Database Info

S2P, S2V and S2U2: excellent iPhone-alike apps (music player, screensaver, picviewer)

I can’t say I’ve been lazy in the last few days. Thanks to the excellent feedback the XDA-Develeloper folks provided, I realized I need to check out XDA-Develeloper coder A_C’s latest, pretty nice and, if you’re a big fan of iPhone-alike interfaces, pretty much recommended, free (!) utilities.
Non-iPhone platforms (including both the operating system – see HTC’s latest Diamond* have been trying to copy the way iPhone works and is used. For example, Symbian also has a similar tool HERE.
*: As far as the, well, built-in storage- and GUI responsiveness-wise, to put it mildly, not really convincing HTC Touch Diamond (which is all the rage today in the Windows Mobile world) is concerned, before I publish a full story on it, read the comments, including mine, HERE. They’re really worth checking out to see what the tech geeks think of the Diamond’s inherent problems – as opposed to what many sites state in their HTC Diamond announcement reports. You’ll see why the “4GB of built-in memory is more than enough for everything you can think of and you certainly don’t need storage cards to extend it” approach of HTC is pretty much flawed. The Diamond should either come with 16GB flash memory at least (as is the case with later iPhone models and the Nokia N96) and/or with an additional microSD slot – even if under the battery.
Slide2Play
Let’s start with S2P (Slide2Play), a stylus-free MP3/WMA player application. It simply lets you browse and play your music files. It supports album art but, as of the current version, not much else - for example, not even playlists are supported. The interface is, as with the other apps of the same author, very easy to use with fingers. Of course, because of the lower sensitivity of traditional touchscreens versus the capacitive, glass screen of the iPhone, don’t except anything as easily controllable as on the iPhone, particularly not on devices with screens known for their being overly insensitive; most importantly, the HP iPAQ 210.
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I’ve made some very CPU usage tests with acbTaskMan. BTW, speaking of the latter, a new, 1.4.2 version was released of it in late April, making it possible to chart the power usage on some devices it was previously impossible to do so. Version 1.4 turned out not to support any of the cooked ROM's I've reported on HERE. The new version does - to a certain degree - on the x51v. (Interestingly, the same isn't true with the HTC Universal, which doesn't seem to work under 6.1 any more - not even with 1.4.2.).
As far as background (!) execution is concerned, the figures are pretty OK on a Marvel Xscale-based PXA310 (iPAQ 210): WMA: 12% (as opposed to ~13% with CP 1.2.4), MP3: 16% (as opposed to ~9% with CP 1.2.4). The latter is 32% on a 195 MHz TI OMAP-based HTC Wizard. These figures are in no way different from that of the built-in WMP, the codecs of which SP2 is using. As far as CorePlayer (and other, much better optimized players like iPlay or Resco Audio Recorder) is concerned, it delivers considerably better performance and battery life when playing back MP3’s, though.
As of the current (v0.40) S2P version is concerned, the CPU usage is very large when the GUI is visible. On the iPAQ 210, when it’s in the foreground, it’s around ~45% in all dialog screens. On the Wizard, it’s ~48% (as opposed to the 32% default). That is, try not keeping it in foreground. Note that the same problem exists with the other A_C apps; this can be particularly a problem with the image viewer.
When you use S2P integrated into S2U2 (more on it later):
on the iPAQ 210, I measured about +20% CPU usage with non-(auto)dimmed screen (pretty bad), even with the S2P controls inactive; no excess CPU usage otherwise (with the screen dimmed).
It supports AVRCP, but only for users of the Microsoft BT stack (works OK with my test Pulsar 590). Widcomm users (for example, those of HP iPAQ’s) are left out in cold.
All in all, a decent player if you absolutely need finger-based usage / nice, accelerated scrolling and/or prefer free stuff and don’t mind the player’s being pretty simple (no playlists, streaming, equalizer etc.) Just remember to hide the user interface (by, say, clicking the battery icon in the top right) whenever possible – or just make it dim the screen after the default 17 seconds (just like with S2U2 introduced below).
Slide2Unlock2
S2U2 (Slide2Unlock2) is a simple lock/unlock application which has the iPhone style slide unlocking. It can be used as a screensaver while you don't use your device. Also, it has a CallerID function so that you can see who’s calling, some other phone integration functionality (for example, displaying the number of SMS messages) and a S2P (see above) control plugin.
The following screenshot shows it’s not only able to display the current album art, but also the output of several weather plug-ins / programs:
As with S2P, it’s not compatible with the HTC Universal (running Ranju’s WM6.1 v7.6), not even after the recommended DirectDraw vs. Raw Framebuffer registry hack and independent of the screen mode it’s started in. It, however, is compatible with the other VGA devices (tested on the Dell Axim x51v with WM6.1 from makuu A06 privß06p and the iPAQ 210 with its original firmware). Of course, it has no problems with QVGA ones either.
Note that, after the first resets (S2U2 puts itself in \Windows\Startup), it’ll display an error message. Upon subsequent resets, this problem will go away and S2U2 correctly initialized.
I really recommend this title if you want to have an iPhone-like screensaver with a lot of configuration options, caller ID display and even a plug-in for the S2P player introduced above.
Slide2View
S2V (Slide2View) (current version is 0.35) is a picture viewer with
1) switching between images by “swiping” the screen from left to right (or vice versa)
2) in zoomed mode, cool, accelerated screen scrolling
These are not offered by any other, current, mainstream picture viewer (I’ve, in this respect, tested XnView 1.40, Spb Imageer 1.6, Resco Photo Viewer 2007 v6.33, PQV 4.0.31 and Pocket Artist 3.3 – that is, the most important viewers), including Microsoft’s own Pictures and videos application coming with the operating system, built into ROM. Currently, the only mainstream image viewer with accelerated, iPhone-alike zoomed scrolling is HP’s Photosmart Mobile – at least as of version 2.11.012 coming with the HP iPAQ 210. As far as switching between images is concerned, PocketCM ImageViewer should be mentioned.

