the PDA) into VGA does the trick. That is, this is the only desktop-based application that is able to correctly capture the VGA screen of, say, the VGA HTC Universal. That is, if you have a HTC Universal, you'll want to give it a try.
2 Strictly on-the-PDA screenshot applications
There are three types of them: some are part of picture viewer/editor applications (see the Full Roundup of Picture Viewers/Editors for the Pocket PC for more information on the latter) and the rest have been created solely for screen capturing capabilities (while, possibly, they also have image viewing capabilities to, for example, browse the screenshots already taken). Finally, there may be screenshot taker applications in strictly not imaging-related applications; for example, Pocket Informant.
They are all in common in that, as opposed to desktop-based screenshot and/or Pocket PC controller applications, they may prove useless to take screenshots in a number of situations. For example, if you want to take a shot of a game that runs in full screen mode (and, therefore, hides the taskbar where you could quickly switch to your picture maker app to take a screenshot), some of these apps (for example Resco - it can’t even be bound to a hardware button to take screenshots) become useless. In these cases, applications that have hardware button-based picture taking capabilities (most of them have except for the above-mentioned Resco application – or XnView) may be of help – unless the game disables all access to buttons (which, unfortunately, is the case with most games).
If the game does block all the access to hardware buttons and, thus, makes it impossible to invoke picture taker apps to take screenshots, you can only rely on Pocket PC-based screen grabber applications that have some kind of a (countdown) timer (making it possible to automatically, without human interaction, take a screenshot some (dozens of) seconds later) or multiple (“auto”) screenshot taking capabilities.
In this section, I first review all of the screen capturer applications that belong to the first category and, then, move on to self-standing screen capture applications.
2.1 Image viewers/ editors with additional screenshot taking capabilities
2.1.1 The built-in Screen Capture utility of Resco Picture Viewer 5.32
Resco Picture Viewer is, in my opinion, the best picture viewer application for the Pocket PC. It’s commercial and is bundled with some Dell Axim PPC's for free. After installing, it has a separate icon, “Screen Capture”, which makes it possible to take screenshots without invoking the main application (as opposed to how, say, XnView works):
As can also be seen, its configurability is really poor: you can’t configure anything except for a 10-second delay and saving automatically. This also means it can only be used for basic, non-involved screenshot making tasks – it can’t really be used to make screenshots of games. It, however, has something that very few other screen grabber applications have: it saves images in the best lossless (PNG) format, in addition to JPG and BMP.
2.1.2 XnView 1.35
XnView is a very nice, free (!) picture viewer / converter. The latest, 1.35 version, fortunately, fixed the Portrait-only bug of the previous, 1.31 version; now, you can make Landscape screenshots too. Unfortunately, as a screenshot application, it’s pretty poor (except for the really useful multiple output format capabilities) – all it offers is a settable 1/5/10/15s delay. No hardware buttons, no multiple shots, not invokable from external scripts. Nevertheless, if you don’t need the latter functionalities, you will want to give it a try.
2.1.3 Pocket Artist 3.2 by Conduits
Pocket Artist is a hugely popular Photoshop clone on the Pocket PC with (pretty weak) screenshot taking capabilities. All it offers is just a timer. The newly-introduced hardware button support, unfortunately, doesn’t let for assigning the screen capture functionality. It stores the result on the clipboard, which, then, must be manually pasted to a new file (via Menu/Image/ New, then, Menu/ Edit/ Paste and, then, Menu / Image / Save. Note that it’s only capable of saving images as Photoshop (.PSD) files). It, however, is compatible with every Pocket PC OS (even Handheld PC’s!), every video mode and is a great Photoshop replacement. As a “simple” screen capturer application (if you don’t need a mini-Photoshop on your PDA - that is, wouldn't use the other features), however, it’s not recommended.
2.1.4 CEPicture 2.7 by LimeLink
This very old picture viewer also has screenshot capabilities. It offers nothing particular (no timer, for example). It can take menu screenshots.
Note that if you change the screen orientation while it's active, it won't be able to take shots in the new orientation; that is, only change screen orientation while the app is not active. Then, it'll take Landscape screenshots too.
The same developer also has a free screen capture application, CECapture (see below). It, capturing-wise, is exactly the same as the screen capture module of CEPicture.
2.1.5 PictPocket Cinema 4.0
It’s WM5 / Landscape-compliant. It’s only able to use the Action button (it’s also able to capture menus using it); it has no timer capabilities. Not recommended because of the very high ($39.99) price and because most of its functionality it offers is implemented by either the free TCPMP and some much more superior & cheap image viewers.
2.1.6 Photogenics 1.0 Release 139
This is, as with Pocket Artist, another pretty pricey ($49.99) Photoshop-like application.
Note that Handango has release 133 while the latest release I know of is 139. I’ve tested the latter. Also note that while it’s said it’s not WM5-compliant, I haven’t really encountered problems when using it on my WM5 devices.
Unfortunately, unlike with Pocket Artist, it only takes QVGA images (and the GUI is also QVGA only) ; forcing \Program Files\Photogenics\ Photogenics.exe to VGA doesn’t work (it’ll display everything in the upper left corner); the same stands for using it in native VGA. That is, it’s not recommended if you have a VGA device.
As far as its capture capabilities are concerned, it has nothing to write home about: all it can boast with is just a simple wait timer.
2.1.7 PQV 3.0.10 by HanaHo Games
The screen capturer utility, “PQV Screen Capture”, as with “Screen Capture” in Resco Picture Viewer (and unlike all the other picture viewer/editor applications), is a separate entity from the main program. It’s, therefore, assignable to a hardware button and can be greatly used from external scripts when multiple, auto screenshots are needed.
Unfortunately, it only takes QVGA shots on VGA devices and forcing \Program Files\HanaHo\pqvscl.exe doesn’t help this. It doesn’t work in native VGA mode either. Furthermore, it isn’t able to take standard landscape shots (it’ll work with most full screen landscape games though).
Both the screen capture and the “main” application are WM5-compliant. However, never ever try to run the screen capturer application on a WM5 VGA device (it works OK on WM5 QVGA devices – apart from the inability to take non-Portrait shots). It will at least mess up the screen and, in cases, result in a lot of device.exe crash reports (tested on both the Axim x51v and the HP hx4700).
The main application, just like with WM2003SE, is buggy under WM5 (on QVGA devices too): it hides the drop-down tree lists in the file input dialog.
2.2 Self-standing, specialized screen capturer applications
These applications are primarily meant for screen capturing and are also advertised as (primarily) screenshot taker apps, as opposed to the applications in the previous, 2.1 section.
2.2.1 SnapIt 2.0 by Xoanan
This application doesn’t offer much as can also be seen in here:
Unfortunately, it also has compatibility problems: in SE (standard) VGA, it uses pixel halving (fortunately, by forcing it into VGA mode, it’ll work as supposed to). It can’t be used to make screenshots of menus either: it has no timer functionalities and, when invoked using a hardware button (configurable from inside the app), the menu disappears.
All in all, I don’t recommend it – there are much superior apps on the market for the same (Vidya) or even considerably less (BeniSoft ScreenShotCE) price.
2.2.2 Developer One Pocket ScreenSnap 6.10
This app is definitely better than the above-reviewed Xoanan SnapIt 2.0; for example, it entirely supports VGA and it allows for making shots of menus with hardware buttons or timers (it does support timers). It, however, isn’t as good as the (equally priced) Vidya or the (much cheaper) BeniSoft application – for example, it only supports BMP as the output format and doesn’t support taking continuous screenshots – unless you invoke it from an external script (see below), when it works just wonderfully.
2.2.3 BeniSoft ScreenShotCE 1.10
This application, in my opinion, is a very good one for the price if you don’t need to take screenshots of fast-paced games or menus (it only supports taking menu screenshots by the, for this, pretty awkward serial screenshot taker).
It even has a ZIP plug-in (which, unfortunately, needs separate registration, which doesn’t seem to be available for causal users), which makes it possible to compress the output screenshot files (which can be pretty important with huge BMP shots). It’s the only title that allows for record voice with shots (2). It, however, is different from how for example digital cameras offering additional- voice-recording- with-keeping -the-button- depressed work and is definitely inferior.
Unfortunately, it has no timers - however, the auto (serial) screenshot mode is usable in this case too.
It’s one of the applications to have (native) serial screenshot taking capabilities (not counting in the screen contents change-triggered Auto mode of SuperSnap). It, however, can’t really be used in fast-paced games. While PC-based apps will take correct screenshots of all fast-paced games as can be seen for example in these screenshots: 1 2 3 (of the 2700G tech demo PowerVR Racer - see section 2.1 here, in the Roundup of All 2700G-enabled Games and Demos), ScreenShotCE is definitely slower as can be seen for example in this and this screenshots. This problem is common in all other games; for example, here and here are screenshots of ToyGolf, also showing this problem. The situation is even worse in Fathammer’s Stuntcar Extreme as can be seen for example here – actually, I haven’t been able to take a single screenshot in that game without these kinds of problems.
Unfortunately, non-2700G-based games can also suffer from this problem; for example, here’s a screenshot of Acky’s Breakout with a doubled ball image (it’s a fast-moving object).
These won’t be an issue with any desktop-based screenshot taker or controller applications. Also, Vidya Pocket Screen Capture has considerably less problems with fast-paced games if you want to stick to taking screenshots strictly on your Pocket PC, without using any desktop-based client. Finally, I haven’t encountered so (many) problems with the other three, scriptable-for-auto-shot apps either (PQV, WebIS Screenshot and DeveloperOne). Therefore, if you want to make a lot of screenshots of fast games, check out the just-listed titles first.
2.2.4 Vidya Pocket Screen Capture 1.0.9
This application, in my opinion, is the best of all. It has very few shortcomings: for example, the lack of (single) timed screenshots (fortunately, the app offers great button-based menu capture capabilities) and the fact that, unlike with the Benisoft title, auto screenshot sounds can’t be disabled. Unless you delete \Windows\VidyaCameraClick.wav (this is highly recommended!), that is.
When it comes to making screenshots of fast games, it fares considerably better than the Benisoft title. Some examples: very few Stuntcar Extreme shots show (slight) artifacts (for example this). The same stands for the PowerVR demo: I’ve only found one screenshot (of some 10-15) to be (slightly) faulty. Finally, few of the ToyGolf screenshots were bad (1 2). I haven’t found any Acky screenshots to be faulty. This means definitely this is the app to go for if you want to take game screenshots without using a desktop-side application and you don’t want to mess with my scripts that make it possible to also use PQV and the DeveloperOne app to take continuous shots.
2.2.5 Kilmist SnapShot 1.0
Definitely not as powerful as Vidya Pocket Screen Capture or BeniSoft ScreenShotCE. For example, it offers neither timers nor auto-shots and it isn’t able to take high-resolution shots of VGA screens in standard (SE) VGA mode (only in native VGA) without explicitly forcing it into VGA mode. At least it has button-based menu capturing capabilities, unlike the BeniSoft title.
I wouldn’t get it – after all, it costs as much as the really superior Vidya Pocket Screen Capture.
2.2.6 Magic SS 1.1
This has been a famous, free application. Unfortunately, compared to the alternates, I'd say it’s not really worth getting – it offers nothing compared to even some of the free alternates (no timers, no menu capture capabilities – the assigned hardware button exits the menu – etc). On the positive side, it’s small and standard (SE) VGA compliant.
2.2.7 Epiphan Screen Grabber (CECapture 1.0)
This free application is in no way recommended – there are much better free (!) apps that are able to do much more. For example, it isn’t compatible with the standard (SE) VGA mode (unless forced) and doesn’t even have timer capabilities (both, for example, XnView and Resco have the latter). Actually, it is only able to make screenshots of the Today screen because it can only be invoked using its green E icon on the command bar there (see the above screenshot). You can’t make it grab a screen when you directly invoke it.(Also see the user opinions here).
2.2.8 iTask’s built-in (Delayed) Capture
All iPAQ models that have iTask on them (that is, all iPAQ’s starting with PPC2k2) have a built-in screen capturer application in iTask. It has nothing to write home about (BMP output only and non-configurable delay) but it’s still good to have around. Please read the previous article on configuring and using it - there is a full tutorial on this question in there, packed with screenshots.
2.2.9 CECapture 1.0 (5002) by LimeLink
(Note that I could only find a Chinese page; there doesn’t seem to be an English one.)
This free and very old screenshot application is produced by the same folks as CEPicture.
As with CEPicture, it’s able to save in both BMP / JPG. The similarities don’t end up here: it doesn’t dynamically get the list of the available buttons; it’s also capable of taking screenshots of menus with the assigned hardware button; it (\Program Files \Limelink\ CECapture.exe) must be forced into VGA in order to make standard (SE) VGA screenshots and isn’t able to capture non-Portrait screens.
2.2.10 Pocket Screen Capture v1.0 by CEToolbox
(Note that almost all references still refer to the old CEToolbox address. It no longer works.)
This free application, if you don't need any fancy, extra capabilities and only look for a simple, but usable application, can prove pretty good.
It's non-VGA compliant without explicitly forcing \Program Files \Pocket Screen Capture\ psc.exe into VGA. It's landscape-compliant and timer-based (5 sec only). The only output format it offers is BMP. It is not scriptable.
2.2.11 ScreenShooter 1.0 by KaonTech
(The original homepage is no longer accessible; hence the PocketGear link.)
It's a commercial (in trial mode it's useless because of the watermark it puts on all images - only the Vidya app is the other that watermarks the shots). It's landscape- and WM5-compliant. In SE (standard) VGA, you must force \Program Files\ScreenShooter\screenshooter.exe to make high-resolution screenshots. It can only be invoked via non-assignable (!) hardware keys. Screenshot taking is wired to Button 1. It is not scriptable and has no timers.
All in all, it's a really weak application at the price tag - many freeware applications offer the same (or even better) functionality. Not recommended.
2.2.12 Screenshot by WebIS
This very simple (no GUI, no timer capabilities, only BMP output, only stores its files in the main storage, in \My Documents etc.), WM2003+ utility (which takes a screenshot when it's executed - that is, its icon is tapped or the button, which it's assigned to in Settings / Button, is pressed) is highly recommended for scripted (auto / periodic) screenshot taking). It's VGA and Landscape-compliant and pretty fast when it comes to taking game screenshots.
Note that the WebIs Beta server used to host a standalone, older version of this screenshot maker application (see Alex’ last post here and here) but it’s no longer available. The new version, however, is accessible.
2.2.13 SuperSnap by PocketDevelop.com
(Note that while the developer does have a homepage, it's empty. This is why I've provided a PocketGear URL.)
This is a pretty good, WM2003+, WM5- and VGA-compliant, albeit a bit expensive ($14.90) product. It has a unique feature: in the Auto mode, it takes screenshots whenever the screen content changes (that is, it won't take shots in auto mode when there is no change in the screen contents). It works wonderfully in games too.
2.3 Screenshot takers in non-imaging applications / utilities
2.3.1 Pocket Informant by Web Information Solutions, Inc.
Pocket Informant (which comes with the HP iPAQ hx4700 and, given the popularity of the application, is also installed on many thousands of Pocket PC’s) also contains a (pretty rudimentary: all it offers is a 5-second timer and isn’t invokable using a hardware button or from an external program) screenshot taker application.
To use it, go to Menu / Tools & Settings / Utilities and select Screenshot… at the bottom.
Note that the developer has also released a standalone screen grabber available here, which is highly recommended particularly for scripted (auto / periodic) screenshot taking. See section 2.2.12 for more information.
3. Hacks – how can you run screenshot taking periodically?
In addition to Vidya Pocket Screen Capture and BeniSoft ScreenShotCE, there is still a way to make a strictly Pocket PC-based screen capture application take screenshots periodically: by invoking it from an external program – a script in this case.
For this, I recommend nScriptm, on which I’ve already elaborated a lot (please see for example this article and the scripting programming-related articles linked from there).
There are three applications that can be directly invoked (by just executing the program to take a screenshot, which can also be easily checked if you configure your Pocket PC to invoke the application straight from the Settings/Button applet or just click its icon in Start/Programs) and, therefore, be periodically run: PQV (for Portrait-only or game screenshot taking, strictly on QVGA devices), WebIS Inc. Screenshot and Developer One Pocket ScreenSnap (for screenshot taking on any kind of device and screen orientation). (Please see the comparison chart for the explanation why other apps can NOT be executed from an external application – I’ve elaborated on them all.)
To configure your system to execute these three applications, you’ll need to get nScriptm from here; unzip ARMPPC\ns.exe to the newly-created \Program Files\ns directory on your PDA (that is, create a directory named ‘ns’ under ‘\Program Files’ in the main storage). Now, get this file and copy PeriodicallyInvokeScreenCapturer.ns from \DevOne , \WebIS or \PQV (depending on which screenshot app you’d like to periodically invoke) in the same directory (\Program Files\ns) on your PDA. Finally, transfer PeriodicallyInvokeScreenCapturer.lnk (also in the same RAR file) to \Windows\Start Menu\Programs so that the auto invocation can be easily started from Start / Programs.
Note that you may want to modify the two .ns files if you want to in/decrease the frequency of taking screenshots (it’s now (at least – don’t forget that if the CPU / the file system is overloaded, it may take much more time to save a screenshot) six seconds). Also, you’ll want to modify the paths to the picture taker executables if they aren’t in the main storage (RAM in pre-WM5 devices). Please note that I couldn’t use loop constructs here (for some reason, nScriptm just didn’t like either while() or for() loops so don’t come to tell me “hey, you don’t even know what looping is about?!” ).
After all these files have been deployed, just click the PeriodicallyInvokeScreenCapturer icon in Start / Programs (with Developer One Pocket ScreenSnap, manually starting the app first, making sure the post-shot taking dialog is suppressed and going into the Hide mode – see the comments and screenshots in the comparison chart on all this) and then, just click it for the screenshots to be taken. Note that you’ll need to explicitly stop the .ns file from any task manager (Settings/System/ Memory/Running Programs by default) if you don’t need it any more and it still hasn’t finished.
4. The comparison / feature chart
It’s available here (sorry, it’s too wide to be included in here).
4.1 Explanation for the chart
Where does it run?: if it’s “PPC”, then, it only needs the Pocket PC. If it’s "PC + PPC", then, it also requires a computer running a desktop Windows and connected to the PDA via ActiveSync.
Pic formats: a list of the save format. Most apps only know BMP (the least storage-friendly format – but, at least, as opposed to JPEG/JPG, the format that is also supported by some screenshot apps, it isn’t lossy). Unfortunately, PNG (probably the best image format for taking screenshots) is only supported by few applications.
It stores the captured images in the file system: This is also pretty important. About half of the screen grabber applications put the files into the main storage (RAM in pre-WM5 operating systems) in, in most cases, the \My Documents, \Temp or simply the root (\) directory. This, especially when done on a VGA device and/or using BMP files and/or using auto (periodic) shooting and/or you use a WM5 device very sensitive to mass-writing operations (like the WM5-upgraded Dell Axim x50 or the HP iPAQ hx4700; see this for more info), can really quickly fill up the (storage) memory and/or result in lengthy filesys.exe cleanups. Therefore, it's very important for the screen grabber application to be able to store the screenshot files on a storage card. In this test, I've scrutinized each application in this respect. Ones with the ability to store the files "anywhere" are generally preferable.
OS compatibility with real device tests group: here, I’ve elaborated on the Pocket PC / Windows Mobile version compatibility of the tested applications. Of these, I’ve tested all, except for the oldest PPC2k (Pocket PC 2000). (Incidentally, compatibility with the 12-bit iPAQ 36xx also means that all these apps are able to capture screen contents of both 12 and 16 bits. This may also mean they are also compatible with 18-bit screens as, as far as I know, the underlying data is still 16-bit, just like with the case of 12-bit screens like that of the 36xx/37xx iPAQ series.)
VGA compatibility with real device tests group: does the given application support VGA screens – that is, does it make full, high-resolution screenshots of them?
The majority of them support SE (standard) VGA (the VGA mode that is by default active on VGA devices, unless you explicitly switch it to the so-called ‘native’ VGA mode; please see my older, VGA-related articles for example in my blog on these questions); many of them that don’t can be “forced” to do so. There are only four applications that can’t take high-resolution screenshots in SE (standard) VGA mode.
Native VGA WM2003SE/ WM5: the non-default, “magnifier is needed!” screen mode of VGA devices. Three applications are hopelessly incompatible with it.
Non-portrait orientation support group: are the given applications compatible with non-portrait (that is, right- and left-hand landscape) modes. Very few applications aren’t.
Pocket PC-based group: questions that only pertain to Pocket PC-based (that is, not ActiveSync-based) screenshot applications (again, you can take a screenshot through ActiveSync any time – this is why it’s not important whether, say, a desktop screen grabber has periodic screenshot taking capabilities). Of them, the following are the most important:
Auto shots: does the given application have built-in (!) support for taking screenshots periodically? Only two of them do (Vidya, BeniSoft ScreenShotCE).
Direct programmatic invocation to make screenshots in auto mode?: if they don’t have built-in support for periodic (auto) shots, are they “hackable” to do so? Three of them are; I’ve also described in the chart how this must be done.
Gaming group: is it a right program for making screenshots of games? In the 2700G tests, I’ve also listed some of my remarks on how it behaved (in Auto (periodical) mode) during my tests.
Menu/button group:
One-time timer: is it possible to set a timer in the program to make a shot x seconds later (making it possible to, say, take a screenshot of a menu or even a game that otherwise blocks all access to button-based screenshot making). With many applications, it’s possible; unfortunately, the best application, Vidya, doesn’t support this.
Hardware key (PPC-only apps)?: is it possible to make screenshots with a hardware button press? If yes, does the application offer all the available buttons to be used (le’ts not forget some high-end Pocket PC’s like the Pocket Loox 720 have some six buttons and all of them can also be used in hold mode, doubling the number of accessible functions), or just the standard four or five? Unfortunately, very few applications let for assigning the screenshot shortcut to all the available buttons. (Also see my old, button-related articles on how the actual number, the currently assigned programs and icons of the available buttons can be get programmatically – developers, hear me? It’s time to read all my past articles to find out how this all must be done!)
Able to capture menus? (Via HW button or timer): many times, you’ll need to take screenshots of opened menus. This can prove pretty tricky as menus are known to be closed when another program is started or a button is pressed. In this test, I’ve examined if it’s at all possible with the given app to make menu screenshots and if it is, how it can be done. That is, does pressing the assigned screenshot button close the menu and if there are no button assignment capabilities, are there at least timing (delaying) capabilities.
PC-based group: here, I’ve listed whether the PC-based client is able to take not only screenshots but also a video (as with, say, SOTi Pocket Controller or dotPocket) of the PDA screen. (Neither of the two PC + PPC apps are able to do this). Also, the Manual orientation change to take pics of for example Thunderhawk & games? Correct orientation? and the Remote (not just ActiveSync), IP-based connection? EDGE-based test if exists tests may be well-known from my old Remote Controller Roundup(s).
5. Taking screenshots of the built-in HTC Camera application?
A widely asked question (see for example the below-linked XDA-Dev thread on some practical uses) is taking screenshots of the standard HTC Camera application that comes with all HTC models (and some other HTC-manufactured Pocket PC's like the Pocket Loox 720) without the camera content being totally left out as can be seen in the following screenshot (taken with CEZoom in standard SE VGA mode; hence the pixel-halving):
Unfortunately, to my knowledge, it is not possible to do this (except for using CoolCamera, but, then, you won't see the standard HTC Camera GUI in the screenshot - see below). None of the tools I've tested was able to do this in not any mode. I've tried all the reviewed stand-alone, Pocket PC-based screen grabber tools, all the three reviewed screenshot-only PC-based applications (GetPDAScreen shot here; ViTO here, CEZoom shot above) and all the "real" remote controller apps (some example screenshots: SOTI Pocket Controller, VH Capture not even in capture mode, VNC Server etc.)
Note that according to XDA-Dev forum member levenum, (some of?) these tools work on HP's Pocket PC Phone Edition devices like the hw6915 with the HTC Camera app.
Also note that, right now, there is an alternate camera applications of HTC Camera: ATEKsoft's CoolCamera (reviewed here). You can freely take screenshots of it on both the PDA (see the screenshots in the review) and the desktop. Then, however, you won't see the standard camera controls of the HTC Camera application (as CoolCamera has nothing to do with the HTC Camera application). All PC and PPC-based tools were able to capture the screen of CoolCamera, as opposed to that of HTC Camera.
As far as the infamous CECam is concerned, it doesn't support built-in cameras - that is, it doesn't support any of the new(er) HTC models.
6. Verdict
It all depends whether you need fast gaming and/or automatic screenshots. If you want to take game screenshots (topped with easy menu screenshot taking), go for either Vidya Pocket Screen Capture or SuperSnap. Unfortunately, both are pretty pricey. If you don’t need to take game / (easy) menu screenshots but would certainly welcome auto shots, check out the much cheaper BeniSoft ScreenShotCE. If you aren’t afraid of a bit of manual work and script deploying, definitely need auto screenshot capabilities and, say, already have PQV or Developer One Pocket ScreenSnap, you can safely use these two applications too. (Note, again, that PQV is unable to work on VGA devices and will not save operating system-level Landscape screens, only Landscape games). Alternatively, you may want to give a try to the free WebIS Screenshot - it's VGA-compliant and works just great in (scripted) auto screenshot mode.
Finally, if you need no periodic shooting capabilities (because, for example, a timer-based single shot will do the trick), check out the comparison chart: there will be a lot of applications to choose from. Make sure you base your choice on the most important things you need (for example, operating system version / VGA / Landscape compatibility; the ability to store screenshots right on a storage card; support for timers and/or buttons etc.). You'll find all the information you need in the comparison chart to base your decision on.
UPDATE (09/05/2006 9:22AM CET): PPCT frontpage
UPDATE (09/13/2006):
justanothermobilemonday frontpage
UPDATE (09/17/2006): AximSite frontpage; Allen Gall's thoughts on screen capturing. In the meantime, I've also published a full article How do I take screenshots of great multimedia player TCPMP (or, any other decent video player) playing videos.
UPDATE (09/20/2006): Added Jeyo Mobile Companion 1.1.
UPDATE (09/23/2006): Added SuperSnap 1.0