(VGA – iPAQ 214 – screenshot showing some (original-sized, 12 Mpixel) shots I’ve taken at MWC in Barcelona)
Taking into account it’s a free app, it’s pretty nice and recommended, again, particularly for iPhone fans. Despite it being free, it's very fast at both displaying thumbnails and reading the entire image for subsequent zooming.
Some of the problems or stumbling blocks you should be aware of:
- as with the other two apps, the additional “busy waiting” CPU usage can be pretty high (~28% on an iPAQ 210), even when just displaying the file list. While this really an issue with the two other apps (which run with the screen dimmed for most of the time – or minimized when run in the background), with a picture viewer, which always displays something in the foreground, the situation is entirely different. If you’re afraid of this, get another image viewer.
- when you try to open a storage card with tons (hundreds) of subdirectories in the root, it doesn’t display anything
- or, even worse, just a black screen. In this case, make sure you open the card with the "ARROW" button next to the folder and not by tapping the folder name. There’s an excellent post showing this HERE. As you can see, there’re two ways of opening a directory.
It also allows for setting the Today screen wallpaper (separate for landscape and portrait orientation) and assigning an image to a contact:
Zoom-in
The app also supports (pretty fast, unlike with, say, the otherwise excellent and free XnView) zooming functionality. It, unlike with PocketCM ImageViewer (more on it later), uses D-pad based zooming-in, only keeping the touchscreen for switching between consecutive images and, when zoomed in, accelerated, iPhone-like scrolling.
With the default settings, it can’t zoom in into large – tested with 12 Mpixel ones – images, not even on large-RAM models (for example, the 128M RAM iPAQ 210), unlike the five most recommended, other titles. The others are all capable of zooming into to at least 50% and, Conduits Pocket Artist 3.3 to 100% if you use an external cache. (Then, it’ll use about 36Mbyte RAM and an additional 6M cache to load a 12Mpixel image.). Then, it just prints a blank - or corrupted - screen - instead of showing an "out of memory" error. The developer stated setting the Registry value MaxZoomLevel to a higher value (from the default) may help. I haven’t tested the effect of this.
Finally, let’s compare it to the already-mentioned PocketCM ImageViewer (current, tested version: 0.4), which also offers “change picture upon swiping” functionality.
1. I’ve found the latter (PocketCM) less compatible (it didn’t even try to list my 12 Mpixel images). I don’t know where the threshold is (2 Mpixels? 4? 8? I haven’t tested this. VGA-resolution JPG’s are found, correctly displayed and zoomed-in).
2. The zoom-in functionality of S2V is far better thought-out (as it’s D-pad based, there’re no accidental zooming in if you don’t press the touchscreen upon swiping firmly enough) with any zoom level (as opposed to the two of PocketCM) with fast zoom-in loading
3. I’ve found PocketCM ImageViewer’s image changing animation much more spectacular (which may be important for an iPhone fan wanting great visuals) than that of S2V
4. PocketCM has the definite advantage in that it has no CPU usage at all, as opposed to the considerable CPU usage (and the consequential power consumption on most CPU architectures) of S2V (even when it’s just idling, displaying an image).
NOTE: This article has been cross-posted to several boards. In order to make all comments, questions and answers reach as many readers as possible, please consider posting your comment both here and on my home Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine blog page at the URL http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=2639&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 . It’s pretty easy: just use the clipboard to quickly copy your post. No registration is necessary to be able to post – just fill in a(ny) (nick)name, paste the body of the text and fill in the anti-spam code field. If you don't have the time, I can replicate your post on my blog so there is one repository for all discussion. Also, feel free to check out the comments from other boards there – also in the Comments section.

Great reviews of the software, however I would disagree with the CPU usage figures. On my Prophet (196MHz TI OMAP 850), the CPU usage rarely goes above 25% (normally sits between 15-20%) playing WMA or MP3 files in S2P. I also think you haven't mentioned one of the biggest features of S2P, the "CoverFlow" functionality. For me, this makes S2P the nicest and most used piece of software on my phone. Whilst other players may play more music, it's a pain to go through the files/albums and S2P is much faster and more intuitive.
Anyway, thanks for the in depth analysis.

I am very glad to see A_C getting some well-deserved attention for this great collection of apps. However, I feel that this "in-depth" review was anything but as you overlooked several major features of the apps, most notably the AlbumView functionality, and seemed to spend more time discussing other apps than those in the S2 family. Maybe it was just me, but the overall tone seemed quite negative while it should be anything but.
Another item that was not mentioned, but should have been, is the fact that A_C has been VERY responsive to feature requests and has been able to regularly make significant improvements in not just one, but all three, applications while responding to forum posts about feature requests, usage questions, etc. I've received much better support from A_C than I have from many developers that charge big $$$ for their software. Meanwhile, A_C provides his apps for free, though many of us have happily donated to help support his work. Thanks again A_C!!!

l3v5y said:
Great reviews of the software, however I would disagree with the CPU usage figures. On my Prophet (196MHz TI OMAP 850), the CPU usage rarely goes above 25% (normally sits between 15-20%) playing WMA or MP3 files in S2P. I also think you haven't mentioned one of the biggest features of S2P, the "CoverFlow" functionality. For me, this makes S2P the nicest and most used piece of software on my phone. Whilst other players may play more music, it's a pain to go through the files/albums and S2P is much faster and more intuitive.
Anyway, thanks for the in depth analysis.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Strange you only have 15...25% CPU usage - on my Wizard (the same 195 MHz TI OMAP), it's ~48% (as opposed to the 32% default).

del4 said:
seemed to spend more time discussing other apps than those in the S2 family.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup - I generally write comparative reviews. No apps exist without alternatives - this is why I always write comparative reviews so that the reader knows which app suits his/her needs the best. This is why I've spend so much time on, say, the PocketCM ImageViewer (and, to a lesser degree, XnView - these are two free image viewers) comparison.
Maybe it was just me, but the overall tone seemed quite negative while it should be anything but.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
While I certainly listed the cons of each app, I still recommended all of them - even the thread title contains "excellent"

BTW, please guys DO consider cross-posting your comments, answers to my blog. It isn't that complicated and only takes about additional 20-30 seconds. It's of great help to, say, the HowardForums, BrightHand, MoDaCo etc. forum members. As will be their posts, which you will also see when I replicate them (there are already two posts at HowardForums in my thread).