One thing you don't seem to say is if each program works properly with 18 bit screens. Another good thing to know is if any can get a screen capture of the built in camera when in preview mode.

OdeeanRDeathshead said:
One thing you don't seem to say is if each program works properly with 18 bit screens. Another good thing to know is if any can get a screen capture of the built in camera when in preview mode.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You have a point there - upon the next article upgrade (dunno when though), I'll also include this info.

I find that the "powertoy" called ActiveSync Remote Display downloadable free from Micro$oft does the job ver nicely. Displays on the Windows desktop, allows you to use the mouse and keyboard too. 8)
It does not do landscape and I've no idea whether or not it handles VGA though. :?:

TheBrit said:
I find that the "powertoy" called ActiveSync Remote Display downloadable free from Micro$oft does the job ver nicely. Displays on the Windows desktop, allows you to use the mouse and keyboard too. 8)
It does not do landscape and I've no idea whether or not it handles VGA though. :?:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It does landscape (after a manual reconnection - it can't dynamically change):
It also supports VGA if you explicitly force /Windows/cerdisp2.exe .
(I've elaborated on all this here.)

Updated the roundup with PSC-related info.

Another update (sorry guys and gals): a new introductory section, the addition of ScreenShooter 1.0 by KaonTech and a completely new, very important row (“It stores the captured images in the file system”) in the comparison chart.

Yeah, another update: Alex from WebIs Inc. wrote in ( http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=1201&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 ) to announce the availability of their stand-alone, free Screenshot application. It’s, fortunately, scriptable and delivers very good results in taking periodic game screenshots.

You seem to have left out one very basic, but free tool which a lot of people on this forum probably already have, and it can handle VGA, any orientation, almost any device (including pure CE devices) and the camera preview.
MS's own remote zoom-in utility which comes with eVC or VS2005.

levenum said:
You seem to have left out one very basic, but free tool which a lot of people on this forum probably already have, and it can handle VGA, any orientation, almost any device (including pure CE devices) and the camera preview.
MS's own remote zoom-in utility which comes with eVC or VS2005.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You mean CeZoomIn.exe? Yup, you're right - I'll include it in the next iteration.

Windows Ce Remote ZoomIn can't actually see the camera preview (I mean the moving image seen while trying to obtain the shot). On my XDAIImini all I see is the brown mask colour and the icons. The image that I can see on the device is not seen on the monitor. Any way to grab this data would be very usefull. I have a use for close to real time screen data from the camera but cant get it. I can set the device up to take a shot at close intervals, then read the screen when it shows the result but that is not fast enough and the timing can be affected by other things going on in the device.

OdeeanRDeathshead said:
Windows Ce Remote ZoomIn can't actually see the camera preview (I mean the moving image seen while trying to obtain the shot). On my XDAIImini all I see is the brown mask colour and the icons.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here too (tested on a Pocket Loox 720). Besides, it's QVGA only in SE (standard) VGA - it's only in native VGA that it delivers hi-res VGA shots. (Yes, I've tried "hacking" all the EXE's and DLL's into VGA.)
Neither can the two other grab-only clients; also tested Soti Pocket Controller in this respect. (No-go either)

Menneisyys said:
Neither can the two other grab-only clients; also tested Soti Pocket Controller in this respect. (No-go either)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've tested stand-alone, PPC-only clients on the Pocket PC too (this time on a HTC Universal); none of them was able to take a screnshot of the camera.

Hmm, I tried it on HP 6915 and it go the preview. I guess, HP camera app works differently than the XDA one.

levenum said:
Hmm, I tried it on HP 6915 and it go the preview. I guess, HP camera app works differently than the XDA one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
BTW, have you managed to get Hi-Res (VGA, not crappy QVGA) images in SE (standard) VGA mode with CEZoom?

OdeeanRDeathshead said:
The image that I can see on the device is not seen on the monitor. Any way to grab this data would be very usefull. I have a use for close to real time screen data from the camera but cant get it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use CoolCamera - please read the latest version of the article on this.

Added a lengthy section on how you can take shots of the built-in HTC Camera application (if it exists). I’ve also elaborated a lot on CEZoom, Microsoft’s own desktop-based, free screen grabber tool.

Thanks, thats one program I would actually pay for. I just wish I knew how to access the memory the camera was using myself. Still, at the end of the day $14 is not that much.

How do I take screenshots of great multimedia player TCPMP (or, any other decent video player) playing videos on my Dell Axim x50v/x51v?
Now, after publishing my roundup of capturing the screen of Pocket PC’s where I’ve also elaborated on the chances of capturing the screen of HTC Camera, I’ve received a question regarding doing the same with the great multimedia / video player TCPMP on Dell Axim x50v/x51v devices.
On these devices, by default, TCPMP playing videos can not be captured – the active video area shows the same symptoms as that of HTC Camera (that is, nothing can be seen on the capture, let it be captured on the PDA itself or through a Pocket PC controller application). An example screenshot of this situation is here.
Fortunately, as opposed to HTC Camera, there is a very simple solution to this problem: go to Options/Video and select anything but the default Intel 2700G Decoder (and Intel 2700G); that is, DirectDraw, Raw Framebuffer and GDI will all work. (Of course, after you've made the screenshots, switch back for optimal performance if you watch a lot of videos on your device.)
After this setting, the video playback can be captured as can be seen in here.
What about other devices?
All of them can be captured in all modes. A breakdown and a lot of examples (packed with screenshots so that you can see they do work) follows, separating Pocket PC’s on the ground of the default (most optimal) play mode TCPMP defaults to on them:
Intel XScale: for example, the Pocket Loox 720
ATI ImageOn (GPU): for example, the HP iPAQ hx4700 (here with WM5)
Direct (screen access): for example, the Compaq iPAQ 36xx/37xx series
DirectDraw: for example, the HTC Universal
Raw Framebuffer: for example, the HTC Wizard
GAPI: for example, the HP iPAQ 2210 and the Pocket PC 2000 Casio Cassiopeia E-125.

Article slightly updated.

The H.264 (a.k.a. MPEG-4 Part 10 and AVC) Bible

Many of you may have already heard of H.264 (Wiki page HERE) or AVC (for Advanced Video Coding), the latest-and-greatest video standard, widely used in everywhere where the best possible video quality is required with the least possible storage and/or bandwidth usage. It’s pretty much comparable to HE-AAC v2, the latest-and-greatest encoding in audio technology, which allows for quality (!) stereo Web radio streaming at even 24 kbps, and CD-quality recordings at 48 kbps. (Pretty much unbelievable, particularly at 24 kbps, with traditional compressed formats like MP3, WMA or even OGG, isn’t it?)
AVC is way better than the “old” MPEG-4 Part 2 or “ASP”. The latter is more commonly referred to as “DivX, Xvid”; in this article, I only refer to it as “ASP”, while I refer to the above-introduced H.264 format as “AVC”). While it gives you the same (or even better!) video quality, it is, in general, between 50 to 100% smaller and decidedly more flexible.
A lot of misconceptions or plain false info is circulating in the Windows Mobile, Palm and Symbian community; this is why I’ve found it extremely important to publish my AVC guide well before finally publishing my long-promised all-in-one Multimedia Bible.
Now, I take a look at whether you want to use it at all.
1.1 Pros and cons
First, let’s elaborate on why you would want to go for AVC files instead of the well-established and supported, plain, “old” ASP ones.
1.1.1 Cons
1.1.1.1 Battery life considerations
Decoding AVC, depending on the special AVC features used, the bit speed and the resolution, can require up to five times more CPU cycles than doing the same to ASP. In this section, I elaborate on what this results in in practice.
You may know it well enough that the more CPU cycles a given app uses, the less battery life you’ll have. This in itself may be a stumbling block for you.
Of course, this wildly differs between different CPU’s. For example, TI OMAP-based devices (particularly newer, latest-generation ones like the Nokia N95) consume far less power than Xscale-based ones. To demonstrate this, some examples.
A Nokia N95 playing an 320*144
* ASP encoded at 83 kbps (resulting in about ~30% CPU usage)
* AVC encoded at ~400 kbps (resulting in slightly less than full, 100% CPU usage)
results in the following power consumption:
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(the first half of the chart shows playing back the first, the second half the second video).
As can clearly be seen, the difference really isn’t much – about 280 mW, which roughly corresponds to ~90 minutes battery life decrease using the stock 950 mAh battery. That's about 30-35% battery life decrease.
(Note that I couldn’t make the same on TI OMAP-based Windows Mobile devices as it’s not at all possible to measure the current on them – “only” the CPU usage.)
Now, let’s see how other CPU’s behave in this respect. Let’s see the same test on the 624 MHz Intel Xscale PXA 270-based Dell Axim x51v. (Backlight level: as with the Nokia, the lowest.) In here, I’ve tested a 320*144 AVC encoded at ~400 kbps (about 30% CPU usage at 624 MHz) without any manual quality degradation and a 640*272 AVC encoded at ~460 kbps, without deblocking (near 100% CPU usage). For the test, I’ve enabled dynamic CPU scaling (that is, I didn’t run it on external power) so that the CPU could switch down to a lower frequency while playing back the lower-resolution video to increase the battery life to some degree.
The upper chart shows the power (in mA), the lower the CPU usage. As can clearly be seen, the power usage of playing the high-res AVC video at ~100% CPU usage required about 70% more power (480 / 280 mA) than doing the same with the QVGA-resolution AVC video. That is, while, on the TI OMAP-based Nokia, you will “only” encounter a 35% battery life decrease, on anything (!) Xscale-based, about 70% (!!!!). Yes, the (newer) TI OMAP platform does have a lot of advantages, one of them being not chewing through the battery when running CPU-intensive tasks, while still delivering excellent performance.
What does this all mean?
If you have an Xscale-based handset and have plenty of battery / a spare or an extended one OR you’re running a (particularly new-generation) TI OMAP-based handset (Nokia N95 etc.), you don’t need to be afraid of the battery life: go for the best quality; that is, AVC providing you with the best watching experience.
If, on the other hand, battery life is of extreme importance for you and you use a Xscale-based device, make you will still want to prefer ASP (or, low-quality AVC) to AVC.

1.1.1.2 You’ll be forced for (slow!!) recoding – unlike with ASP
First and foremost, as can also be clearly seen based on my very thorough tests, you in no way can play your familiar, “torrented”, full PAL/NTSC-resolution video clips / movies on current hardware. This is diametrically opposed to the case of ASP, where you, in most cases (except for the slowest TI OMAP-based Windows Mobile devices), can.
This means you MUST recode your videos before watching. You can’t just quickly drop your fresh-torrented, PAL/NTSC full-resolution (720*480 or 576) AVC’s on a memory card and just use CorePlayer (or TCPMP) to watch them. When they become available, that is; currently, on the Torrent scene, mostly, “only” HD (720p / 1080p / 1080i) videos are encoded in AVC, traditional, “low-res” PAL/NTSC rips are (still) all ASP’s.
Not even the best, most powerful handheld devices are able to play full PAL/NTSC-resolution videos (let alone 720p / 1080p / 1080i ones!). You must recode everything to either the native screen width of your device (which, again, isn’t the case with traditional ASP videos) or less and, in cases (for example, with VGA devices and/or slow (200 MHz) TI OMAP-based Windows Mobile handsets), you must deactivate some of the advanced features. This, again, isn't the case with "traditional" ASP files.
As noone not having a mobile device him or herself will deliberately rescale his videos (primarily meant for desktop watching) to a 640 or, God forbid, 320-wide one and, probably, even remove some features, which results in a visible quality decrease. With ASP files, you can just watch files originally meant for desktops on a handset; with AVC files, you can’t.
In addition, recoding, as opposed to creating ASP files, is a time-consuming process. In general, creating an AVC video takes 2-3 times longer than doing the same with an ASP one.
1.1.2 Pros
If you MUST use the least possible video sizes (because, for example, you don’t have an SDHC-enabled handset) with the best possible quality, H.264 is the way to go. It’s simply unbeatable and is way better than ASP at the same (low) bit speed. Again, it’s like how HE-AAC v2 compares to MP3.
Also, the MP4 container format used by the recommended Nero Recode makes it possible to have two (!) sound tracks in the same file. This was very hard to achieve with AVI files without some manual work. To my knowledge, there aren’t any Windows Mobile (Symbian, Palm etc.) related tools that let for storing two sound tracks in an AVI file. (It’s, technically, not impossible.)
Finally, once you learn how to navigate around in Nero Recode, ripping DVD’s or converting your other videos becomes very easy. No command-line tools are necessary – albeit, of course, you can use them too. For free, I should add – the most important command-line tool to encode into AVC, x264, is highly recommended and is of high quality. It, however, takes a while to learn – this is why I tend to recommend Nero Recode instead.
Nero Recode is, at first, seems to be a bit more complicated to use than well-known, established Windows Mobile DVD / video conversion tools like Pocket DVD Studio, Pocket DVD Wizard etc. Also, it’s a lot more expensive (around US$ 90). However, taken into account that several other AVC encoders are more than five times more expensive and you also get a complete suite of for example CD / DVD burners, the price can be justified. And, again, it only takes, say, an hour to completely learn to master the tool - unlike with x264.
(Note that, as the aim of this Bible is NOT showing you all the necessary encoding tools and tricks, I "only" discuss Nero Recode. It's readily available for download as a pretty much usable trial, isn't much overpriced and is MUCH easier to use than free tools. It's particularly because of the latter that I've chosen it to be featured in this Bible. Should you need another tool, look around HERE. I particularly recommend the decoder comparisons linked from HERE.)
1.1.2.1 Sample videos
In order to show you how much better AVC videos are than plain ASP ones, I've uploaded several of my test videos for you to evaluate. They're all 29-second, bilingual (English & German) and with two subtitle streams (English & German) and have been encoded for best quality (two-pass encoding with the best quality defaults).
In order to play them, you'll most probably need an AVC-compliant video player (if you don't already have a H.264 decoder on your system; for example, Cyberlink's newer PowerDVD versions do have a pretty good one - albeit in no way as efficient as CoreAVC, which I'll talk later. To play back these videos, it's more than sufficient). The easiest is getting VideoLAN VLC. Just download & install it (no need to fuss around with separate codecs - it contains all), start and open the video files.
320*144 videos:
87 kbps:
ASP (the worst - at 87 kbps and 320*144, using traditional ASP produces pretty bad results). As with the other bitrates & resolutions, this file is called "ASP.mp4".
AVC with all AVC goodies enabled - now, compare the quality of this title to the above-linked ASP one. Quite different, isn't it? Yes, AVC is WAY better at really low bitspeeds like 87 kbps. The file is named "default.mp4" - as will be the case with other bitrates.
AVC without bilinear prediction / CABAC support: this video has been encoded without two major AVC features to heavily reduce the load at runtime (and help speed up playback). (Note that I'll speak of bilinear prediction / CABAC later.) Nevertheless, even without these features, it's way better than ASP.
The same videos, encoded at 273 kbps and 320*144. As can clearly be seen, ASP produces much better results at this speed than at 87 kbps; still, AVC still has the lead, even without bilinear prediction / CABAC.
Sample videos encoded at three different bitrates (204k, 366k and 464 kbps) and at 640*272. Note that, with the second group, I've also made available two other videos. THIS one demonstrates the video quality degradation with bilinear prediction disabled; THIS with CABAC disabled. (Again, the 363k group also has the video that shows the "combined" effect of disabling both features - it's, again, named "nobilinNoCabac.mp4").
I really recommend scrutinizing these videos. For example, in the next scene at second 13 into the sample movie:
it's really worth checking out the following:
- the wall (it'll be "moving" all the time, producing a very bad effect, particularly with ASP and/or deblocking disabled)
- the effective resolution of the balls on the pool board (it'll be decidedly lower with 320-wide ASP videos than AVC ones, showing ASP not only sacrifies at quality (blockiness), but also at resolution at such low bitrates)
- the "blockiness" of the green pool board around the balls.
As you'll see, ALL these test videos show how much better AVC is, image quality-wise.
Now that you’ve seen both the advantages and disadvantages of AVC, let’s take a look at what players there are to play them.