I kinda got the feeling the reviews were looking for the negative in these apps. The thing to remember is that all three are currently/constantly in development, and A_C is always adding/improving on things, so I don't think it is quite fair to make the down-sides quite as glaring as they seem to come across here.
I don't think the author meant for it to come across like it did, I think it was meant to be complimentary, it just didn't sound it at times.
I also see what del4 was talking about with the feeling that other apps were concentrated on more than they should have.
This is a nice attempt, but I really feel the first two posts of each apps threads gives more detailed descriptions than these reviews do.
P.S. It did make for an interesting read though, thanks for posting!

I've got to be honest - I never understand the point of all of this.. well fluff, it just seems to gooble CPU cycles and memory for little benefit - (well no benefit I can really think of).
Not a knock - just a statement of ... bemusement (is that the word I'm looking for)?

Joezhang said:
I've got to be honest - I never understand the point of all of this.. well fluff, it just seems to gooble CPU cycles and memory for little benefit - (well no benefit I can really think of).
Not a knock - just a statement of ... bemusement (is that the word I'm looking for)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I saw your post in ifonz as well, and something like that, I see it as well, and agree with you, too much for me, but I know people like the freedom of being able to do something like that, and don't blame them. These apps though I really don't consifer 'fluff' (although they do look cool)!! I consider these viable alternatives to existing apps. I always disliked the stock lock on my device, and never used it, resulting in many calls I didn't mean to make LOL!!! This lock screen is a lot easier to use for me, and I KNOW when it is locked or not. The caller ID is great as well, because it maked the answer buttons large enough for even my meaty finger to press easily!! The media player is a gem, I never liked the layout of Windows media player for music, and love being able to play music WHILE the phone is locked with control!!!!
Did that make sense, or did I type myself in circles here LOL??

Hey, if it works for you great - I'm not knocking choice - just saying that I don't particular see much benefit for me.
I did look at slide2unlock but all the threads I saw made it seem very complex to install ("then you hack this bit of the reg", "now you need to install"). Just too much hard work for someone like me!

del4 said:
I feel that this "in-depth" review was anything but as you overlooked several major features of the apps, most notably the AlbumView functionality
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I admit it isn't an in-depth review - at least not in the sense (non-comparative) several-page-long reviews, full with screenshots (albeit I've also provided some, taken by me, showing as many features and icons as possible) are written by other Windows Mobile pundits.
What I tried was putting these apps in the generic application Universe and show in what areas they're better and where they're worse than the comparable titles.

Joezhang said:
Hey, if it works for you great - I'm not knocking choice - just saying that I don't particular see much benefit for me.
I did look at slide2unlock but all the threads I saw made it seem very complex to install ("then you hack this bit of the reg", "now you need to install"). Just too much hard work for someone like me!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On the (several - 5 or 6) PPC's I've installed it on - so that I can provide as much compatibility info as possible -, absolutely no reg tweaking was necessary. It, not taking into account the "no components found" message after the first reset, worked out-of-the-box.

syrguy1969 said:
I kinda got the feeling the reviews were looking for the negative in these apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sincere / fair comparative reviews should always look on the negative sides of apps too. I always list the negative in the apps I review - along with the positive aspects. Look at, for example, my Touch Browser review
It's mostly listingthe negatives of an app that helps a user the most to decide whether a particular software title is worth installling or the alternatives should be preferred.
Again, note that my reviews are in no way similar to what you can see on most Windows Mobile sites, who don't write / publish comparative reviews. I think my reviews are much more useful to end users than non-comparative ones that don't bother mentioning the negatives of an app.

Strange you only have 15...25% CPU usage - on my Wizard (the same 195 MHz TI OMAP), it's ~48% (as opposed to the 32% default).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's using my own cooked ROM with some memory optimisations (large cache settings etc.) but I can't think how it could have such a large effect...
Possibly a relatively small number of albums?

l3v5y said:
That's using my own cooked ROM with some memory optimisations (large cache settings etc.) but I can't think how it could have such a large effect...
Possibly a relatively small number of albums?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've tested with very few songs too. That is, I don't think this causes the difference in CPU usage. Prolly the different hardware?

I've tested with very few songs too. That is, I don't think this causes the difference in CPU usage. Prolly the different hardware?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wizards and Prophets are pretty similar inside, you can flash a Prophet with a Wizard ROM and vice-versa with very minor changes.
Maybe it's just the magic of my Prophet!

Menneisyys said:
On the (several - 5 or 6) PPC's I've installed it on - so that I can provide as much compatibility info as possible -, absolutely no reg tweaking was necessary. It, not taking into account the "no components found" message after the first reset, worked out-of-the-box.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
<installs>, <plays>, <plays some more>, <likes...>
ok, I was wrong and I like this bit of "fluff" very much....

Joezhang said:
<installs>, <plays>, <plays some more>, <likes...>
ok, I was wrong and I like this bit of "fluff" very much....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad it works with you

Some know if I can run these programs on my ipaq rx4540 ?
thanks

A review of Windows 7 & tips & never-before-published hacks

Why a Windows 7 article in a forum dedicated to mobile devices? you may ask. Because I also elaborate on strictly mobility-related questions as well - something you'll unlikely find in any other Windows 7 article. In addition, you'll find a lot of tips and hacks never before published - that is, this article is definitely worth getting as much exposure as possible.
Guys, I’ve written an article on my experience. Hope you’ll like it.
I've been playing with the brand new Windows 7 beta (build 7000) since it's been made public. I've installed it on my three notebooks:
IBM Thinkpad a31p (2 GHz P4-M, 2100b, 1GB RAM, 120 GB 5400 rpm HDD, UXGA with FireGL 64M VGA)
IBM Thinkpad t42p (2 GHz Dothan, 2200gb, 2GB RAM, 250 GB 5400 rpm HDD, UXGA with FireGL2 128M VGA)
HP TC1100 Tablet (1 GHz ULV Banias, 2200gb, 1.5GB RAM, 160 GB 5400 rpm HDD, XGA with Geforce 4 Go 32M VGA)
(My three notebooks running Windows 7; click the picture for the larger version)
So far, I'm absolutely happy with it and have completely switched to it on both the t42p and the TC1100. (On the latter, I don't really watch videos so the sub-par video performance isn't an issue with me.) It's, speed- and compatibility-wise, way superior to Vista, even as of SP1. While the speed of Vista was more like of a snail on both my a31p and TC1100 and was incomparably slower than XP SP3 running on the same hardware, Windows 7 (W7 for short) is at least equally fast than XP – or, I should say, even faster. On my a31p (which I mostly use for watching DVD's and as a back-up notebook), I think I'll stay with XP before I manage to "hack" a video accelerated driver to the system.
Of course, Windows 7 has all the goodies of Vista. This will definitely be appreciated by the Tablet PC (PC's that can also use pens as input devices, just like Pocket PCs) folks: it's Tablet PC's that have gained the most by the version switch. Vista, as with W7, has much better tablet PC support: trainable (!!!) handwriting recognition, much better multiple list selection capabilities; visual feedback of the activated "right" mouseclick etc. (See THIS for more info.) However, there are a lot of goodies for non-tablet users as well; for example, running the system on a non-native resolution looks far better on LCD's because of the new and better smoothing algorithms. This is a definite plus if you plan to use your operating system on a monitor that has higher native resolution than the currently used one.
Also, using larger (125/150% pre-set; of course, this can also be fine-tuned) characters are, generally, better handled than under XP. This is of extreme importance if you have an extra high resolution, but, comparatively, small (15 or 15.4") screen (UXGA (1600*1200), WUXGA (1920*1200) or even QXGA (2048×1536)) like on high-end IBM / Lenovo Thinkpads. Of course, you will run into problems of hidden buttons or clipped titles, even with Microsoft's own (!) programs, if you raise the magnification, but, in general, I've still found Vista / W7's approach better than that of XP. Some examples of it not working:
Two shots of Microsoft's own Windows Mobile Device Center misbehaving when using 150% magnification are shown in the following two shots:
(Click the images for the original-sized versions. Note that many other images in this article are also linked via a resized, "small" thumbnail. You can easily spot them by not only the changed mouse cursor [hand instead of the pointer], but also the lowish JPG quality of the thumbnails - while native screenshots are all high-quality PNG files.) Clipped titles, misplaced labels and, what is worse, completely hidden buttons. Adding even more insult to injury, you can't even resize the window and, therefore, in no way can make the hidden buttons visible in the second GUI. Hope this will be fixed.)
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Total Commander's plug-in window – several buttons [on the right] are missing. It should look like the following:
(a shot without any default zoom)
1.1 Drivers; common problems