1.2 Available players for mobile platforms
(Note that this guide doesn't cover the features not directly related to AVC playback - for example, AVRCP support, equalizer etc. because they can also be utilized playing back other content. They'll be all elaborated on in my forthcoming Multimedia Bible.)
1.2.1 Windows Mobile
1.2.1.1 CorePlayer
Without doubt this is the best player out there to play H.264 content. It’s by far the fastest, most compatible and featureful. If you’re seriously into H.264, you MUST buy it: it isn’t THAT expensive.
1.2.1.2 TCPMP
For this free app to be able to play your AVC videos, you MUST download THIS (originally linked from HERE; mirror HERE) add-on CAB file. Install it after having installed TCPMP. The CAB file contains a beta version of an early Windows Mobile CoreAVC port and the well-known AAC decoder already discussed and linked to HERE. (A quick note: CoreAVC is the main AVC decoder of all multimedia products of the CoreCodec folks. CoreAVC, on desktop operating systems, is unrivalled in speed – it’s even faster than some hardware-supported, much more expensive solutions. The speed advantage is certainly visible with the mobile ports as well.)
Note that there is another AVC decoder, the official ffmpeg codec, which is WAY slower than this beta and is, therefore, in no way recommended.
While the app has certain strengths (most importantly, it’s free), I don’t recommend it for serious AVC freaks – it’s just not powerful enough.
1.2.1.3 Nero Mobile Pro
Unfortunately, while the encoder (“Nero Recode”, part of the Nero 8 Ultra Edition) of the same developer is without doubt excellent and highly recommended, their Windows Mobile player, the commercial Nero Mobile Pro, is not recommended for playing back AVC content. (Or, for that matter, currently for anything else either: in my tests, other media players have turned out to be much more efficient and featureful in almost every area. It seems its only advantage is the native ability to play back HE-AAC v2 audio. To do the same, however, you can always use the free TCPMP with the AAC plug-in – and it’ll still result in better battery life than Nero Mobile Pro.)
Unfortunately, there’s no trial version of this app any more. While Nero 7 Ultra Edition Enhanced did have a trial of Nero Mobile Pro, Nero 8 doesn’t. Before a trial is (re)introduced, you can safely take my word: it’s, currently (as of version 1.4.0.9), just not worth the price (I’ve paid some 15 euros + VAT for it). And, it costs the same as the technically VASTLY superior CorePlayer – why would you, then, go for it at all?
As far as its performance is concerned, on VGA Pocket PC’s, it’s only usable with 320-only (QVGA) videos; of them, ONLY with ones without CABAC and Bidirectional Prediction. This pretty much rules it out as a decent player. If you do enable these (important) features, there will be a lot of dropped frames – on even the fastest handsets like the Dell Axim x51v.
640-pixel-wide videos, even ASP ones, badly lag; the AVC ones, in addition, have stuttering sound, even at the lowest stream speeds. That is, it’s impossible to play back VGA content under Nero, not even if you do all the recommended performance tweaks.
On QVGA devices, the situation isn’t better either: it’s only able to play the lowest-speed QVGA AVC movies. On my 400 MHz HP iPAQ h2210, the video was stuttering even when using a 83 kbps video stream (a ~230 kbps one was even worse). I haven’t tested it with deblocking-disabled videos but I don’t think it’d improve the situation.
All in all, stay away from this app. While their encoder (Nero 8 Ultra Edition) is certainly worth purchasing (if you don’t want to manually convert your DVD’s or other files to AVC with alternative tools like x264), Nero Mobile Pro is in no way.
1.2.1.4 In no way recommended, other apps
Philips’ Platform4 player (no longer developed, entirely abandoned, low-quality)
GPAC Osmo4/Osmophone
VideoLan – long-abandoned and has never really worked. When it did, it only produced at least an order of magnitude worse speed than TCPMP / CorePlayer.
1.2.2 Symbian
To play AVC videos under Symbian, your only real choice is CorePlayer.
Note that the built-in RealPlayer is also stated to be AVC-compliant (not only ASP). If it is, then, it must only be compliant with the simple Baseline profile, which isn’t what you will really prefer. I’m absolutely sure it’s not compatible with the Main profile, not even without Bidirectional Prediction and CABAC.
As far as other Symbian players are concerned, SmartMovie (as of version 3.41) doesn’t support AVC videos at all (it doesn’t even list MP4 files). The recently-released MMPlayer (as of version 1.01) doesn’t support AAC sound (see their official list of what’s already supported and what is planned HERE). This means it can’t play back AVC videos either because AVC videos generally use AAC sound tracks.
1.2.3 Palm OS
Here, CorePlayer is your only choice. MMPlayer doesn’t support AVC and, unlike with Windows Mobile, the Palm version of TCPMP doesn’t have an AVC add-on.
1.3 MP4 as a container; compatibility
AVC videos can be delivered in many so-called “containers”. The most widely used is the MP4 container, which, in addition to the video itself, can also have two (AAC) sound tracks, two subtitle streams and chapter support. Nero Recode supports these features. If you would really want to include two sound tracks in your videos and plan selecting your players based on these needs, then, you will find this section useful.
In the following chart, I list the compatibility of mobile players with these features.
http://www.winmobiletech.com/122007H264Bible/t1.png
As can clearly be seen, both Nero and Symbian’s RealPlayer are unable to switch to the second soundtrack. They don’t support chapter information either. The latter may turn out to be a letdown with direct DVD conversions.
Finally, none of these players support the Nero Recode subtitle format – unlike for example the free VideoLAN on desktop operating systems.
1.3.1 Matroska (.MKV) support
There is another, compared to MP4, more advanced container format called Matroska, which is especially popular on the High Definition ripper / Torrent scene (as opposed to “plain” DVD-only resolutions). Matroska files generally contain AVC video. CorePlayer supports these containers.
Note that, however, CorePlayer is only able to play back videos no wider than 1008 pixels. That is, it will NOT play back for example torrented 720p (meaning 1280-wide videos) content – most of current MKV files contain these kinds of videos. This is pretty much understandable if you take into account that most (particlarly QVGA) mobile hardware is simply unable to play back even 640-wide videos, let alone ones with much higher (twice the size!) resolution.
1.4 Fixing the frame drop problem
Unfortunately, as has already been pointed out, playing back AVC files requires a lot of computing power. On especially slower and/or (W)VGA or other hi-res devices, you MUST make some tradeoffs in order to be able to play back your AVC contents without problems (dropped frames).
In addition to lowering the resolution if you use a non-QVGA (read: (W)VGA on Windows Mobile, 320*480 on Palm OS or the screen resolution of communicators like the E90 on Symbian), you have four choices:

1.4.1 Using the simplest (Baseline) profiles instead of Nero’s “Standard – AVC”
Sticking with the simplest (Baseline) profiles means avoiding using the (standard) Main profile. This will still result in considerably better-quality results than with ASP, but, in my opinion, isn’t the best way to go because it’s definitely an overkill. That is, by fine-tuning the much more featureful Main profile, you can get much better results.
That is, if you stick to the Baseline profile (by, say, using the “Mobile AVC” or “Portable AVC” profiles in Nero Recode – as opposed to “Standard AVC”, which roughly corresponds to the “Main” profile of the H.264 standard), you will not have access to a lot of goodies that, otherwise, wouldn’t decrease your playback performance that much but still add a lot of additional functionalities and subtly increased image quality.
For example, if you don’t use the “Standard – AVC” Nero profile, you won’t be able to select HE-AAC for audio encoding, only the substantially worse AAC-LC. As has already been explained in the recently published 2nd Multimedia Bible sneak peek: crossfade / gapless playback, (audio) media compatibility and power usage, CorePlayer (as opposed to most other players; for example, TCPMP) doesn’t use considerably more CPU time for decoding HE-AAC audio; therefore, you’ll want to use HE-AAC with CorePlayer and not AAC-LC. If you, however, use a “dumb” profile, you won’t even have a chance to select HE-AAC.
However, when you do plan to watch your videos with TCPMP only (or, other, technically not so advanced multimedia players), you must keep in mind that the situation is pretty much the opposite. Then, you WILL want to switch back to AAC-LC by selecting the “Settings” radio button (highlighted in HERE, the mouse hovering over it), clicking the “Custom profile:” radio button and selecting AAC-LC as can be seen in HERE.
There will be other cases (for example, playing back AVC on slow TI OMAP CPU’s), when this (using “simple” profiles) is what you will want to prefer. Note that, again, the video quality will still be better than that of traditional ASP at the same bitrate – that is, it’s still a usable tradeoff. On other (faster) platforms (practically, anything non-TI OMAP-based, except for the newer Nokias, which already are based on a vastly enhanced TI OMAP), you will ALWAYS want to stick to the Main H.264 profile (accessible as “Standard AVC” in Nero).
Note that Nero Recode also has some other, device-specific profiles. Of them, many recommend for example the iPod 5.5G profiles for VGA users (it, using the default, automatic settings, encodes 640-wide video at 728kbps). However, I don’t really recommend it because the iPod 5.5G profile doesn’t support a number of advanced features (for example, CABAC and/or Bidirectional Prediction) – why not stick with the Standard profile, then?
Also, many recommend the Sony PSP profiles of Nero. I didn’t find them particularly useful either, particularly if you’re a high-res (VGA etc.) user. The sole reason for this is that it only encodes in low resolution.
1.4.2 Switching off Deblocking
Deblocking is a genuine AVC (not available in ASP) feature to heavily (!!!) reduce blocking effects and really increase image quality. It’s really-really useful, particularly with slow (80…120 kbps QVGA or 200-250 kbps VGA videos), while “only” consumes about 10-20% CPU cycles.
Disabling it will, therefore, increase playback performance by 10-20%. Note the following:
1. You should ONLY disable it when there is simply nothing else to do to increase performance. The two other (encoding-time) tweaks I’ll introduce in the next two sections, that is, disabling CABAC and/or Bidirectional Prediction, result in a much better performance gain, while retaining much better playback quality.
2. Some people state (example HERE) that switching off deblocking at video (re)coding time should be preferred to (plain) runtime switch-off. I’ve thoroughly benchmarked this and found out that, with the recommended CorePlayer, this is not the case (unlike what the original poster stated) - you won’t see almost any performance increase of not encoding your videos with deblocking support at all.
That is, with CorePlayer, where deblocking can be disabled by hand when you play back your video, disabling deblocking at encoding time isn’t necessary – there’re simply no advantages of doing it. With TCPMP or other players that don’t allow for disabling deblocking at runtime, however, you might still want to do this at encoding time. The speed increase will be pretty much similar to that of CorePlayer. (But, again, if you’re seriously into AVC, I simply don’t see the point in sticking with alternative and, technically, inferior products like TCPMP or Symbian’s RealPlayer – CorePlayer is THE fastest and THE best AVC player definitely worth its price.)
Disabling deblocking at runtime (again, only in CorePlayer) is pretty easy: just go to Tools / Preferences, select the Advanced page and scroll down to the “Disable AVC deblocking filter” checkbox. Tick it. Screenshots of this:
(Windows Mobile)
(Symbian)
Disabling deblocking at encoding time (again, if you do NOT use CorePlayer but (inferior) alternatives) is pretty easy too. If you use Nero Recode, after clicking Next on the main screen, click “Nero Digital Settings” in the left list (over the ? and the More >> buttons) and, after enabling the “Expert mode” checkbox under the tree view in the center (it contains a single item, “Encoder”, in non-expert mode, only allowing for switching between one- and two-pass modes) go to AVC Encoder / Encoding Tools. Then, just untick the Deblocking checkbox in the lower center.

1.4.3 Switch off CABAC at encoding time
CABAC is another, new and advanced technology used in the Main profile of AVC. Unfortunately, enabling it also consumes some additional CPU cycles at decoding time. Therefore, you might want to disable it – at encoding time only.
To do this in Nero Recode, go to the same AVC Encoder / Encoding Tools as was the case with disabling Deblocking, and untick “CABAC” (the uppermost checkbox) as can be seen in HERE.
Note that if you don’t see this checkbox, make sure you use the Standard – AVC profile inside the Nero Digital AVC category. In simpler profiles / categories like iPOD, PSP, Nero Digital AVC’s Portable etc., they are inaccessible (because they aren’t used at all by simple profiles).
1.4.4 Switch off Bidirectional Prediction at encoding time
As with Deblocking and CABAC, Bidirectional Prediction is another brand new feature of the non-basic profiles of H.264 (and, consequently, Nero). Unfortunately, it also consumes some additional CPU cycles at runtime and it can, as with CABAC (and unlike Deblocking), only be disabled at encoding time.
To do this in Nero Recode, go to the same AVC Encoder / Encoding Tools as was the case with disabling Deblocking and CABAC, and untick “Bidirectional prediction” (the uppermost checkbox) as can be seen in HERE.
(Note that you can disable both CABAC and Bidirectional Prediction at the same time. Do this if you do need the maximum performance. Don’t forget that, while disabling both results in a huge speed increase, disabling them both will still produce better results than disabling deblocking. Only disable the latter when you’ve already disabled the former two and there still are dropped frames. If it still isn’t working, then, consider using a lower resolution or entirely switching from AVC to the traditional ASP.)
1.4.5 Effects of en/disabling deblocking, CABAC and Bidirectional Prediction
The following chart shows the effect on performance of doing all these hacks. The results have all been measured using the current version (1.1.1 on Windows Mobile, b2 on Symbian) of CorePlayer. The test machine was a VGA Dell Axim x51v – video-wise, probably the fastest handheld around.
The first chart shows the performance gain of not only the combined disabling of CABAC and Bidirectional Prediction, but also the separated results. As can clearly be seen, the performance gain of not using CABAC roughly equals to disabling deblocking - while, again, it maintains MUCH better visual quality and should ALWAYS be preferred over disabling deblocking. The latter should always be the last resort to (try to) get rid of (heavily) dropped frames or bad performance. Disabling Bidirectional Prediction, on the other hand, results in a much higher performance gain: it’s like disabling deblocking AND CABAC at the same time.
The chart also shows the results of disabling the Intel 2700g hardware accelerator acceleration (a single checkbox in CorePlayer). As can clearly be seen, 2700g helps a LOT when playing back ASP videos – particularly high-resolution ones. With the latter, the performance gain can be even 60%. As the Intel 2700g doesn’t help at decoding AVC at all, the results would have been the same in both cases.
I’ve used several test videos with either 640 or 320 width. They all had two HE-AAC soundtracks (default of the Standard – AVC profile of Nero – as opposed to lower-quality profiles, where only AAC-LC is accessible) and two subtitle streams. The latter, of course, (still?) aren’t displayed by CorePlayer. All of the videos have been encoded using two passes and all optimizations. Note that removing one of the sound tracks and the two subtitle streams wouldn’t have resulted in a major speed gain (probably a 0.5% one – at most), which will also be shown in a later chart.
Note that most AVC benchmarks contain two values. The first shows the benchmark with enabled deblocking; the second (after a slash) with disabled one. (Again and again, disabling deblocking, unless your source is high-quality, is NOT recommended. Try creating your AVC videos with either bilinear prediction or CABAC (or both) disabled if you REALLY need some additional speed – the quality degradation will be far less visible than without deblocking.)
The chart also shows the effect of the bitstream speed on the decoding efficiency. It’s a well-known fact that the faster the bitstream, the more CPU it takes to decode it. As can clearly be seen, there is some difference. For example, a 204 kbps 640*272 AVC stream can be decoded with a 91% benchmark, while, when using a 464 kbps stream, this decreases to 82%, which, visually, is much worse (about two times more dropped frames). Fortunately, as AVC behaves extraordinary good at low bitrates (again, just like HE-AAC v2 in sound encoding), you will want to strive for using as low stream speeds as possible. Again, a 204 kbps 640*272 AVC stream is pretty much enjoyable – no need for using a faster stream. Let me emphasize again: a faster stream will only decrease performance.
1.4.5.1 Some other, bitrate-dependent tests
To prove my point and show how increasing the video stream speed decreases performance, I’ve made several other, bitrate-dependent tests with fixed streams. Note that, in here, the stream was a 640 * 384 (with QVGA, 320 * 192) one – that is, considerably thicker than the 640 * 272 stream used in the previous test. The results certainly show this has reduced the performance.
HP iPAQ hx4700:
HP iPAQ h2210:

HTC Universal:
Nokia N95:
1.4.5.2 Dell Axim x51v + TCPMP
The following chart shows how the x51v behaves with TCPMP (the free and, for playing back AVC files, not really recommended predecessor of CorePlayer). In here, I’ve benchmarked both the beta CoreAVC codec (the third and fourth columns) and the official (and much slower) ffmpeg codec (fifth column). As can clearly be seen, the ffmpeg codec is about 100% slower than the beta CoreAVC and the latter is about 26% slower than the one in the commercial CorePlayer. Note that this 26% also contains the additional slowdown introduced by TCPMP’s far less efficient HE-AAC audio decoder. With an AAC-LC test video, the difference wouldn’t have been this bad. (Again, as can be seen in HERE, the (old) HE-AAC decoder of TCPMP is 2.5 times slower than the AAC-LC one. As opposed to the CorePlayer case: There is almost no difference with CorePlayer’s AAC decoders.)
1.4.5.3 Other VGA Pocket PC’s
Let’s continue with some other test devices – in this section, Windows Mobile only. Let’s take a look at two other VGA devices, the 624 MHz HP iPAQ hx4700 (with an ATi chipset) and the 520 MHz HTC Universal phone (the latter without any hardware graphics accelerator). The tests, of course, have all been made with the latest CorePlayer (TCPMP was only used with x51v to show how slower it is compared to CorePlayer). As can clearly be seen, in AVC mode, the two devices performed equally well – and slightly (but not much!) worse than the “speedking” Dell Axim x51v. This also means if you have any of these devices (just like me), you may want to prefer them to x51v because of the far better-quality screen (much better color reproduction, no polarization problems etc.)
As can also be seen in these charts, the lack of any (previous-generation like the Intel 2700g in the Dell Axim x51v or the ATI chipset used in the hx4700) hardware accelerator in a VGA device isn’t a problem. The hardware acceleration of ATI and Intel 2700g (currently, the two chipsets supported by CorePlayer and TCPMP – no support for GoForce 5500 and Qualcomm 7200 yet) only helps ASP playback, not AVC one. It’s only the latest Marvell (ex-Intel) XScale 3xx (Monahan) series that has support for AVC decoding – not earlier designs. (Unfortunately, currently, only the brand new iPAQ’s (will) have the new Xscale CPU’s and nothing else.)
This also explains why, it’s only in the not recommended, old ASP mode that the (hardware accelerated) Dell and iPAQ are considerably faster than the non-accelerated Universal (or, the same devices themselves with disabled acceleration).
HTC Universal:

HP iPAQ hx4700:
Note that the “Video” setting dialog also contains a “Video quality” drop-down list. It should never be used because in the “Medium” setting, it severely degrades video quality (it effectively halves (!) the original (!) resolution – that is, VGA source becomes QVGA) and, in “Low” setting, almost noting will be visible. The speed gain its usage results in is pretty low too. Finally, it only has an effect on non-AVC (for example, ASP) source; this is why I’ve added the MQ (“Medium Quality”) remarks in there. (For example, (MQ: 319) with the HTC Universal playing back a 204 kbps VGA movie means 319% benchmark when the video quality is set to Medium.)
Halving the original resolution means that, if you play back a VGA ASP movie on a QVGA device that supports the quality setting, in general, you can give a try to switching to Medium quality – you won’t see much image degradation (as opposed to what you would see on a VGA device). This especially pays off if, otherwise, you couldn’t play back the video without dropped frames.
1.4.5.4 QVGA Pocket PC’s and MS Smartphones
Now, from VGA Pocket PC’s, let’s move to QVGA devices (Pocket PC’s and MS Smartphones alike): the pretty old, WM2003 HP iPAQ 2210 (run by a 400 MHz Intel Xscale PXA-255) and the new, low-speed HTC Vox (s710) MS Smartphone, run by a 200 MHz TI OMAP CPU. (Note that, as far as other TI OMAP-based models are concerned, I’ve also benchmarked the HTC Wizard. I’ll show the results in a later chart.)
HP iPAQ 2210:
HTC Vox / s710:
As can clearly be seen, the 400 MHz iPAQ 2210 is just able to play back QVGA movies without having to resort to manual quality degradation (bilinear prediction / CABAC / deblocking). With the 200 MHz TI OMAP Vox, the situation is far worse – you cannot watch QVGA-width AVC videos on Windows Mobile models based on this CPU without manually decreasing the quality in encoding time (in runtime, just disabling deblocking won’t suffice).
1.4.5.5 Nokia N95
Finally, let’s see how probably the best multimedia smartphone of today, the TI OMAP-based (running at 330 MHz) Nokia N95 (firmware version v20, which is a bit faster at video playback (too) than v12) fares:
As can clearly be seen, it’s just able to play back 640*272 ASP videos without dropped frames – unlike the Vox or anything Windows Mobile based on the TI OMAP platform (without heavy overclocking).
1.4.5.6 Note that…
I haven’t benchmarked any Qualcomm MS7200-based devices because the next, soon-to-be-released, 1.2 version of CorePlayer will have much better support for it. Also, GoForce 4000 / 5500-based devices like the O2 XDA Flame are promised hardware support sometimes next year – see THIS for more info. Therefore, I haven’t tested them either. According to serveral users, both Acer (GoForce 4000) and the Flame (5500) have severe problems with playing back video – as is the case with the Qualcomm MS7200-based devices right now.
The source video I used was a 640*272 / 320*144 one – that is, a traditional 2.39:1 (35 mm anamorphic / Panavision / 'Scope) movie. With, vertically, considerably bigger movies (1.85:1, 16:9 (1.78:1) or even plain 4:3 – see THIS for more info) will result in a somewhat worse results.
For example, with a real 4:3 (640*480, VGA) 550 kbps ASP source, the Nokia N95 benchmarks at about 93%, as opposed to the ~111% of the “thin” 2.39:1 movie resized to 640*272 (keeping the aspect ratio).
1.4.6 Other tweaking
I’ve also thoroughly tested the performance gain using other checkboxes in the already-known (it’s there that you need to disable deblocking) Advanced tab of CorePlayer. Note that the test video was a fast one (the Standard - AVC 640-wide one was 1995 kbps, the Standard 320-wide one was 1468 kbps etc.); with much lower (and, therefore, much more recommended) bitrates (between 80…450 kbps, depending on the resolution), the absolute numbers would have been considerably higher, while the relative rations would have stayed approximately the same.
As can clearly be seen, trying to increase the performance with the other, Advanced checkboxes are pretty much futile. As a rule of thumb, it’s only the three parameters (Deblocking both runtime and encoding time and CABAC / Bidirectional Prediction at encoding time) that you should pay attention to. Also note that, by default, CorePlayer defaults to the best and most effective playback method (video output). It’s only with some ATI-based devices that you MAY want to override its decisions, should you encounter for example the infamous greenish effect.

1.4.7 Resolution-dependent benchmarks
I’ve also made some resolution-dependent benchmarks to see how the players behave with non-QVGA / VGA source videos. In this test, I’ve let Nero Recode set the target resolution depending on the manually set bitrate.
Incidentally, this (Nero Recode itself decides the best resolution for a given bitrate) is the default how encoding works. This may be an overkill in a lot of cases. For example, even a 200 kbps 640*272 AVC stream looks great, while Nero Recode insists of only allowing for this size at the bitrate of 533 kbps. This is a big overkill if your premium concern is storage space. Again and again, even 200 kbps 640-wide streams can look great, particularly those of “traditional” “35 mm” (2:39:1) movies. No need for wasting almost three times more storage on the video stream.
Therefore, if you do want to ALWAYS force the Nero Recode to convert your videos / DVD’s to either 320- or 640-wide videos, you must manually click the Video button (the lowermost large button on the right), go to the Resize tab and fill in both the horizontal and vertical size. In THIS screenshot, I’ve filled in 640 for the horizontal and 272 the vertical size. Uncheck the “Letterboxing” checkbox (if ticked).
Note that, as there’s no “keep aspect ratio” functionality in here, you must manually compute the vertical size, based on the original one. That is, if the original is, say, 720*300, then, you’ll need to
1, divide 300 (the original size) by the result of 720/640 = 1.125 (or, if you plan to watch the video on a QVGA screen, 720/320 = 2.25). The result is 266 (or, with the QVGA case, 133).
2, now, you’ll need to find the least multiple of 16 closest to the result. To find it, divide 266 (133) by 16 and round up. The results are:
266 / 16 = 16.625; rounded up: 17
133 / 16 = 8.3125; rounded up: 9
3, multiply the rounded-up integer with 16 (272 and 144, respectively); this will be the new vertical size.
Now, the chart:
With exactly the same video files (and, in addition, with a one pass, one soundtrack, no subtitle file and a iPod 5.5G –specific one to see whether they result in a better performance), I’ve also made some other tests with the three VGA devices to see how they play them back. As can clearly be seen, there isn’t much difference.
First, the results clearly show including a second soundtrack and/or subtitles doesn’t really cause any real speed hit. That is, feel free to do it if you’re either a language buff (and like watching movies in different languages) or would like to listen to the commentary soundtrack, if any. (Note that, currently, few desktop-based media players can display the Nero subtitle streams: of course, Nero’s own Showtime and VideoLAN.)
As can also be clearly seen (just compare the 640-wide result to that of the 624 and the 688-wide: as can clearly be seen, there isn’t much difference), the overhead caused by having to resize the video to (horizontally) fill in the entire screen is pretty low (as opposed to what some people state).
Still, as you won’t take advantage of the extra 80 pixels of the original 720-wide video, there isn’t much point in NOT reconverting it. Again and again, with AVC videos and current hardware (that is, before the VGA iPAQ 2xx series with the Marvel Xscale CPU’s hits the street and CorePlayer receives support for it), you MUST convert your videos to be enjoyable on your handsets – as opposed to most ASP videos played on most Windows Mobile / hi-end Symbian handsets.
The other direction (not using a full 640-wide stream), on the other hand, can pay off. If you don’t want to disable any of the special AVC features (deblocking / CABAC / Bidirectional Prediction), then, resizing your videos to be 544 pixels wide will still yield an above-100 benchmark, meaning flawless playback (mostly) without dropped frames.
There is another usage area where you can make good use of the almost non-existing performance degradation caused by CorePlayer’s reisizing the non-320/640-pixels-wide content to the screen. For example, take the example of the QVGA Nokia N95, which has an analogue TV output. A 320 pixels wide video is pretty much pixelizated; a 400-pixel-wide isn’t so. The latter is still on the verge of playability without (many) dropped frames (and, if you’re lucky enough, even without having to disable deblocking). Therefore, in cases like this, it’s preferable to create a 400-pixels wide video, which can be played back pretty well on both the built-in QVGA (320 pixels wide) screen and an external TV set. (Also see THIS for more info on this subject.)

1.4.8 High-bitrate tests
Earlier in this article, I’ve already presented some bitrate-related tests to find out what effect the stream bitrate has on the playback speed. I’ve also decided to test some additional situations – extremely large stream bitrates to find out how the players react.
Note that, in these tests, I used the ffmpeg codec (instead of the much more recommended beta CoreAVC port) to benchmark TCPMP’s AVC playback.
Also note that the first two tests show how official trailers like those of Get Smart can be played back. This also shows that high-res, official AVC trailers created for desktop players (read: no CPU optimizations took place: with CABAC, deblocking and Bidirectional Prediction are all enabled), in general, can’t be played back, not even on the, otherwise, fastest x51v.
As the previous chart, Windows Mobile-wise, only contains data on the x51v (as far as CorePlayer, the recommended player is concerned), I’ve repeated the tests on all the other test Windows Mobile Pocket PC’s, including the 400 MHz Samsung & ATI-based HTC Trinity.
1.5 Using Nero Recode
There is an excellent and pretty much up-to-date tutorial on using Nero Recode HERE. This is why I haven’t elaborated on basic subjects like importing a video file or a DVD. Keep in mind, however, that the subjects not discussed in the Doom9 tutorial (forcing the 320/640-wide output with manual resizing; unticking the two (three) checkboxes to dramatically increase performance etc.) are only discussed in my tutorial.
1.6 Verdict
With the hacks / performance improvements I’ve thoroughly explained in section “1.4 Fixing the frame drop problem”, I’m absolutely sure you’ll love AVC, particularly if you don’t mind having to recode your movies and/or you absolutely need the least possible storage usage. AVC, sometimes together with the hacks, is indeed a killer video compression format, even on low-power mobile platforms.

UPDATE (12/24/2007):
TCPMP has turned out to support the same tweaks as CorePlayer. Most importantly, it supports disabling deblocking at runtime – as opposed to what has been stated in the Bible. (Sorry – I won’t re-edit the original Bible.)
Thanks to BrightHand forum member jigwashere, I have been pointed to the AAC and AVC plug-ins for the Palm OS version of TCPMP.
The AAC plug-in is the same as with the Windows Mobile version; that is, it even allows for decoding HE-AAC v2 sound. This is certainly very good news.
The AVC plug-in, unfortunately, only supports the standard Baseline profile (corresponding to the Mobile / Portable AVC profiles of Nero Recode), unlike on Pocket PC, where also the standard Main profile is supported. Nevertheless, it’s, on the T3, blazingly fast playing these “simple” AVC videos - I wouldn't have thought my old Tungsten T3 is SO fast with TCPMP in full screen mode. Remember, even the baseline profile of AVC is WAY better, image quality-wise, than ASP at the same bit speed. (Assuming low bit speeds, of course – not, say, over 1000 kbps.)
Still speaking of the T3, the 204 kbps 640-wide ASP test video benchmarked at 124% in fill full screen and 135% in non-filling (that is, keeping the original aspect ratio and showing everything) mode. These results are definitely better than the 640-wide ASP playback results on QVGA Pocket PC’s, even under the, otherwise, faster and more optimized CorePlayer. Frankly, I wouldn’t have ever thought the 4.5-year-old Tungsten T3 is so nice a device for ASP playback, even with TCPMP – again, even in full screen.
A new version of Nero Recode (3; in Nero 8.2) has been released in the meantime (some 6 days ago); see THIS for more info & changes.

UPDATE (12/29/2007): AAS Top Story (!) frontpage (screenshot)
UPDATE (01/03/2008): let me also present the standard benchmark results of the QVGA, 400 MHz Samsung + ATi-based HTC Trinity / P3600. This chart belongs to Section 1.4.5.4, “QVGA Pocket PC’s and MS Smartphones”.
Also note that I’ve made some CPU usage tests to find out how the power usage on Samsung-based Windows Mobile handsets and PDA’s increase with increasing CPU usage. The results are pretty good: pretty much close to the (excellent) Nokia N95 results shown in Section “1.1.1.1 Battery life considerations” and WAY better than the Intel Xscale PXA-27x figures. These results can be found in my Radio Stream Transcoding Bible, in the “UPDATE (01/03/2008)” section at the bottom.

UPDATE (05/03/2008): For my just-published HP iPAQ 210 in-depth review, I’ve thoroughly tested the H.264 (and ASP) performance of the latest, 1.2.3 CorePlayer version. With Intel Xscale PXA270-based handsets, there is absolutely no difference. On models based on the Marvell Xscale PXA310/320, on the other hand, there is between 30…50% performance increase, making the Xscale PXA310/320 platform definitely better to play back AVC (H.264) than PXA270. You can find more info in Section 1.4 HERE (cross-posted to: PPCT, AximSite, XDA-Devs, BH, HF, MoDaCo.)

UPDATE (01/25/2009):
1. CorePlayer 1.3 has been released for both Windows Mobile and Symbian in the meantime. I've made some very thorough tests on it to find out whether it's faster at playing back H.264 than the 1.2.x series or whether there is H.264-specific decoding acceleration support of the Xscale 3xx series (tested this with the 310-based HP iPAQ 210) or the TI OMAP 2xxx-series (tested this on the Nokia N95 equipped with an OMAP 2420), two chip(set)s announced as ones that might receive hardware support in the future. Unfortunately, there isn't. Nevertheless, if you have a previous version of CorePlayer, you will want to update to the new version – it has much better YouTube support. For example, it supports iterating over all the search / category results and also supports the latest YouTube video formats. Unfortunately, HE-AACv2 and, on Symbian S60, WMV support is still painfully missing – I really-really hope they'll be added before long.
2. I've also played a bit with the latest (1.8.5.0) version of the desktop version of CoreAVC, the desktop decoder for H.264 and directly compared it to the recently-released DivX Player 7.0, which, among other things, has a brand new H.264 decoder. I've also thrown the latest (0.9.8a) version of VideoLan VLC player to see how the two compare to the well-established (but not very efficient, H.264 playback-wise), free, all-in-one video player.
All my tests have been conducted on a 2 GHz IBM ThinkPad t42p with a Pentium-M Dothan running at 2 GHz, 2GB of RAM and an UXGA screen, under the recently-released build 7000 of Windows 7 beta. I've run the tests in full screen mode. (Note that, unlike with, say, the IBM ThinkPad a31p and HP TC1100, video acceleration is fully supported on the t42p. Without it, watching high-resolution videos would be a painful experience.)
I've mostly used (torrented) 720p material like Ratatouille (video encoded at 1280x528 @ 4380 Kbps, bilingual audio left at the default 640kbps AC3) and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, encoded using very similar parameters. Of the former, I especially took care of checking switching between the two soundtracks (English / German); of the latter, I paid special attention to the jerkiness of the animation at the end of the movie, starting at 2:31:05. In addition, I've thrown in some 1024*768*15 fps Canon IXUS SD960 video clips encoded by the latest (version 2009 build .35), highly recommended SUPER (Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer) using 1200 kbps, 15 fps video and LLC-AAC 64 kbps 44 kHz mono audio.
The results are as follows: VLC, as one could easily guess, was by far the slowest to render. It just couldn't produce enjoyable results – the 720p videos stuttered so bad. (The much simpler 1024*768*15fps videos were, of course, played back without problems.)
The free(!) DivX Player was much-much better. It delivered far less stuttering. A quick note: it, by default, doesn't support AC3. Therefore, you'll want to install AC3filter [latest, tested version: 1.51]. Note that, as is explained in section 4.10 HERE, you'll also want to do this if you use other players and find the audio volume low while playing back movies with an AC3 soundtrack; this also applies to CoreAVC and any compliant player like the built-in Windows Media Player or, in newer Windows versions, Windows Media Center. (Note that these do play back AC3 soundtracks – at least under Windows 7 – without installing any codecpack; just pretty quietly) Just install the driver and, under XP, follow the just-linked tutorial; under Vista / Windows 7, go to All Programs / AC3Filter / AC3Filter Config and raise the gain level.
CoreAVC was still (a bit) better than DivX Player. While the difference between CoreAVC and DivX Player was certainly much-much lower than between VLC and DivX Player, I do think it's still worth paying for the standard version of CoreAVC (unfortunately, the Professional version still doesn't support hardware acceleration and it'll unlikely receive any, based on the comments HERE) if you want to minimize CPU utilization.
Note that I've tried very hard to remove (or reduce) stuttering in all players. In CoreAVC, setting "Deblocking" to "Skip always" from the default "Standard" didn't seem to have any effect at all – the video, with very fast panning / action, occassionally stuttered, while the CPU usage, interestingly, remained around 30-40%. In Divx Player, under Tools / Preferences / Video, the "Post-processing mode" drop-down list turned out to be uneditable – it is set to "Custom deblocking". Finally, I didn't really bother with VLC as it was bad enough and in no way recommended for H.264 playback. If you absolutely must use a free H.264 player (and can't shell out $8 for the Standard edition of CoreAVC), go for the (in this regard, much superior) DivX Player 7 instead.

3. I've found the above-mentioned SUPER (Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer) a very-very easy-to-use tool to convert your stuff into H.264. While in my previous H.264 bible I recommended Nero Recode for the task (because of its simplicity), now, I tell you to go for SUPER instead. It has a very simple and logical user interface you'll learn in a minute: no need to use x264 (the famous encoder) from the command line any more, with a lot of cryptic options and commands. You can do the same right from SUPER, without having to read a lot of manuals on the different switches of x264. Also, it's capable of batch processing: you just drop some source files in it and, after setting the output audio/video/container parameters, just start transcoding. It's really easy and the encoder itself is, according to most people, both better and faster than that of Nero – and, yes, it's completely free!
Note that SUPER, being "just" a front-end to some command-line codecs like x264, doesn't support cutting / editing video files before being re-encoded (transcoded). For this task, I recommend SolveigMM Video Splitter the most because it's capable of cutting videos without re-encoding them. This way, it's both very fast and doesn't introduce any kind of quality decrease. Unfortunately, it isn't free (it costs 35 euros); however, it's well worth the price if you need to cut / edit video files often. Note that the 21-day evaluation version is completely usable and has no restrictions. It's perfectly usable unless you have MKV files as source – "traditional" AVI, MP3, WMV, WMA etc. files are all supported. Note that DVD's are also supposed to be supported; however, I've repeatedly received "Can't start trim process (The parameter is incorrect HRESULT: 0x80070057)" messages as of version 2.1.901.22, upon trying to edit / trim VOB files from DVD – without, of course, protection. WMV, AVI etc. files worked without problems.
4. Still speaking of desktop Windows, I’ve also tested the video / audio streaming offers to be able to save streaming or non-streaming content. You might also want to read the following section if you ever wondered how you can save for example streaming WMV videos, MP3 broadcasts and the like.
First, if you’re watching a non-live source (that is, pre-produced videos like those of YouTube), in a Web browser, there is chance it’s sent to you in Flash format. (Most video sites like YouTube use flash.) The easiest way to save these videos is using Opera as your main browser and navigating to \Users\username\AppData\Local\Opera\Opera 10 Preview\profile\cache4\ in Vista/W7 (in XP, change the leading “Users” to “Documents and Settings”) and, before navigating to the page containing the video, just entirely delete the contents of this directory. Then, you’ll easily spot the FLV videos downloaded to the cache upon navigating to the page with an inline videos and, then, starting to play it. Remember to rename the videos to something.FLV. These FLV files can be directly played back by, for example, the free and (unless you want to play back H.264) excellent VideoLan VLC player.
Most of the Flash-based video sources (YouTube, Google Video etc.) allow for quickly finding their FLV videos this way. Note that the above-explained way of finding them also works with Internet Explorer; however, then, you’ll need to make some searches with, say, Total Commander’s built-in file search routine (Alt-F7) unless you’re ready to traverse all the (numerous) subdirectories IE creates. This is why I recommend Opera for this task (too – after all, Opera is an excellent browser worth switching to not only because of this.) I’ve found only one exception – a regional TV broadcaster “ATV” (an example video is HERE), which uses some special, non-caching format I could only save with WMRecorder 12.3+ (but not with previous versions, not even 12.1).
Streaming video formats are another question. WMV, which is, today, the most commonly used (see for example the direct TV stream library HERE) format, saving the stream is way more complicated. With some (few) WMV streams (offering only pre-recorded stuff), you can just create a HTML file pointing to the WMV server / file you can easily get if you examine the page source for the original address and just trying to save the contents with a right click. With real live streams, however, this won’t work – then, you’ll need to use a third-party app. In my tests, WMRecorder has turned out to be the best in this respect when operated in ADA mode. Make sure you give the trial version a try to see whether your particular hardware configuration is supported so that it can run in ADA mode. It works wonderfully on both my HP TC1100 and IBM ThinkPad t42p (2373W6M) under both Windows 7 and Windows XP – and also on my IBM ThinkPad a31p (2653AG9) under XP (haven’t checked it under Windows 7 on my a31p). Note that, under Windows 7 on my t42p, I’m always receiving (with version 12.1; haven’t checked the latest, 12.4 version in this respect) “URL Finder has stopped working” errors; nevertheless, it does catch streaming download initializations issued before the URL finder being killed. And, if you do encounter URL Finder problems, just close and restart WMRecorder.