As a rule of thumb, W7 has a far wider choice of both built-in (offline, coming on the DVD and, therefore, installed at install time) and online (accessible via automatic (!) driver search) drivers than Vista. Just an example: while I was in no way able to make the Wi-Fi card work in either my a31p or TC1100, it worked (almost) out of the box under Windows 7.
You can even use most of your XP drivers, keeping in mind you always run them in XP SP2 compatibility mode and as an administrator. I've encountered far fewer driver problems under W7 than under Vista.
1.1.1 The video acceleration problem
Currently, the biggest W7 problem you may also face is that of the video acceleration. On many notebooks (more precisely, built-in video hardware), trying to make use of the video acceleration features results in an immediate Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD) crash or just a system hang. This not only happens when you try to run 3D games, but also when playing back videos in most video players, even including the built-in Windows Media Player – they also use acceleration features of the video card.
If you do encounter these kinds of problems, you'll want to go to Display / Change Display Settings / Advanced Settings / Troubleshoot / Change Settings and, there, just set the slider to the second position:
Note that this will severely degrade not only gaming, but also 2D and video rendering speed. This also means you won't be able to enjoy the really cool visual effects of W7 – which are automatically enabled when W7 notices it runs on a sufficiently quick and capable machine. To do this (and to get a performance estimation), go to Control Panel / Performance Information and Tools (it's under System and Security / System / Check your computer's Windows Experience Index base score if you don't use the "All Control Panel Items" feature of Control Panel) and run the test. For example, on my t42p, I got (for a 2004 model) pretty nice results; this is why animation was enabled after finishing the test:
On a device with a non-acceleration-capable card (in this case, my TC1100), you'll always get 1.0 for the 3D acceleration index:
Theoretically, it could be possible to "hack" the so-called "reference" drivers of both ATI and Nvidia (the two major players on the accelerated video hardware field) with "Mobility Modder". You might want to check out THIS for ATI [like the FireGL GPU's in the p-series Thinkpads] and THIS for Nvidia [like the GPU in the TC1100] hacks. Nevertheless, neither of them worked on my ATI-based a31p or Nvidia-based TC1100; see my a machine-specific reports in Chapter 2 for more info. You, however, may have better luck.
1.2 Generic software compatibility issues
In general, most of the (legacy) software titles I've thrown at W7 worked. Some of the most notable exceptions are as follows:
1.2.1 Virtual CD/DVD software
Most of the virtual CD/DVD mounter software titles (which are realy useful, should you want to for example install an application in a disk image – for example, .ISO – file without burning it on a real CD / DVD) refuse to work. For example, both Alcohol 52% Free Edition 1.9.8.7117 FE (also admitted by the Alcohol folks themselves) and DAEMON Tools Lite v4.30.3 32/64 Bits (with SPTD 1.56) have major issues. In my tests, however, PowerISO 4.3 turned out to be working just fine. Too bad it has no free versions to just mount a disk image, unlike Alcohol's 52%...
Some folks at the thinkpads.com forums also stated VirtualCD v9 is compatible with W7; I haven't tested this myself.
1.2.2 WinPcap
Unfortunately, WinPcap (The Windows Packet Capture Library) doesn't work either, not even the latest 4.1 Beta 5. This means software titles depending on this driver won't really work either. The most prominent example of them is WMRecorder, the, in my very thorough streaming media saving tests, best title of all (version 12.3 was really able to capture everything I've thrown it at) – you won't be able to use it in ADA mode, only in PRO, which is far from being the best.
That is, for the time being, you'll need to switch back to XP (or Vista) to back up your multimedia strems.
1.3 Installation on top of older (Windows) operating systems
1.3.1 Activation, serial numbers
Currently, it seems, every beta tester is eligible to get five different serial numbers for testing. Should you need all of them (if you for example are afraid of running out of the 2.5 million requests before realizing you need to install W7 on another PC), just make sure you refresh (F5) the W7 beta download page where the first serial number is displayed.
1.3.2 Multiboot
If you install W7 on another partition (or hard disk), the old operating system will still be accessible and listed in the new boot loader W7 installs.
A notable exception is Linux, including "hacked" OS X versions (see THIS for more info on setting up the latter on ordinary WinTel PC's). If you install W7 on a PC with, for example, the OS X boot loader being the active, it will no longer be visible.