MWC Report: i-mate’s new devices

Now, let’s see what new i-mate devices there are.
First and foremost: much as you may already have read it in my first MWC report, but it’s still worth repeating: i-mate is NOT returning to HTC but keeps on bringing out their own handsets, as opposed to the previous rumors. This is, in my opinion, VERY good news, considering that HTC’s current product lineup is pretty much unimaginative and straight boring (read: no VGA, no multimedia, no gaming).
(i-mate’s booth at MWC)
Now, let’s take a closer look at the four new devices they’ve brought out: the Xscale-based, high-end 8150 and the 6150 (the latter, having a VGA screen, also being high-end) and the Qualcomm-based, high-end 9502 and the lower-spec’ed (QVGA) 8502.
Dale Coffing and the VGA output demo
Windows Mobile (Pocket PC / WindowsCE) longtimers surely remember Dale Coffing and his PocketPCPassion, which, back in 2000...2002, was one of the most lively Pocket PC discussion board. During MWC, he mostly ran a demo of the built-in digital (as opposed to analogue) XGA (1024*768) output capabilities of the i-mate 8150 / 6150, thanks to the GoForce 5500 graphics chip inside. Dale has indeed been really energetic – he kept attracting a lot of people to watch his show.
(in his demo, he presented logging into a Vista laptop via the, in the 6150/8150, built-in Remote Desktop Client [see the Remote Desktop Control Bible for more info on it], displaying the remote desktop on an external screen and controlling it via a Bluetooth (ThinkOutside) keyboard and mouse)
He has emphasized these two models are the first phones with a built-in XGA output. He’s right – for example, HTC (unlike i-mate) didn’t really bother enabling the (analogue, VGA) TV output on the Kaiser (aka AT&T Tilt), even though the Qualcomm chipset does support it (more on the (vast) differences of the analogue VGA and the digital XGA output later). The two other phones with the GoForce 5500 built-in, the O2 XDA Flame and the Toshiba Portégé G900, didn’t have XGA output either. (The Flame only supports VGA-resolution, analogue TV output but not XGA digital. In this respect, it’s way worse than i-mate’s new 6150 and 8150).
Of course, you can still make other models display their contents on an external screen - for example, via Spectec’s new SDV-842 microSD card, which will also be elaborated on in Dale Daniels' article Can a Smartphone Replace a Laptop? in the forthcoming (April 2008) Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine article (also see THIS for a generic overview of all similar solutions). But that’s an external, additional solution, with all its problems:
the SDV-842 isn’t particularly cheap (albeit still much cheaper than the old and no longer supported iGo Pitch Duo -Presentation Device): at Expansys-USA, it costs some $125
it doesn’t contain built-in memory, which may become a major pain in the back, particularly if you only have a device with 128M ROM.
it can’t be used with the (now, very few and low-end) phones that have their memory card under the battery (for example, the HTC Oxygen / s310).
storage card-based solutions are inherently more fragile than solutions based on built-in sockets
These problems aren’t present with the, so far, only Windows Mobile-based solution, the Dell Axim x50v / x51v, also having these.
And, of course, if you don’t mind it lacking a phone (because, for example, you use a Bluetooth external phone instead), you can still use the Dell Axim x50v / x51v as an excellent, digital XGA output without having to pay for anything else. I’ve elaborated on the Axim VGA output cables HERE.
Now, let’s take a closer look at the four models: the 9502, 8502, 8150 and the 6150. These are all pretty much different. While three of them have VGA screens, the underlying hardware is vastly different, making it very hard to choose the right model. I’ve exported (with a lot of manual work) PDAdb.net’s databases into one chart so that you can avoid having to compare these devices in pairs only at PDAdb.net. Incidentally, I really wish the excellent PDAdb.net folks added the ability to compare more than two devices at the same time.
The chart is HERE - DO check it out!
It’s really hard to select the right device. All of them have some disadvantages, while still boasting some really unique advantages.
Let’s start with the 9502, which is, unless you don’t need the built-in thumb board and/or absolutely need the XGA output and/or the FM radio, the, in my opinion, best of the bunch (apart from the major slider and screen design problems, which I'll elaborate later on): the 9502.
The 9502
First and foremost, let me elaborate on the (compared to all the other models except the non-high-end 8502) unique feature of this phone: the built-in thumbboard and my personal experience.
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As you can see in the following comparative screenshot (comparing the 9502 to the HTC Universal / i-mate JasJar), the thumbboard (just like the device itself) is way smaller – I’d say the button pitch is about the half than that of the Universal.
This, unfortunately, means it’s far harder to type on the i-mate. While it’s still impossible to touch-type on the Universal, its thumbboard is, otherwise, excellent and allows for moderately fast text input. Not so with the 9502: with it, the buttons are unpleasantly small.
Compared to the BlackBerry 8800 (which I frequently use for entering e-mails and quick forum posts), I’d say the thumbboard on the 8800 can be used faster and more reliably than on the 9502. (Interestingly, while most BlackBerry fans state it’s the 8800 series that has the worst thumbboard of all BB models, I still find its keyboard speed good).

Another comparative screenshot, now, with the Nokia N95:
As you can see, it’s (only) slightly larger than the Nokia. (Unfortunately, it weighs a LOT more: 200 gramms as opposed to 120).
Let’s go further. The device is based on the 400 MHz Qualcomm MSM7200 chipset. It could be a little bit faster – some of the almost-already (they’re supposed to be released in March) devices like the Toshi G910 and G920 are both clocked at 528 MHz; so is the Sony-Ericsson XPERIA X1; of course, the latter will only be released later), but it’s still OK. I, unfortunately, haven’t had the chance of testing its video / multimedia / gaming / 3D performance so I cannot report on whether it has much better performance than the Kaiser / AT&T Tilt (remember the driver problems with the Kaiser and all the other Qualcomm-based, HTC-manufactured models?). At least, when navigating the OS screens and Internet Explorer Mobile, it was pretty fast – unlike with the Kaiser (without applying the very important, unofficial, IEM speedup CAB available HERE, that is). This also means it has GPS capabilities (not as excellent as with a dedicated SIRFStar III chipset, but still pretty good) and, unlike with the Kaiser, analogue TV output at VGA (640*480) resolution.
Let me a bit elaborate on the latter. Why I’ve emphasized this analogue vs. digital and VGA (640*480) vs. XGA (1024*768) stuff? It’s pretty simple. The two new i-mate devices based on the Qualcomm chipset “only” offer analogue and simple VGA-resolution output, while the two other devices, which are based on the Intel Xscale 270 + Nvidia GoForce 5500 combo, offer digital XGA-resolution output. You can rightfully guess, based on the resolution alone, that plain VGA output is much worse than XGA – unless you plan to play back movies, where VGA resolution is more than sufficient. (Actually, the current Windows Mobile hardware couldn’t even decode higher-resolution video – except for, maybe, the PXA320-based models if and only if they receive third party support from, say, CorePlayer, but 1. there are (and will be) very few of these models 2. it’s still not known what features of the PXA310/320 CorePlayer (will) support(s)).
But the resolution itself is just one side of the coin! The other, even more important difference is whether the output is digital or analogue. If the former (digital), the picture is crystal-clear without any problems. If the latter (analog), then, there will be visible artifacts on the output, which will be particularly visible on high-quality (non-CRT / non-TV-set) displays. Let me present a shot showing this:
(in this setup, the 9502 – more specifically, the TV output signal of its Qualcomm MSM7200 – was the source)
Pay special attention to the letters e, a and s. They are pretty hard to make out, aren’t they? Yes, the vertical resolution is pretty bad. Also, make sure you check out the boundaries of the uppermost, red banner. The red color heavily "blends" in the white background at the rightmost edge; as does the white background at the leftmost one. (The same effect is pretty much visible with the blue-backgrounded banner and inside the red banner with the white-red letter boundaries.) Not because the resolution is just VGA – the same text looks crystal clear on the built-in VGA screen of the 9502 but because of the analogue TV signal’s “blending” and washing consecutive rows / columns together. Now, compare this for example the XGA rendering quality of a digital video output – for example, with the shot above showing Dale Coffing - or the one below, showing the Programs in XGA resolution, via a digital output. WAY different, isn't it?
(note that, in this case, I've used a 1600*1200 image with JPEG quality=90 so that you can see there indeed isn't color blending with the digital output)
This inherent problem with the analog TV output isn’t a problem when playing back multimedia stuff (movies, for example – let me stress again that I haven’t tested playing back videos on external displays to see whether it’s quick enough [old CF/SD-based cards weren’t]), “only” when you plan to make, say, presentations. In the latter cases, you must go for digital VGA output – with as high resolution as possible.
The lack of the digital, XGA-resolution output in the 9502 (and, similarly, the, otherwise, much lower-spec’ed 8502) may be problematic in this respect. In this regard, the 6150 / 8150 are way better.
Major design problems with the 9502
Finally, something MUST be pointed out. In my opinion, the design of the sliding mechanism is VERY bad because it's only a not that large portion of the entire surface that is sliding. This is, among other things, that makes the thumbboard so tiny.
I-mate should have designed a handheld with a sliging mechanism similar to ANY other "sliders" out there. HTC (see most of their sliders: Wizard, TyTN, Kaiser, s710, s730 etc.), Nokia (N95-1 and, particularly on the N95 8GB / N96, where the slider is under the upper plate, as opposed to the N95-1), Sony-Ericsson (XPERIA X1), Toshiba (G900) etc. did manage to implement sliders that don't heavily reduce the dialpad / keyboard size; i-mate should have done the same.
Also, taking the overall size of the device into account (which isn't much smaller than the HTC Universal, which does have a 3,6" screen!), I'm not really satisfied with the screen size either. There are huge margins between the screens and the device edges. With a more clever design, they may even have managed to "stuff in" even a 3"...3.2" screen, which is way more usable on a VGA device, particularly if you're forced to look at small characters - either in true (native) VGA mode or in a program / environment that simply doesn't make it possible to enlarge the characters (for example, the Jbed MIDlet Manager + Opera Mini 4 combo.)
The 8502
Ironically, I find the 8502 much better-designed than the 9502 - except for the lack of VGA, of course. It's, as with all the other two (non-9502) devices, a non-slider device with a BlackBerry-like thumbboard on the front.
(8502)

(the 8502 and the 9502 next to each other)
The lack of the VGA screen, however, means I (an über-geek that does want VGA screens) is a dealbreaker for me. But, probably, not for you (and you may find the 8502 the best) - check out the following section on this question.
VGA vs. QVGA on a 2.8" screen?
While opinions certainly differ on whether VGA is needed in 2.8" screens, I think if you (still) have a 100% eyesight, you'll want to prefer VGA to QVGA. However, you might want to thoroughly read THIS on this subject. Note that probably the best browser today (particularly for people with a slow / non-unlimited connection), Opera Mini 4, will only be readable under the, otherwise, pretty much inferior TAO Intent MIDlet Manager on a VGA device (because you can turn up the character size to any value in there with a hack); with Esmertec Jbed or other MIDlet managers, the characters will be hopelessly small on a 2.8" VGA device, even with the extra large setting. Also, you must be aware of the fact that many games will exhibit slower operation. Not all of them, though - for example, MoreGames Entertainment's great games (Orions, Nanobotz, Enslave) run equally fast on a VGA device than on a QVGA one. Examples are, in general, the not very well written titles from for example Beijing Huike Technology (see reviews any my VGA speed-related comments HERE).
These two devices (the 9502 nd the 8502) also lack the FM radio, which is built-in in both the 6150 and the 8150. Another bad piece of news for (wired) music freaks is their audio output socket size: 2.5 mm, as opposed to the standard 3.5mm jack on the 6150 and the 8150. Finally, both of these devices lack infrared. While many consider infrared a “dead” technology, I certainly disagree. It can come very handy in some situations, particularly when you try to communicate (exchange, for example, contacts) with a lower-end dumbphone not having Bluetooth. Also, the CIR (Consumer Infrared) module in the 6150 and the 8150 can come very handy at remote controlling for example audiovisual devices from far away. I still use my almost five-year-old (and it’s still going strong, except for the loudspeaker’s being burnt down – a typical problem with many iPAQ’s – and a brand new battery) HP iPAQ h2210 as my primary quick note / voice recorder device I always carry with me and countless are the occasions I found its CIR capabilities VERY handy (for example, in the McDonalds, to (secretly) turn up / down the volume of the TV). I’m very sorry for these features not having been included in the Qualcomm-based 8502/9502.
The 6150 / 8150
(6150)
(8150)
(the two next to each other)
Speaking of the 6150 and the 8150, they too have major disadvantages compared to the Qualcomm-based ones (9502 / 8502). First, they don’t have any built-in GPS. Second, they are built on the already-outdated Intel Xscale PXA270 architecture. What is more, it’s only clocked at 520 MHz, as opposed to the maximal 624 MHz; this is definitely very bad news for multimedia and emulation fans. The Qualcomm MSM7200 in the 9502 / 8502 is way more up-to-date, battery-friendly and capable. If I were the i-mate folks, I would have gone straight for the far superior PXA3x0 series. And, of course, neither of them contains a thumbboard. Many won’t see this as a problem, however, as the built-in thumbboard in the 9502 will be too small for most people. Again, unlike the one on the Universal – or even the Kaiser. Finally,
their batteries are slightly smaller than those of the Qualcomm-based models
neither of them support HSUPA, which may be a definite disadvantage if you would upload a lot from your handheld (used it as, say, a HSPA modem). Of course, they do support the downlink HSDPA - that is, if you don't want to upload (much) and/or you don't have access to a HSUPA-capable network, this problem won't be a real one.
their scrollwheels are somewhat less functional than those of the 8502 / 9502.
The 8150 has a numeric keyboard (dialpad) on the front, while the 6150 doesn’t have anything. I would have preferred a slide-out dialpad on the 8150 to keep the size down just like on the Nokia N81/N95/N96 or the HTC Nike 200, but, based on the 6150 (which is pretty much reminiscent of the HP Jornada 52x/54x when it comes to the active percentage of the screen and the controllers on the front of the device), it seems the engineers at Arima (the ODM manufacturing i-mate's devices) just couldn’t make the non-visible electronics smaller; hence the big, unused area on the front.
Speaking of the 8150 vs. 9502 comparison (I consider this the two devices to eventually pick from – if there won’t be better models out there, that is), if you’re a frequent Opera Mobile or Mini user (currently, the two best browsers out there), you might want to go for the 8150 instead of the 9502. The reason for this is very simple: as has already been explained in several of my articles (see for example THIS), if you do learn the dialpad shortcuts of these browsers, they become quicker and easier to operate than Internet Explorer or anything else.
If weight is a concern, then, you need to be aware of the 9502’s weighing 200 grams. It’s considerably lighter than, say, the HTC Universal (the “real” VGA Windows Mobile phone up to now, weighing 285 grams - I don't count in the Toshiba G900 and the O2 XDA Flame in here because they're really-really buggy [click the links for bug reports and what people think of these models]) but is still one of the (if not THE) heaviest model of the current (!) crop of PDA phones – even the VGA ones. In this regard, the 8150 is way better: it only weighs 152 grams – that is, almost 50 grams less than the 9502. BTW, in this regard, the non-VGA 8502 is the best, “only” weighing 140 grams.

As can be seen in the following shot of the 9502,
it’s certain i-mate has gone for Aplix (Jblend) instead of Esmertec (Jbed) as far as MIDlets (like Opera Mini, the Gmail MIDlet or tons of sometimes really high-quality (like Simcity Societies) games are concerned) with the 9502. I am not particularly happy of this decision as, in general, I consider Jbed superior to Jblend. Fortunately, this can be easily fixed (if you’d also like to prefer Jbed if you’re a, say, heavy Opera Mini user or gamer) by just installing Jbed on the device. See the MIDlet Bible and my Opera Mini 4 tutorials HERE and HERE for more info. It's worth pointng out that the Xscale-based 6150 and 8150 are, on the other hand, Esmertec-based, as can also be seen in the following shot (notice the blue "e" "Java" icon.)
This is in favor of the 8150 (6150), unless you don't refuse to install Jbed on your device (or you don't plan to use Opera Mini at all - it'd be a bad decision because Opera Mini rocks, particularly if you master the dialpad shortcuts!).
Camera-wise, none of the new models excel. None of them has any decent lens (the heart of a decent camera - (mostly) NOT the amount of Mpixels the cameras have) or a Xenon flash. That is, don't expect anything comparable to the Nokia N95(-1) or, even better, the N82. I REALLY think Windows Mobile manufacturers should pay more attention to including quality (back) cameras in their models. Nokia's N95-1 is almost a year old and still, none of the new WinMo models can approach its image quality, let alone the mechanical lens protection. This is certainly an area where i-mate (too) should pay more attention to. Along with the other areas Nokia's entertainment-specific phones have always been strong at; for example, stereo, loud and quality speakers with built-in stereo widening (see my dedicated article HERE). Not "plain" SRS but something like the one in the N95 - at least when it comes to stereo widening of the built-in stereo speakers.
Finally, let me quickly elaborate on the question of the 3D hardware acceleration. It’s (still) not known whether the Qualcomm-based models (8502 / 9502) support it or not. The Xscale-based ones (6150 / 8150) (almost) surely do. This support, however, means the latter devices are only compatible with very few games / emulators out there (currently, only with Call of Duty 2 and GeoRallyEX). That is, most programs (again, mostly games and emulators) written for the earlier and much more widely supported Intel 2700G 2D / 3D accelerator (used in the Dell Axim x50v / x51v) will NOT make use the GoForce 5500 accelerator in the 6150 or 8150 – they are simply incompatible. See the current GoForce 5500 compatibility list HERE – as you can see, very few current titles support the chip. (Note that Kokak, the author of DoomGLES / HereticGLES, does promise support for the 5500 in his future DoomGLES / HereticGLES versions.) Also note that, while the Qualcomm is supported (to some degree) by the industry-leader video player CorePlayer, the GoForce 5500 isn’t and, as it seems, won’t be, at least not in the near future. (See THIS for more info on this question.) This mean you probably won't get flawless VGA playback on originally high-resolution videos, unlike with, say, the above-mentioned Axims.
Verdict
I need to admit: I have mixed feelings about i-mate’s new devices. I’m not sure whether I would at all exchange my more than two years old HTC Universal for a 9502 or an 8150 because the Universal is in no way THAT outdated (particularly if you take its EXCELLENT thumbboard into account - if you're a frequent texter and/or e-mail writer, you will just not want to get rid of the Universal, unless you use an external Bluetooth keyboard like that of iGo) and the new i-mate lineup isn't that revolutionary or considerably better than the old Universal. I think I’ll just wait for the newer and, without doubt, more exciting and, even more importantly, in most respects, more capable devices (most importantly, the E-Ten V900, the Gigabyte GSmart MS808 and the Sony-Ericsson XPERIA X1) to arrive. Also, I would keep an eye on the new Samsung SGH-i780, which isn’t a bad device unless you plan to play games (see THIS for more info on the gaming-friendliness of its touchpad) and/or need a VGA screen.
That is, I can't say I'm entirely satisfied with any of these new i-mate devices. This is why I wouldn't switch to either the 8150 or the 9502 from my current setup (Universal for heavy WinMo & touchscreen & VGA & heavy Web browsing / text entering tasks; N95 for everything multimedia, GPS and camera; HTC s310/Oxygen MS Smartphone for pure phoning (and nothing else) and the BlackBerry 8800 for IM / push mail / casual Web browsing). (BTW, just a quick note. Some of you have asked me how come a Windows Mobile fan, MS MVP etc. like me uses BB for push mail / IM. The answer is simple: I must have a BB subscription because I need to be up-to-date with Blackberry-related questions too. For example, I've just offered Microsoft a hands-on, week-long course for enterprise clients on why the Microsoft platform is better for enterprise usage than that of the BlackBerry. [I'm an experienced lecturer; I've led several hands-on, 40+-hour, mostly Java programming courses as a contractor for Sun.] This is why I need to use the BB very actively - to keep me updated about BB, the news, new products, new OS versions etc so that I know what the BB is capable of, even third-party app-wise.)
If you NOW shop for a device because you don’t have any WinMo device already or the one you have is heavily outdated and don’t want to go for HTC’s current devices (because of, for example, the generic lack of VGA screens and/or multimedia / gaming-friendliness on all their Qualcomm-based models), i-mate’s devices may be worth checking out. However, make sure you thoroughly compare the feature sets of each phone to see which fits you the best. Again, there is no clear winner: all of i-mate's phones have lacking functionalities and there simply isn’t “best” of them. You’ll have a very hard time choosing from the 9502 and the 8150 if you want to look for the highest-end models. Hope my pretty thorough comparison of the (dis)advantages of both models will help you a lot in deciding which model to go for.
What next in my MWC Report Series?
(Un)fortunately, I still have a lot to write / report about. I'll post a very thorough report on the new HP iPAQ 210, the already-mentioned Samsung SGH-i780 etc. Also, I plan to post some other, smaller tidbits too. Expect my next, huge MWC article later this week.
UPDATE (02/27/2008):
HowardForums forum member nextel1996 has pointed out PDAdb.net is able to compare more than two devices at the same time; their chart is HERE. You may visit it instead of mine because it'll be kept up-to-date, should be there any changes, as opposed to mine, which I won't update now that PDAdb.net offers a dynamically updated chart.
You might want to check out HowardForums forum member maevro's post HERE. Maevro is an authorized reseller and he reports on his experiences with i-mate.
I've expanded (and partially rewritten) the article; for example, I added the "Major design problems with the 9502" and the "VGA vs. QVGA on a 2.8" screen?" sections.
PPCT frontpage

UPDATE (02/27/2008):
HowardForums forum member nextel1996 has pointed out PDAdb.net is able to compare more than two devices at the same time; their chart is HERE. You may visit it instead of mine because it'll be kept up-to-date, should be there any changes, as opposed to mine, which I won't update now that PDAdb.net offers a dynamically updated chart.
You might want to check out HowardForums forum member maevro's post HERE. Maevro is an authorized reseller and he reports on his experiences with i-mate.
I've expanded (and partially rewritten) the article; for example, I added the "Major design problems with the 9502" and the "VGA vs. QVGA on a 2.8" screen?" sections.
PPCT frontpage

Guys, anothe rupdate. As I don't know how many updates I'll stil have, I found it better to link to the original article so that I can avoid slicing up the article again and again into postable chunks:
http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=2504&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

Sony-Ericsson publishes XPERIA X1 white paper! Wowz!

I’ve published several articles on Sony Ericsson’s forthcoming Windows Mobile device, the XPERIA X1. Up until now, little had been known of the capabilities of the phone. Now, the S-E folks have just published a white paper, which answers several (but not all!) questions.
It is available HERE for download as a PDF document. (Just enter the anti-denial of service four characters in the input field for access.) The best news is that, according to InfoSyncWorld, it’s coming in August 2008 – that is, earlier than most have thought.
Some of the most interesting stuff the old, MWC / CEBIT leaflets / presentations didn’t provide an answer to and/or could have been improved upon the first prototypes:
- it has a TFT LCD, NOT an OLED screen (some people stated it’d have OLED)
- it seems to have a traditional D-pad in addition to the touchpad if and only if "Four way key - to navigate menus" (see page 7) is what this means. Very good news for most people (see my generic remarks on the issue in my i780 article on touchpads.)
- the camera has both auto-focus and touch focus touch focus. The latter allows for quick focusing on the object you press on the touchscreen - clearly a clever way of focusing to out-of-focus subjects as quickly as possible. However, it seems it won’t have lens protection, unlike the Nokia N95 / N82 (the current top-end Smartphone camera model) and, generally, seems to be weaker.
- as far as the video recording capabilities are concerned, the video size (resolution) and frame rate are VGA and 30 fps, respectively for the non-US model; for the US model, this is QVGA and 24 fps only. Frankly, I just don’t get the point in so severely a dumbed down US model... Did the Sony people go crazy?! Not that I would except Nokia quality shots from the camera (no lens protector and the lens itself seems to be pretty weak), but 30 fps VGA is, today, a MUST in any decent smartphone; therefore, I just don’t understand why they plan to release a device for the US market with such specs. (Nevertheless, I’m absolutely sure some hackers / ROM cookers will be able to enable the American model to operate in VGA mode – if nothing else works, by flashing an European ROM on it.)
- it supports ("Media sharing is compatible with DLNA." on page 6) DLNA (see THIS), which is the first on Windows Mobile (unless you use a DLNA-compatible client). See my UPnP Bible for more info on it.
- it, in addition to the worldwide 3G bands, also supports most (but not all, as it's only tri-band) of the US 3G bands (but, of course, not the forthcoming, absolutely incompatible T-Mobile one); that is, most people in the US will get HSDPA coverage with either bands. This is definitely good news.
- according to page 27, the US version doesn’t support H.264 playback either. (See the H.264 Bible for more info.) Interestingly, the non-US version supports the H.264 Baseline profile.
- according to Page 26, the built-in music player supports eAAC+; that is, HE-AACv2. (I REALLY hope Sony didn’t mess up with the different versions in here.) This means the music player will be something much better than the built-in WMP in Windows Mobile 6 Professional, which doesn’t support this format. (See THIS for more info on this question.) At last some good news for us HE-AACv2 fans using Windows Mobile devices – I may even stop using my N95 as a HE-AACv2 player? ;-)
Note that
- it’s still not known whether it will have 3D hardware acceleration or not. Page 4, which is almost the same as the one in the original MWC leaflet, only lists “HW 3D Graphics” and, unlike most? all? the other list elements, it’s not elaborated on later either. There's a related remark ("3D fish Panel: A cool panel which will showcase the 3D features of the phone (A fish tank with 3D fishes).") on page 6, which MIGHT mean it indeed has hardware acceleration. Again, it is still to be seen whether it's true and whether it has hardware acceleration or not.
- it’s not known whether the built-in MIDlet manager supports Java 3D or not (see “N/A” in the Java 3D row on page 27). Given that the latest, 3.1+ Esmertec Jbed versions all support Java 3D (so far, without hardware acceleration because of the lacking Qualcomm drivers on HTC’s own phones), this MIGHT mean it uses either a non-Esmertec MIDlet manager or a non-3D-capable one. (Not that it’d be hard to install the latest Jbed on it... Still, it might not have support for the 3D hardware acceleration, if any – unlike, say, the Nokia N95 / N82, where hardware accelerated 3D games work just great.) (See the MIDlet Bible for more info.)

Menneisyys said:
- as far as the video recording capabilities are concerned, the video size (resolution) and frame rate are VGA and 30 fps, respectively for the non-US model; for the US model, this is QVGA and 24 fps only. Frankly, I just don’t get the point in so severely a dumbed down US model... Did the Sony people go crazy?!
- according to page 27, the US version doesn’t support H.264 playback either. (See the H.264 Bible for more info.) Interestingly, the non-US version supports the H.264 Baseline profile.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
These are likely patent related issues.
Surur

I cant see whether its windows 6.1 or 6.1+?

As Surur stated, it's very likely that the difference between the US and European version are related to Patent issues.
As for 3D I've seen a few videos where the SE rep talked about 3D, not to mention having a panel to show off it's 3D capabilities, add to that that HTC says they will have 3D acceleration in future models, it all points to the device most likely having 3D accelerated support.
The most upsetting thing is the touch panel, such a beautiful with an amazing 800x400. For me it's both exciting a and frustrating. The resolution makes pretty much any web site viewable without fiddling with magnification or scrolling around the page. Terminal Services will be even more useable than on a 640x480 display. It's all good as long as you can see it. I guess people will have to wait until the sun goes down
I've said this before but the more I play with an IPhone or Ipod Touch, the more I wish that the Xperia or any Windows Mobile device for that matter had a Capacitive Screen. Not only does it make finger touch cababilities much better. I was playing with an Ipod Touch outside yesterday, it was very sunny. I pulled out my HTC P3600 and compared the screen. The P3600 was unviewable, even with my hand providing some shade, I could still barely see the screen. The IPod Touch screen on the other hand, it was perfectly viewable even with the screen facing the sun.
It's frustrating as hell, I am looking forward to the Xperia, finally a device that isn't missing one feature, high resolution display, 128 megs ram, all radios, even a decent form factor. I'm not a fan of Qwerty keyboards and would like a thinner model (maybe X2) without the keyboard but it's still thinner than my P3600. Still, I'm considering switching to an IPhone. Even with all the limitations and things that I would be missing, the screen and touch goes from frustrating to enjoyable compared to my WM devices.
They should have at least had an OLED display.

The HP iPAQ 210 – an in-depth review

Without doubt, during its almost four-year lifespan, the HP iPAQ hx4700 has turned out to be the best "traditional" (phone-less) high-resolution (640 * 480, also known as VGA) Pocket PC ever released certainly filling in a very important market segment: that of the comparatively (but not too) large VGA screens. The reasons for this are well-known when you compare it to the alternatives:
Compared to the Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket Loox 718 / 720, the major advantage of the hx4700 is the sheer existence of a WM5 / WM6 / WM6.1 upgrade. On top of that, the larger screen, the quality magnesium casing and the faster CPU with a graphics co-processor greatly helping in playing back MPEG4 Part 2 (a.k.a. ASP / DivX / XviD) videos, on the long run, made it the winner (while this wasn't certain back in 2004-2005; the author of this article has also chosen, back then, the Loox 720 over the hx4700). Of course, it has had major problems compared to the Loox: the touchpad, initially, the higher price, the very low speaker volume (while the Loox has been one of the loudest ever PDA’s around), the lack of a camera (even if the one in the 720 isn’t anything to write home about, quality-wise) and the lack of USB host support. These problems, however, are easily mitigated by the really excellent WM6.1 upgrades released in the last few months. As the Loox isn’t upgradable to WM5, several current software titles (like Esmertec Jbed to run MIDlets like Opera Mini) just can’t be run on it.
It’s too better than the Dell Axim x50v/x51v. The Dell has vastly inferior battery life, much-much worse screen almost useless in Landscape for many users because of the major polarization issues, the plastic, thick body and the x50v WM5 upgrade having major compaction issues (as was the case with pre-WM6.1 hx4700 upgrades, though). The only real advantage, in addition to the louder buzzer, th emore gaming-friendly D-pad controller and (at least in the U.S.) lower price of the Dell is the Intel 2700G support, offering both excellent 3D hardware acceleration and great help in playing back ASP videos.
Note that I don’t even list for example the Asus 730(w) and the Toshiba e830, which all had major problems (for example, the laughable battery life of the Asus, the washed-out screen of the Toshi and the lack of WM5+ upgrades for both models) compared to the hx4700 and are now completely forgotten.
Over the years, because of HTC’s (the major Windows Mobile manufacturer of today) reluctance to produce anything similar to the hx4700, Windows Mobile users preferring a large (and quality) VGA screen had to stick with the hx4700. That is, if you wanted a 4" VGA screen but not significantly bigger (adding serious bulk: see the HTC Advantage / x7500/x7510 or even the even bigger and really expensive, SVGA [800*600] HTC Shift) and nothing less (4" is far better on a VGA device than 3.6", particularly when used in native VGA mode or an app not supporting large characters – for example, Opera Mini run under the MIDlet managers of Esmertec like the Jbed), your only choice has been the hx4700.
Fortunately, the (software) bugs of the hx4700 have all been fixed during these years; the author of this having been one of the most widely-known "hackers" having discovered several ways of fixing the issues with the official WM5 upgrades. The major problem of compaction slowdown has also been fixed in the WM 6.1 upgrade released some months ago. Yes, you will no longer see lengthy compactions if you upgrade to WM6.1.
The huge advantages and seamless operation of the WM6.1 upgrade(s) clearly make the HP iPAQ hx4700 one of the most recommended handsets for users opting for sufficiently, but not too large (4") VGA screens. Let’s see how its successor, the brand new HP iPAQ 210 compares to it. This comparison is of extreme importance because several ex-hx4700 users consider upgrading to the new device. The - without doubt - tempting price (around $400-$450 but, if you live in Canada or don't mind buying from there, you can get it for as low as $350) of the new model (which is almost half of the, originally, really overpriced hx4700) is also very hard to resist.
Thanks to Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine publisher Hal Goldstein, I’ve been given a HP iPAQ 210. I wouldn’t have myself bought it because I already have the hx4700 – also from Hal – and just couldn’t justify the expense for such a not-that-major upgrade (I better save money for the S-E Xperia X1, the Acer/E-TEN v900 or the Gigabyte MS808 with their goodies like WVGA screen (X1) or TV receiver (the latter two models)). I never sell my past PDA’s and phones (because I want to be able to provide first-hand info on even past models), unlike most other people. This means I don’t "upgrade" but pay full price for another toy to play with. That is, you need to thank Hal for this article (and my past articles on the hx4700)
Of course, immediately after receiving the new iPAQ, I’ve started testing it. In this article, I elaborate on my experiences with my new toy. Note that this article is in no way a full review of all features of the new device. Should you want to have a more gentle introduction to the new iPAQ, read for example Brighthand’s or Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine’s review. This article mostly targets past hx4700 users who would like to know whether it’s worth selling the old iPAQ and upgrading to the new.
1.1 The screen
As has already been mentioned, the hx4700 has probably the best and, size-wise, most useful VGA screen out there. First, its color reproduction is excellent and doesn’t have polarization issues in either orientation. (It’s at this that the Dell Axim screens severely lack.) Second, its size is large enough to make the user able to use even native (high-resolution) VGA mode and/or apps that treat their standard (SE) VGA mode as native and, therefore, using small characters (again, Jeodek / Jbed + Opera Mini). 4" is just the right size – it’s considerably larger than the 3.5… 3.7 screens of the other VGA alternatives (let alone the current crop of 2.4…2.8" VGA screens like the one in the Asus P750, several Gigabyte models or the forthcoming MDA IV; the Sony X1 will too only have a 3" for a WVGA screen). At the same time, it doesn’t severely hamper the pocketability / portability of the device, unlike with the HTC Advantage (a.k.a. x7500 and its slightly upgraded version, the x7510), which has a 5" VGA screen and is indeed more like a brick.
Let’s see whether the new model sports a screen that is at least as good as the hx4700! The answer is, fortunately, yes (at least to some degree – see the touchscreen sensitivity issues).
1.1.1 Outdoor visibility
Many have complained about the bad outdoor visibility of the 210 (while the hx4700 has average outdoor visibility). This statement, to some degree, is indeed true. As we’ll see, if you try to run your iPAQ without backlight at all, it’ll behave MUCH worse than for example the iPAQ hx4700 or most other Pocket PC’s, except for the now very common 2.8" HTC QVGA devices like the Wizard, the TyTN II / Kaiser / AT&T Tilt etc.
However, as the maximal backlight of the iPAQ 210 is VERY strong (even stronger than that of the hx4700 and much-much stronger than the 2.8" QVGA screens in the Wizard, Kaiser etc.), this isn’t a problem. I daresay: not even in direct sunlight. Just remember to turn the backlight all the way up and clearing the automatic backlight checkbox when outdoors on a sunny day, as can also be seen in the following screenshots.
Example screenshots showing all this:
1.1.1.1 No direct sunlight
(devices, from top left to bottom right: HTC Wizard, Compaq iPAQ 3660, BlackBerry 8800, Nokia N95-1, HTC s710 / Vox, HTC s310 / Oxygen, [second row:] Dell Axim x51v, HP iPAQ hx4700, HTC Universal and HP iPAQ 210)
Max backlight level, strong outdoor light without direct sunshine; all backlight levels – wherever possible; that is, not the, in this respect, by far the worst and least capable MS Smartphone platform – maxed. As can clearly be seen, the iPAQ 210 has the best visibility because of its very strong maximal backlight. The other phones / PDA’s aren’t much behind, though – without direct sunlight, they’ll behave pretty well if you maximize the backlight.

No backlight at all with the Pocket PC’s. As can clearly be seen, it’s clearly the reflective screen of the iPAQ 3660 that is the best, as opposed to the transflective screen of all the other models (some even state the Wizard, Kaiser etc. have a transmissive screen. This might be true, seeing the very bad results. Just a quick recap: transmissive screens essentially have no mirror(alike) behind the LCD panel that would reflect the incoming, external right; this is why they are clearly worse outdoors than transflective and orders of magnitude weaker than the old and no longer used reflective technology). With MS Smartphones, of course, I had to stick with the default, non-settable backlight level before its timing out. With the BlackBerry and the Nokia N95, you can’t entirely shut down the backlight. I’ve, of course, minimized them, though. Nevertheless, don’t forget they are backlight and however much their screens are generally more visible outdoors than that of most Pocket PC’s, particularly Pocket PC’s equipped with 2.8" screens like the Wizard on the shot, real-world results are in a bit more favor of Pocket PC’s if you also run them on the minimal+1 backlight level – that is, not entirely shutting their backlight off. Speaking of the N95-1 and its screen visibility outdoors, it’s slightly better than that of the N95 8GB and the N82 as is also explained HERE and is generally better than that of most Pocket PC's.
1.1.1.2 Direct sunlight
In direct sunlight, with, of course, maximized backlight, the screen is just a bit worse than that of the hx4700 or any past-generation VGA devices (like the Universal, which uses a screen manufactured with exactly the same technology as the hx4700; this is why the next three shots only show a Universal in addition to the iPAQ 210). It’s way better visible than the 2.8" QVGA screens commonly used in most contemporary Windows Mobile PDA phones. I present three example screenshots showing this without backlight at all (a clear lead for the Universal) and two with maximal backlight levels, one taken from an angle. In the latter case, the superiority of the hx4700 (Universal etc.) screens, visibility-wise, isn’t as visible as with the no-backlight case.
1.1.1.3 Color screens outdoors
I love playing Orions while taking a walk or resting with my wife in the nearby park. With the Wizard, this is, during the day (especially in sunlight), entirely impossible because of the far less contrasty screen contents. (The above screenshots have all been taken by 100% contrasty – black vs. white – screen contents.) The iPAQ 210 excelled at this area: I’ve never had any problems with playing Orions outdoors with it.
1.1.2 Color reproduction, minimal backlight level
The excellent screen of the hx4700 had both out-of-this-world color reproduction and very low minimal backlight level. Let’s see how the successor fares in this respect!
Historically, several Pocket PC’s (and other handhelds / handsets) have had bad screens with, for example, very weak reds and other warm colors. A well-known example of a "washed-out" screen is the HP iPAQ 2210.
I’ve devoted several articles to the question of color reproduction; one of them can be found HERE. (Incidentally, in there, you can also find the test shots I’ve used in this very article.) In the following color reproduction screenshots, you’ll see the color reproduction and the dynamism of the backlight level of the iPAQ 210 screen are indeed very good and basically the same as with the hx4700.
Also, the minimal backlight level is very important, particularly if you plan to use your handset in nighttime to, say, read some e-books or browse the Web. In this regard, the hx4700 and the iPAQ 210 are equally excellent: they have by far the lowest backlight level (just remember to check in the auto-backlight checkbox – unlike when outdoors and maximizing the backlight).
The Nokia and the BlackBerry follows. Incidentally, in nighttime, the brightness of the BlackBerry 8800 trackball can be a real pain in the back. (With newer models like the Pearl, you can switch to another, non-white trackball backlight color from software, effectively eliminating the problem.) Therefore, if you don’t want to continuously hide it with one of your fingers, you’ll want to use a marker to really decrease the light emission as is described HERE. No such problems exist with the Nokia N95, albeit the keypad backlight level can be a little high with it too – and the backlight sometimes a little bit shimmering, which is also pointed out in the official N95 manual.
Unfortunately, the Dell Axim x50v/x51v has a pretty much unbearable minimal backlight level; the same is even more true of MS Smartphones completely lacking any kind of automatic / manual backlight level regulation. This is why the "minimal backlight level" shots will show the HTC Vox having by far the most light emission. Hence the badly "burnt in" color grade test shot showing minimal backlight levels.
Let’s start with the maximal backlight shots.
1.1.2.1 Maximal backlight shots
The four children shot:
(devices, from top left to bottom right: Nokia N95-1, HP iPAQ hx4700, HTC s710 / Vox, HTC Wizard, [second row:] BlackBerry 8800, Dell Axim x51v and HP iPAQ 210)
which is by far the most important test image to test the reproduction of warm colors, shows
excellent color reproduction with the N95, BB8800, HTC Vox
very poor color reproduction with the Dell Axim x51v and the HTC Wizard (and, similarly, all the other 2.8" QVGA HTC handsets)
the hx4700 and the iPAQ 210, which render these warm colors equally well as the N95, BB8800 and HTC Vox, are a bit washed out in this shot because the maximal backlight level of these two models are way more than those of the others. The limited dynamic range of the camera was just unable to cope with the situation. That is, don’t let the above shot misguide you: the two VGA iPAQ’s both have comparable color reproduction than the three above-mentioned devices.
(Also note that it's not possible to disable the light sensor in the BlackBerry 8800, not even as of OS version 4.5. This is why its screen seems so dark - I just couldn't turn it up to the max. Its color rendering is excellent and, as has already been seen, so is its outdoor visibility.)

The gradient shot:
clearly shows the iPAQ 210 has a strong yellowish tint / cast. This, incidentally, has always been common with the Sony screens used in the older VGA models (particularly the hx4700 – not this one! -, the HTC Universal and particularly the Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket Loox 718 / 720). Incidentally, this shot also shows that the Nokia N95 indeed has a 16 million-color screen as it has absolutely no color "gradients", unlike the 16-bit MS Pocket PC’s and MS Smartphones. The latter is especially visible in the white – gray – black bar on the right – or, in the second, red bar. (Note that some sources – like PDAdb.net – state the screen was advertised as 18-bit; that is, able to render color gradients considerably better. This isn’t the case, as can be seen both in the above shot, HERE and HERE).
The ostrich egg shot:
shows it’s probably the hx4700 that has the most natural colors. On the iPAQ 210, the yellowish cast makes the egg a little bit yellow and makes the hand a bit unnatural. However, I in no way consider this a fatal flaw, considering the strengths of the screen.
Finally, the grass shot clearly shows how good the rendering of the green colors on the iPAQ 210 really is. Note that, in this regard, it seems even better than the hx4700 screen. The sole reason for this is the 210 screen being a bit yellowish. This shot also shows how sub-par the Dell Axim screens are, color reproduction-wise.
Now, let’s turn to shots with the minimal backlight level.
1.1.2.2 Minimal backlight shots
The gradient shot:
shows how low the minimal backlight level of the two VGA iPAQ’s is and how unbearably bright the MS Smartphone screens are, ruling them almost entirely out of nighttime usage. The same is visible on the egg shot; this also shows the minimal backlight level of the x51v is also very high:

(Note that all these shots suffer from interference with non-VGA (that is, non-190+ dpi) screens. This is why there are pretty bad color blocks on the screens of lesser-DPI screens like the Nokia or the BB. This is an inherent problem with taking shots of screens and I didn’t want to repeat my tests just because of this. Regardless of the interference, the shots clearly show the color reproduction capabilities of each screen. Also note that some of the images have been made with -1 or even -2 exposure correction to emphasize the screen backlight difference between the different models (cameras see the world in another way than the really dynamic human eye and sometimes it's a pain to produce shots that are reminiscent of what the eye sees). Feel free to examine the EXIF data in all the shots - I haven't deleted it. Again, click the thumbnails above for a much bigger version of the shots.)
1.1.2.3 Verdict - screen quality
All in all, the iPAQ 210 screen has great colors / saturation and its minimal / maximal backlight levels are both excellent. The (when using absolutely no backlight) very bad outdoor visibility is easily fixed by using maximal backlight. The latter, of course, won’t be really battery-friendly – but, at least, you’ll see what you do.
1.2 Running games, emulators
The lack of the D-pad on the hx4700 rendered it almost useless for emulators or games requiring D-pad input – only games with entirely touchscreen input were playable. In addition, the original (NOT the cooked!! The latter don’t have any compatibility problems) WM5 hx4700 ROM’s (2.00 / 2.01) had limited compatibility with games; namely, a lot of games wouldn’t even start.
Fortunately, I encountered no problems with the iPAQ 210 except for mainly the button issues, which I’ll elaborate on in the next subsection. I’ve played SkyForce Reloaded, Orions and K-Rally (three of the best titles of all times); all worked great, without any stuttering or other problems. Note that I used the touchscreen to control the ship/car in the first and the third title. I haven't encountered problems during this because of the touchscreen's not recognizing the stylus. Some other users, however, have complained about being unable to correctly use the scrollbars and/or CalliGrapher. If you frequently use the latter (or any other kind of stylus- and recognition-based, full-screen character / text recognition), make sure you give a try to the iPAQ before purchasing it to see whether you can live with the touchscreen insensitivity problem.
Emulation-wise, SmartGear 1.0.4 (probably the best all-in-one gaming console emulator; a MUST buy) runs very fast, even in full-screen mode. I’d say it’s a bit faster than on the other two VGA Pocket PC’s (hx4700 and x51v, both running on WM6.1) I’ve tested the same version on.
However, don’t expect ALL 2D games will run flawlessly and faster on the new platform than on, say, the x51v. SuperTux, for example, is equally bad than on the hx4700: it produces between 7…10 fps. Incidentally, I’ve also re-benchmarked the x51v and the hx4700 to see whether their new, WM6.1 ROM’s have any speed difference than the previous ones. The results are pretty disappointing: the new ROM’s delivered exactly the same figures (Dell Axim x51v: 19-23 fps; HP iPAQ hx4700: 8-9 fps) as their official ROM’s (A12 and 2.00, respectively) back in July 2006.
The new iPAQ, as with all the other past Intel Xscale-based devices, has absolutely no issues with the touchscreen CPU usage either – unlike HTC’s non-Xscale-based handsets (that is, the vast majority of their models).
All in all, the new device is far better suited for gaming / emulation than the hx4700 – assuming you read the next part.
1.3 Buttons
The new iPAQ has five hardware buttons. Unfortunately, this means there’re no hardware left/right softkey buttons (just like on the pre-WM5 hx4700 or even the Dell Axim x51v). Two traditional application buttons have been changed to Start Menu and an OK button.
The latter, Button 3, has a secondary, press-and-hold function, as with Button 1 (Calendar / Contacts – the latter is accessible with a long-press of the button) and Button 4 (Messaging / Windows Media).
Button 5 (Record) doesn’t have press-and-hold functionality (no wonder: after all, if you do plan to record with Notes, you must keep the button pressed, as has also been explained in my Audio Recorder Bible).
Button 2 (Start Menu; another newly-introduced button) can only be used for this very function and in no way can be redefined (officially) – unless, of course, you use a third-party button enhancer app.
The buttons are pretty large and very easy to press, unlike on the hx4700, the x50v/x51v or, probably the worst of the bunch, the iPAQ h2210. The D-pad is much better than on, say, the iPAQ 2210. That is, they’re excellent for gaming use – apart from the button redefining problem already mentioned.
1.3.1 The button redefining / assignment problem
As has already been mentioned, Button 2 and 3 can’t be redefined at all using the built-in Buttons applet: the former can only be used to invoke the Start menu and the latter to pass an OK message to the current application. (Of course, the Button 3 long-press can be overridden, as has already been mentioned.)
{
"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"
}
As can clearly be seen, there’s no way of redefining Button 2 (start menu), the non-hold state of Button 3 (OK); there’s no Hold for Button 5 either.
Third-party apps for the rescue! If you’ve read my (highly recommended!) Button Enhancer Bible, you already know AE Button Plus, probably – not taking into account its inability to define app-specific button assignments and inputting direct characters / numbers – the best and, what is more, mostly free (!) – button enhancer application. With it, you can freely redefine these two buttons.
1.3.1.1 The OK button
Redefining the OK button is pretty straightforward:
With this button, long-press can’t be redefined in AEButtonPlus; you’ll need to use the system-level Button applet. (Therefore, soft-reset bound to long-press is pretty much useless in the above screenshot.) The other three functionalities can be defined, including the "OK" functionality originally associated with a single button press.
1.3.1.2 The Start Menu button
The Start Menu (Windows) button can be too redefined – all the four functionalities work. Note that you’ll always be presented a dialog telling you you may end up having to redefine your other buttons; this, fortunately, doesn’t need to be done.
(all tested with the just-released v2.6.2 Beta)
1.3.2 In-app usage of the buttons
Unfortunately, very few applications / games / emulators notice the two special buttons – not even SmartGear. Hopefully the developers of these apps add specific support for the 210. After all, it’s not impossible - AE Button Plus clearly shows this.
1.4 Video playback performance
One of the best usage areas of the hx4700 has always been watching ASP (more commonly known as DivX / XviD) movies in Landscape mode. Its built-in ImageOn graphics processor let for really reducing the CPU load resulting in much lower power consumption and, consequently, battery life. Let’s see how the brand new architecture behaves with the current, 1.2.3 CorePlayer already supporting some of the advanced WMMX features of the new architecture! (The WMMX support in the new PXA310 have been made approximately two times faster than in the old PXA270 – this is one of the major advantages of the new architecture. See THIS for more info on this question.)
The much more advanced AVC (H.264) format (see my H.264 (a.k.a. MPEG-4 Part 10 and AVC) Bible for more info), so far, was pretty much a no-go on current high-res ((W)VGA) Windows Mobile devices – as long as you wanted to encode your videos in high (640+ pixels wide) resolution, that is, and wanted to refrain from transcoding (resizing to a format with a much lower CPU usage). One of the major advantages of the new, PXA 310 platform is the excellent support for decoding AVC. To a certain extent, this is already implemented and available for CorePlayer (the leading multimedia player for all major mobile platforms except Linux and BlackBerry) – and, according to the developers, in the future, making use of the H.264 support will be enhanced even more drastically, delivering even better performance. Add this to the excellent, large screen and, at least with headphones, good sound, excellent battery life and comparatively low price and you have a killer video player.

In these tests, I’ve also compared
the old, 1.1.2 version to the new, 1.2.3 on all my VGA devices
the latest WM6.1 upgrades on all my other VGA devices to the older WM version (for example, the official WM5 A12 on the Dell Axim x51v or the initial WM5 AKU 3.5.2 on the hx4700) to see whether they deliver any speed in/decrease or lack of support for the special graphics acceleration support.
The benchmark results are as follows (please consult the H.264 Bible for more info & help in interpreting the results!)
1.4.1 iPAQ 210
As you can see,
CorePlayer 1.2.3 defaults to the DirectDraw mode on the iPAQ 210. Make sure you set it to XScale to get the maximal performance!
(Non-4:3) VGA-resolution videos are played back with (almost) full frame rate (that is, over 100%). If you don’t run any CPU-intensive task in the background, you will rarely encounter any frame drops – unlike with PXA 270-based systems, which are pretty much unable to play back fully-fledged, 640-wide AVC videos at their full glory (for example, with deblocking enabled). Unfortunately, as the VGA playback is just a bit above 100%, this means using A2DP encoding will result in a lot of stuttering / dropped frames. This can only be fixed by disabling deblocking in runtime (not the best idea) or completely forgetting about A2DP and using wired headphones instead. (Or, using a lower-resolution input video –but who would want to see a lower-res video on a great, large screen like this? The other alternative is, of course, using the good ol’ ASP for encoding videos – at the expense of file size.)
I’ve also made some serious tests with 1.1.2 (the one I initially reviewed in the H.264 Bible) on the iPAQ 210 to see whether the, AVC-wise, excellent benchmark results cited above are any different with a non-PXA310-optimized player. The results are as follows:
That is, with VGA videos, version 1.2.3 indeed has some major enhancements with both AVC and ASP videos, with about 50…55% performance increase with the former and 38% with the latter. With QVGA videos, the improvement is about 35…40% (AVC) and 14% (ASP).
I’ve also run some tests with (some of) the other VGA Pocket PC’s I have to test whether
the optimizations in CorePlayer 1.2.3 (as opposed to 1.1.2) have any effect on the playback on these, older (PXA270-based) devices
the unofficial, cooked WM6.1 ROM upgrades still contain full support for the graphics chipsets with the hx4700 (ImageOn) and the x51v (2700G). (The HTC Universal doesn’t have anything like this.)
1.4.2 iPAQ hx4700 with VIET PDAV61KBD WM 6.1
The results are approximately the same with the old, 1.1.2 version. This means owners of the PDA’s or handsets based on the older, PXA270 will not really see any performance increase by switching to 1.2.3 – unlike with the PXA310-based iPAQ 210. (Of course, the new CorePlayer has a lot of cool features; most importantly, the native YouTube support I’ve elaborated on in the YouTube Bible.)
Incidentally, these figures are the same as on the WM5 3.5.2 ROM, both ASP- and AVC-wise (see Section 1.4.5.3 Other VGA Pocket PC’s in the original H.264 Bible for them). This is certainly good news for hx4700 users: the new ROMs not only excel at, for example, fighting the compaction issues, but also at supporting the special chipset in the PDA. I bet the same is true of all the other WM6.1 ROM’s discussed in the XDA-Devs hx700 ROM cooking thread.
1.4.3 Dell Axim x51v with makuu’s A06 privß06p WM6.1 ROM
The results are almost the same as with the official, very old, WM5 A12 ROM (see the old benchmark figures in section 1.4.5 Effects of en/disabling deblocking, CABAC and Bidirectional Prediction of the H.264 Bible):
ASP: 273k QVGA: 597% (with 2700G enabled)
464k VGA: 267%
AVC: 464k VGA: 83% (same with DirectDraw mode)
This, along with my earlier reports of the hardware 3D acceleration working great with makuu’s ROM is certainly great news.
1.4.4 HTC Universal with Ranju’s WM6.1 v7.6
That is, the figures are pretty much the same (except for some variation / "white noise"), showing the old PXA270 platform indeed hasn’t received any speed boost in the new CP version. Interestingly, the old WM6 AKU 0.2.0 ROM version I used on the Universal delivered somewhat better results (see section 1.4.5.3 Other VGA Pocket PC’s in the H.264 Bible) at playback even at 520 MHz (while Ranju’s ROM runs the Universal at 624 MHz by default). However, the difference isn’t big enough to warrant downgrading.
1.5 Using an external cellular handset to connect to the Internet
In my previous iPAQ 210 article, I’ve explained you’ll want to use a Bluetooth (or, if you don’t mind the higher power consumption, Wi-Fi) connection to an external handset to provide you with mobile access to Internet when you don't have access to any (working) Wi-Fi hotspot.
1.5.1 Bluetooth
1.5.1.1 Nokia N95
I’ve run some serious tests with the Nokia N95 (an excellent smartphone; an ideal companion to the iPAQ 210 as it has strengths in areas that are pretty much the opposite of the iPAQ’s strengths) as a modem and found the duo working excellent. No need for manual interaction on the Nokia (as long as you declare the iPAQ as a trusted client). The only problem I faced was the somewhat limited Bluetooth speed when using HSDPA – that is, speeds over ~700 kbps.
Unfortunately, unlike the iPAQ, the N95 doesn’t support EDR (see its PDAdb.net spec HERE), which is certainly visible in the following benchmark result. Over HSDPA, downloading a 7.25M file in IEM using the N95 as a HSDPA modem took 1:35…1:40; that is, the transfer speed is 0.0725 Mbyte/s = 72.5 kbyte/s. (Incidentally, the HP downloads the same file over ActiveSync in 25s and over 802.11g, via a Linksys Linux-based router is 14s. The latter figure on the N95, as of firmware revision v21, using the built-in Nokia Web, is 7s – an excellent result!) Downloading the same 7.25 Mbyte file to the Nokia over HSDPA only took 29s (measured in Vodafone’s network), which is an excellent result (250 kbyte/s); that is, 3.4 times more than the throughput of non-EDR Bluetooth DUN. This means EDR (or an alternate technology like Wi-Fi) is more than welcome if you want to transfer hundreds of megabytes – for example, you’re watching high-quality (H.264) YouTube videos or video streams operating at more than ~700 kbps (like those of YLE, the Finnish national broadcaster company, with their high-quality, high-resolution 1 Mbit/s WMV video streams).
1.5.1.2 Windows Mobile handsets
I had no problems using Windows Mobile handsets as clients. I’ve tested the HTC Vox with the official, upgraded ROM version (see THIS), the HTC Wizard and the HTC Universal with WM6.1 (running AMP’s 19199.1.1.0 and Ranju’s v7.6; see THIS for more info on these ROM versions).
Note that the Universal, in the default Internet Sharing mode (see THIS for more info on what Internet Sharing is and how it compares to the traditional Dial-Up Networking, DUN) seems to have DHCP problems: it just can’t hand out dynamic IP’s correctly. The other two devices, as is expected, don’t suffer from this problem. I don’t know if this bug is specific to Ranju’s v7.6 of WM6.1, or other WM6.1 Universal ROMs are also plagued by it. Note that:
if you connect the iPAQ 210 with another Windows Mobile device running Internet Sharing, you’ll receive an IP, which will be remembered upon the subsequent connection to the Universal. (You may even want to set the BT PAN local IP to a static address – I think I’ve explained this in some of my past networking articles. This way, you won’t need to connect to another PAN server to do the trick.)
Ranju’s v7.6 already contains the dial-up hack (see THIS for more info); that is, it can also be used in the traditional dial-up mode.

1.5.2 Wi-Fi connection to the handset
To overcome the problem of missing Bluetooth EDR support in your otherwise HSDPA / EV-DO handset, you may also want to go for Wi-Fi-based solutions to connect the iPAQ to your high-speed handset operating as your modem. (See THIS for more info on the why’s and how’s. Also, if your handsets run Windows Mobile, check out the free and excellent ICSControl and WMWiFiRouter [which, in the meantime, has gone commercial; pre-0.91 versions are free] – along with the, currently, really-really beta version of Walking Hotspot, on which I elaborate below).
As it’s the Nokia N95 that I want to use as a high-speed modem for my iPAQ and not a non-complementer Windows Mobile phone (as I’ve already stated, the Nokia N95 is a perfect enhancer / complementer to the iPAQ: its main strength is multimedia (for example, built-in stereo speakers with volume and stereo widening simply unmatched by any Windows Mobile device), 3D gaming (it has 3D hardware acceleration) and camera, which is completely missing from the iPAQ; in addition, it’s small, light and really sleek, unlike, say, the comparatively large, heavy and multimedia-unfriendly Kaiser / Tilt), I’ve tried very hard to make the first beta of WalkingHotspot (on which I’ve already posted HERE) run.
Unfortunately, the trial, which was released two weeks ago and is discussed HERE and HERE, just didn’t work together with my Windows Mobile clients at all. The HP iPAQ 210 just doesn’t stay connected – only for 4-5 secs and, then, just disconnects. With the HTC s710 and the Dell Axim x51v, while they keep connected, the Symbian server doesn’t even notice it being connected – unlike with the 210, where it asks for the first time (but not later). (Wi-Fi p2p, on the other hand, works flawlessly between the HP iPAQ 210 and another PPC.)
Incidentally, I’ve also installed the Windows Mobile port of Walking Hotspot on my HTC Universal. It’s even more a beta than on Symbian: it doesn’t even support VGA screens. Seeing this, I couldn’t bother testing it on a QVGA device – will return to testing and reporting on it when a somewhat better version is released.
1.6 SDHC support; CF problems
It seems the hx4700 just can’t be made SDHC (SD High Capacity) compliant. The iPAQ 210 has no problems with this format.
Note that there is a CF II slot in the 210. It seems to have severe power drain problems (I haven’t tested this myself). An except from THIS thread:
"2. Why is my battery slowly losing power, around 2-3% per hour?
Most testing done by users of this forum point to the CF card being the culprit. Even though there is an option in the control panel to disable power to the CF card when the device is in standby mode, it doesn't seem to do anything.
There have been reports that different brands of cards behave differently. Please post your results and I will update this list (most of the list below was taken from other forum posts):
Transcend 16GB 133x: 1-2%/hour drain
Sandisk 16GB "Extreme III": 1-2%/hour drain
Adata 4GB 266X Turbo: 0.6%/hour (thanks GloryQuest)"
Finally, note that David Hettel has also stated even SD cards (more specifically, Class 6 SDHC cards; I couldn't test this as I only have Class 4 ones - a 4GB Kingston and a 8GB Sandisk) are handled far faster by the x51v than the iPAQ 210.
1.7 System metric tools (acbPowerMeter); over/underclocking; power consumption
I REALLY hoped for the ability to track the power usage with acbPowerMeter or acbTaskMan (see THIS for more info on these excellent tools), particularly because I wanted to see whether the new platform indeed delivers far lower power usage under heavy CPU load. (This has been a major problem in previous Xscale generations; see for example THIS for a comparison with other platforms like previous-generation Samsung CPU’s.) Unfortunately, it’s in no way possible to inquiry for the actual current flowing from the battery with the iPAQ.
Unfortunately, Dogfood’s excellent RegTweak (also see THIS) doesn’t display the CPU speed either (a useful feature to see how much CPU usage a particular app has at a given clock rate. Unfortunately, keeping the iPAQ on external power doesn’t mean its CPU will always run at 624 MHz – unlike with most? all? prev-gen PXA270-based devices). I, along with the developer of the app, have tried very hard to make it work – so far, in vain.
The same is true of Wizcode LLC’s (ex-Anton Tomov’s) well-known Pocket Hack Master. As of the current, 4.32 version, it has no PXA310 support at all.
Finally, XCPUScalar (as of version 3.03) is completely useless for underclocking: when underclocked to 104 MHz, XCPUScalar itself consumes a LOT of CPU time (8…40%, fluctuating). Too bad, as with earlier HP iPAQ models, there is no way to set the CPU frequency from inside, say, Settings / System / Power, unlike with, say, the Dell Axim x51v or the Pocket Loox 720.
1.8 Other tidbits worth knowing
1.8.1 Updates so far
So far, only a Wi-Fi driver update (currently: 1.10) has been released. Note that the installer doesn’t seem to work under Vista; I’ve uploaded the extracted CAB file HERE so that this won’t cause you problems. Just download and click the CAB file.
1.8.2 USB recharge, particularly "kick-in" issues
While the iPAQ comes with a charger with the traditional 5V/2A "cinch" iPAQ charger (meaning it’s fully compatible with older "cinch" chargers from HP, Compaq, Dell and Fujitsu-Siemens, to name a few), it also allows for recharging (and syncing) via the miniUSB port.
The latter is strictly for recharging and synchronization only. That is, it does NOT have USB host capabilities. For the latter, you’ll need to use the special FB112AA#AC3 cable (also see THIS and THIS). As is explained for example HERE, on today’s Pocket PC’s, you need at least a 2A charger to "kick in" the recharging of a completely depleted battery (which was the case with my unit arriving from a long-long international journey). The traditional 5V/2A iPAQ chargers (or the one coming with the iPAQ 210) will work; however, USB chargers won't (necessarily) be able to "kick in" charging or charge (more) depleted batteries at all. Not even stronger ones; for example, the one coming with most HTC handsets (like the Wizard; it comes with a 1A charger). It seems the iPAQ 210 just doesn't allow for high Amperages when recharged through its USB port and this can't be helped with powerful external USB AC chargers - as opposed to charging the device from the standard sync port, using the 2A AC charger delivered with the device.
Keep this in mind when, seemingly, your (depleted) battery wouldn’t take any charge and you try to recharge it with a USB AC charger or, even worse, with a desktop computer. (This is, actually, my experience. The 1A Wizard AC wall charger just wouldn’t want to "kick in" my depleted, 0% battery. I at once thought I was in the same situation than neillm HERE. Fortunately, I soon realized the bottleneck was the USB port and, after switching to recharging via the standard charger, everything started to work.) It's very important that you keep this in mind when you leave for a journey where your battery may completely be depleted - it's always the best to keep the original sync cable & iPAQ charger with you to avoid being completely unable to charge a deeply depleted battery than trust in USB rechargers.

Also note that, as with some of the older iPAQ models, the iPAQ 210 also lets for choosing between fast and slow USB recharging (and disabling it completely). In my experience, the slow USB recharging when charged from a computer (meaning the PDA is always powered on because of ActiveSync's always keeping it alive) only results in the battery getting discharged and not charged at all. If you've ever owned a Pocket Loox 720, you already know the situation - it's exactly the same.
Of course, you should only enable fast USB recharging if you’re absolutely sure it won’t fry your PC because of the excess amperage. High-quality notebooks (like, for example, IBM / Lenovo Thinkpads) just can’t be destroyed (I’ve even short-circuited their USB port a day; except for it powering down for some minutes, nothing catastrophic happened). Lower-quality desktops / notebooks may be sensitive to this.
Also see THIS thread.
1.8.3 Changes in the synch port
As you’re most probably aware, the synch port, which has been the same in the last six years (starting with the Compaq iPAQ 3800 series released in late 2001), has been changed and the old sync cables and/or iPAQ-only, non-cinch rechargers won’t work. Keep this in mind if you have several cables you’d like to use with the new model - you'll end up having to throw them all away.
Every cloud has a silver lining, though: the separate miniUSB port (capable of both syncing and recharging) is definitely good news. This means you can use your USB rechargers (keeping in mind that, in cases, you won't be able to "kick in" deeply discharged batteries) and miniUSB cables for easy synchronization.
1.8.4 Other problem reports
Your main resource will be THIS (BH sticky; hopefully this means the thread starter post will be kept updated) thread. Some of the problems:
the problem of, from the Wireless applet, disappearing Bluetooth (also see THIS) . I’ve posted a complete tutorial on fixing this HERE (and in the Brighthand thread).
the bright blue LED problem – just like with the hx4700 (the same mistake by HP again…). The fix in a nutshell: under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Drivers\Builtin\NLed, just change the name of the entry DLL into for example xDLL, but do not delete it.
some people complain about the wired headphones’ hiss. I’ve tested it with some wired headphones (for example, the Plantronics Pulsar 590A in wired mode, the comparatively cheap RP-HT6 XBASS Panasonic headphones and the Nokia wired headphones coming with the N95) and encountered no problems at all. However, your mileage may vary if you have super-sensitive headphones requiring far less power to produce the same volume. Note that these tested headphones all delivered sufficiently loud sound to listen to even quieter audio programs even outdoors. That is, anyone that states the opposite must have used non-sensitive headphones (non-sensitive means it requires far higher power to produce the same audio volume; super-sensitive is exactly the opposite of this).
Some people state the iPAQ 210 has a four times slower CF interface. I haven’t tested the validity of this. Feel free to do the testing – I’ve published several articles on doing this; see for example THIS.
unfortunately, the 210 doesn't come with a cradle, unlike all non-entry-level (that is, not, for example, the 19xx-series), past Compaq / HP iPAQ's. There already are third-party cradles, however; see for example THIS.
1.8.5 A2DP
I've tested the iPAQ with the Plantronics Pulsar 590, Voyager 855 and the Gear4 BluPhones stereo Bluetooth headphones with the HP 210. All worked fine, except for the Gear4 BluPhones’ inability to autoconnect (a common problem with all Windows Mobile devices – as opposed to Blackberry 4.5 or Symbian).
Note that some people state the iPAQ is not compatible with the Plantronics Voyager 855. This is in no way the case.
1.8.6 No official WM6.1+ upgrade
HP have stated they wouldn’t release WM 6.1 (or any other, newer OS version like the future WM7) for the iPAQ 210. This means you’re at the mercy of the XDA-Developers’ hackers and cooked ROM’s. The lack of WM 6.1 isn’t really an issue as it has very little improvement on non-phone Windows Mobile PDA’s; WM7, on the other hand, will most probably be a must to upgrade to. I can only hope the iPAQ 210 can be hacked and its ROM can be easily upgraded with cooked ROM’s. Currently, there aren’t any hacked / cooked ROM’s. I’ll keep you posted on this issue, should you want to decide whether to go for the new iPAQ. You may also want to keep an eye on the discussions HERE, in the Upgrading, Modifying and Unlocking forum of XDA-Devs and, of course, the traditional Axim/MobilitySite and BrightHand fora.
1.8.7 Plastic body
While, at first, I didn’t particularly like the not-that-professional feel of the plastic back of the new iPAQ (compared to the magnesium-alloy body of the hx4700), I came to accept it. If you use it in a third-party leather case like that of PDAir (thanks, Hal, for the additional case!), you won’t really notice it having a plastic back. Also, its being a bit thicker than the hx4700 won’t be that big an issue either when used in a case.
1.8.8 Battery life
I can't really comment on the battery life yet. Many have reported around seven hours of battery life with moderate backlight usage and Wi-Fi on all the time. I had definitely worse battery life in my YouTube Wi-Fi playback tests with higher backlight levels. This may also be caused by the fact that the battery, on its long journey to Europe, had been completely depleted, which may have caused it to be permanently damaged and its capacity lowered. Also, the high (about 60...80% at 624 MHz) CPU usage of playing back 480*320 AVC videos (as of CorePlayer 1.2.3) may have also resulted in having much worse battery life than the above-cited seven hours.
1.8.9 Bluetooth GPS problems(?)
Some people (see for example THIS) have reported on GPS problems; for example, the inability to work together with the Nokia LD-4W (which works just great with some other WM handsets / PDA's like the Mitac Mio A702). Other, tested (and working) BT GPS sets include the BTGPS74R and iBT-GPS.
1.8.10 Low speaker volume
Unfortunately, the volume of the iPAQ 210 speaker is pretty low – about the same as the iPAQ 2210 or the iPAQ hx4700. As with the iPAQ 2210, the speaker is on the back of the PDA. Unfortunately, the PDAir case further decreases the already-low volume of the iPAQ 210. HP state the device has two speakers, one in the front; the latter might be for Skype only (not confirmed). (BTW, as with early versions of Skype, the dual-speaker Fujitsu-Siemens 720 wasn’t supported either and Skype, as of now, only uses the back speaker, also resulting in annoying acoustic feedback.) It’s not known whether the HP engineers will be able to raise the speaker (buzzer) volume from software or do we have, as with the 2210 and the hx4700, live with an inherently quiet speaker not fixable (and easy to even burn down, as was the case with both the 2210 and the hx4700). This means you’ll end up having to use headphones or external amplifiers for the time being. Certainly bad news for YouTube / video freaks.
Also note that the alarms are similarly low-volume and, therefore, pretty much useless if you plan to use your iPAQ as a clock to wake you up. There is a workaround HERE (with artificially increased volume levels in the reprocessed alarm tunes) you will definitely want to check out.

2. Verdict
While certainly not without problems (touchscreen insensitivity, low-volume speaker, button reassignment problems, no official operating system upgrades, slightly worse outdoor visibility of the screen without backlight), I pretty much like the new iPAQ and I think it’s a decent upgrade from the hx4700 adding painfully missing features (SDHC, for example). Particularly if you’re a multimedia geek and would like to play back AVC videos (where the new PXA310 already excels when used together with the latest CorePlayer; and, according to the CoreCodec folks, this is just the beginning!), you’ll certainly love the new device. While the "cooked" 6.1 HP iPAQ hx4700 Windows Mobile ROM’s are in no way bad (just the contrary – they’re EXCELLENT and, finally, take away entirely the compaction issues), the new PDA is indeed better in many respects.
If you need a device with a large, 4" VGA screen with stunning properties like the best minimal and maximal backlight levels and best color reproduction ever, the HP 210 is more than recommended. The only device that comes closer is, obviously, the hx4700, which has exactly the same color reproduction, (great) polarization evenness and minimal / maximal backlight level. Its touchpad, on the other hand, is a real pain in the back and in itself may worth the upgrade. Also, if you don’t want to use unofficial, "cooked" ROM’s, either the lack of WM5+ (if you stick with WM2003SE) with its vast arsenal of WM5-only apps like the Esmertec Jbed MIDlet manager or, if you do use the official 2.01 / 2.02 ROM, the heavy compaction issues will drive you mad. In these cases, the upgrade is more than necessary. But, even if you have WM 6.1 on your hx4700 (taking away the compaction issues and providing compatibility with the latest, WM5+-only batch of applications and games), the upgrade is well worth considering – particularly if you’re a gamer. Finally, don’t forget that, if you plan to stick with the Windows Mobile platform (and don’t go for full-size book readers like the iRex iLiad – see THIS for more info on this), you’ll want to go for a large-screen device like the 4" VGA iPAQ’s – if you don’t plan getting the (ridiculously priced, super-expensive – it costs about four times (!) more than the iPAQ 210) 5" HTC Advantage / Ameo / x7510, that is. The excellent book / document reading capabilities are greatly supported by the new D-pad (you no longer need to assign the "Page down" function to the Record button to avoid having to scroll back and forth horizontally because of a stale tap on the left/right arrows), the minimal backlight level (again, this model, along with the hx4700, the best for nighttime reading) and the lack of landscape polarization issues (you don’t need to stick with the Portrait mode, only offering 480 pixels horizontally, which is just insufficient for reading non-reflowed PDF files). Models like the Dell Axim x50v/x51v severely lack in the latter two respects, and they have a considerably smaller screen. Not to mention the just-announced 2.8…3" (W)VGA models from Gigabyte, HTC, Acer / E-TEN or Sony-Ericsson: they’re far worse suited for high-resolution e-book / PDF reading than these PDA’s even because of their much smaller screen.
Note that, as has also been explained HERE, I've painted a comparatively rosy picture for the iPAQ 210 for the following reason: there are only two VGA devices out there with quality (let's forget about the outdated, WM2003SE-only and washed-out Toshi e830) 4" screens. VGA on a 2.8" (MDA Compact IV, E-Ten, Gigabyte etc.) are more of a joke and in practice is pretty much useless; so is WVGA on a 3" screen (S-E X1). This is why my review is rosier than it would be if there were some decent (!) 4" VGA alternatives - apart from the hx4700, of course. (And the HTC x7510 isn't an alternative at all, particularly size- and price-wise.) The same stands for the PXA310 architecture, which already is FAR better at playing back AVC content than the lousy, heavily outdated PXA270 in the hx4700 (or, for that matter, the brand-new x7510).
This is also mentioned in the Verdict (and the intro) above, but I stress it once more. The reason for my recommending the 210 is simply because there aren't better 4" VGA devices out there and, therefore, one needs to learn to live with its problems. If you do not need a 4" VGA device and can live with even a 2.8" model, you have a lot more models to choose from. If you do need 4" because you want to use it as a high-resolution PDF reader, Opera Mini rendered by Jbed with readable fonts etc., your best choice, today, is definitely the iPAQ 210 and it simply has no alternatives. (Except for the predecessor, the HP iPAQ hx4700, upgraded to WM6.1 if you don't mind the touchpad, the inferior PXA270-based architecture, the lack of SDHC and the other disadvantages it has. Of course, as has also been explained, it has advantages over the iPAQ 210 too: most importantly, the touchscreen sensitivity and the non-plastic, much thinner body.)

(reserved for future use / additions / updates)

best review on the web for the ipaq 210 series

That's a fantastic review, full of the sort of detail that users actually want to know. Great job!

akyriak said:
best review on the web for the ipaq 210 series
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks Just published a somewhat extended version.

A revised, updated version posted.

UPDATE (05/05/2008):
1. There’re some additional speed comparisons HERE stating the 210 is faster than the hx4700 in everyday situations.
2. I also need to emphasize the 210 has 128Mbytes of RAM, unlike the hx4700. If you’re a power user, this may be advantageous – you can keep many apps open at the same time without having to close any of them (or let the system shut down some arbitrarily).
3. To see how usable a connection to an external cellular phone is, I’ve made some long-time HSDPA tests with the v21 Nokia N95. It worked just great; after downloading 300 Mbytes (and uploading about 40), the charge meter still showed about 4 bars on the Nokia, meaning it still retained about 20-40% of its charge. This means you can download about 500 Mbytes with one charge over HSDPA if you use the 210 with the Nokia N95 with its latest firmware. (Note that the figures may wildly vary with UMTS or, even worse, GPRS / EDGE only. With them, you will most probably encounter far worse battery life – after all, UMTS and HSDPA streaming / download consumes approximately the same power but the net throughput of HSDPA is, of course, much higher – even over a non-EDR Bluetooth modem connection, where it’s restricted to 72 kbytes/s, while the N95, at least in Vodafone’s network, is currently capable of downloading at about 250 kbytes/s over HSDPA.) The network conditions through this were excellent, with strong signal and, at most, walking speeds (some of the tests have been conducted while taking a walk).
4. I’ve continued making some serious power usage tests to find out both the power consumption of the wireless units and the PXA310 CPU. (After all, the major selling point of the new PXA310 architecture is the allegedly much lower power consumption.)
The results are acceptable but in no way stellar. All the tests have been measured under exactly the same circumstances: no CF / SD cards; minimal backlight WITHOUT enabling auto-brightness (which would have further decreased the backlight) etc. and are, consequently, usable for at least relative ratio computation. I’ve tried to make at least two tests of all tests, each lasting at least one hour long (with some tests, I’ve waited for three hours). All percentages are given in the voltage level decrease in an hour.
~0% CPU usage, no wireless activity: 8% / hour
100% CPU usage (Orions), no speaker, just idling (but still consuming 100% CPU time): 18% / hour
100% CPU usage (Orions), A2DP sound & actively playing: 24% / hour
YouTube & CorePlayer, HSDPA via non-EDR BT: 18 (with A2DP)…22% (with headphones at 50% volume) / hour
YouTube, Wi-Fi (with built-in speaker at max volume): 28 % / hour
The latter figure, incidentally, is pretty much in correspondence with the 3:28 total runtime with the Wi-Fi multimedia streaming test in Adama D. Brown’s review (see section “High Drain Test” HERE)
The Wi-Fi-less (Bluetooth only) YouTube figures are somewhat lower than the Orions figures. The reason for this is simple: when playing back YouTube, the CPU usage generally isn’t at 100%, unlike with Orions, but at 80%. This is even lower when YouTube is buffering (but NOT during every single buffering!); see the low valleys in the following acbTaskMan shot (look for the red line!):
All in all, efficiency- and power saving-wise, I’ve expected far-far more of the new PXA310 platform. (This is in no way HP’s fault!) Remember my previous power usage tests: there, I’ve measured (see section 1.3.2 Stream formats HERE) about 70% more net power usage with high CPU usage. These tests clearly show the PXA310 still consumes way more power with high CPU loads than running under light load. In this respect, even the old and otherwise heavily outdated Samsung SC32442 architecture is far better (again, see my power measurement results HERE, in the second part of UPDATE (01/03/2008) at the bottom).
5. Finally, I’ve made some serious recharging measurements too (making several tests with radically different starting charge level to be absolutely sure the results aren’t dependent on the initial charge level). The main reason for this was my wanting to see how different USB rechargers compare to the 2A wall charger coming with the 210. I’ve tested two USB rechargers: a 0.5A (coming with the BlackBerry 8800) and a 1A one (coming with the HTC Wizard).
USB recharging:
Fast:
1A Wizard charger: 24% / hour
0.5A BB: 24% / hour
As can be seen, there’s absolutely no difference between the 0.5A BB and the 1A Wizard charger. Given that recharging a 2200 mAh battery takes definitely more than 0.5A (but in no way close to 1A) to be finished in 4.16 hours, this shows the BB charger is able to provide more than 0.5 Ampers. The results, on the other hand, also show that there isn’t much point in using USB chargers capable of providing more than 1A because it simply won’t be made advantage of.
Slow:
0.5A BB: 4% / hour
Yes, the slow recharging rate is indeed very slow: one-sixth of the fast charging. Assuming the latter uses (up to) 600 mA, this means slow recharging restricts the current to around 100 mA. This will, on the other hand, surely be compatible with every USB port out there – even those of other PDA’s like the Pocket Loox 720
Wall charger test
Finally, the 2A wall charger test, ~38% / hour, clearly shows the factory iPAQ charger will always be 60% faster than any USB wall charger. This is really-really useful to know. Now, I only hope HP does release a cinch -> 24-pin synch slot power converter to greatly speed up the recharging with traditional 2A iPAQ chargers. These came as a factory accessory with all past models (or, at least, the iPAQ h2210 and the hx4700) – it’s probably because of the lack of the cradle that HP has left it out from the factory pack.

UPDATE (05/05/2008, later the same day):
1. In THIS MoDaCo thread, I further explain in which cases preferring a non-converged solution (in this case, the iPAQ 210 used together with a Nokia N-series phone for their excellent multimedia / GPS / camera / HSDPA features and lightweight, sleek body) can be a much better solution than going for a converged device like the i-mate 9502.
2. HERE and HERE, BrightHand forum members emilb and David Hettel have posted some additional information on the recharging situation. Emilb’s measurements and David Hettel’s experience state the same as me: if you really want to quickly (!) recharge your iPAQ, forget using USB wall chargers, regardless of their performance.
3. In THIS thread, some of us asked whether the round barrel plug to 24 pin dock plug to speed up recharging (avoiding the use of slow USB even wall chargers) is available from anywhere. You may want to keep an eye on it (but I’ll too announce when there’s any way of obtaining them).
4. AximSite forum member rush214 explained there is a round barrel plug to 24 pin dock plug converter in the box coming with the 210. (Sorry, didn't know about that as I've received the 210 without a box.)