Fortunately, there is a very easy way of fixing this: the free EasyBCD. Just make sure you follow THIS guide. A screenshot showing it configured to access my OS X setup:
1.4 Security and its implications; loosening security restrictions
1.4.1 File system
If you're a newcomer to Vista / W7, you'll notice it uses an entirely new file system security approach.
In XP, it's just the subfolders of Documents and Settings that were protected (by default) so that other users couldn't just step into them to examine the contents of other users. In Vista / W7, this has been taken further – now, among other things, c:\Program Files is entirely write protected.
There are some implications of this. For example, if you run some "hacker" tools (like Driver Heaven's "Mobility Modder" hack) needing to have full write access to the given (sub)directory so that they can patch / copy files, they'll fail. Also, if you need direct write access to a subdirectory of c:\Program Files, you may run into problems.
An example of this is running Apache Tomcat (or any other Web server) from inside c:\Program Files. If you develop Web pages (JSP's etc.) in its webapps/ROOT directory, you will run into problems when you try to edit the individual files. Sure, if you use the plain Notepad to do this, all you'll need to do is either creating it or saving under a different name so that, later, you can re-edit it. Third-party tools like JCreator (even as of the latest, 4.5 version), however, may run into severe problems doing the same. In my practice, they reported my files having been saved; however, they were nowhere to be seen. That is, JCreator was simply unusuable to edit my Java files under c:\Program Files.
Fortunately, it's pretty easy to fix problems like this. Right-click the directory where you keep your files (for example, ROOT under webapps), select Properties and, then, the Security tab:
There, select "Users" in the upper "Group or user names" list as is depicted in the above screenshot. Now, click Edit under the "Group or user names" list and, again, select "Users":
Finally, tick in the "Allow" checkbox in the "Full control" row (it's selected in the next screenshot):
Now, click Apply and two times OK.
Note that you'll only want to do this when you're absolutely sure you must write into a given directory a lot of times. Otherwise, being read-only is part of the tighter security model. That is, always make sure you only allow free writing to a the bottom-most directory, not a more generic one closer to the root directory.
1.4.2 User Account Control (UCA)
You may also want to hide the User Account Control prompts, which can be quite a nuisance, particularly if you install a lot of software. For this, you'll need the free TweakUAC tool. Please consult the online documentation for more info.
1.5 Mobility: iPhone, Windows Mobile, Symbian, BlackBerry
Now, let's have a look at how W7 supports the (outside the U.S. – sorry, I still don't have a real, genuine Android machine – I don't want to use Android hacks on WinMo ones – so I can't comment on Android yet) four major mobile operating systems.
1.5.1 Apple iPhone
I haven't really run into problems accessing or synchronizing my iPhone (firmware version 2.2, yellowsn0w-unlocked and jailbroken) under W7. Even T-PoT worked (please see THIS and THIS for more info), which is great news for all iPhone freaks wanting to access the file system right from Total Commander on the desktop, without having to run an SSH server on the phone (and having to stick to an SSH / SFTP client under Windows.)
1.5.2 Windows Mobile
Accessing (and synchronizing) Windows Mobile (WinMo for short), on the other hand, have turned out to be a little more cumbersome. It hasn't always managed to recognize my WM5+ Windows Mobile models easily. In some, I had to switch to the other USB connection approach.

The following screenshot shows what happened when I tried to make it recognize my HP iPAQ 210, HTC Universal and HTC Wizard, in this order. For example, as can clearly be seen, I could only connect my iPAQ 210 in non-RNDIS (that is, the "traditional" serial) mode. You may also run into the same problem; just remember to set the USB connection type to the other mode.
Fortunately, the WinCE file system plug-in worked flawlessly. (Note: you must install it after you've successfully made W7 recognize at least one of your WinMo phones. This will make sure WDMC is installed and the DLL used by the plug-in is made available. Otherwise, you'll get an install-time error telling you a DLL is missing.) That is, you'll have easy access to the full file system of your phone (or PDA) if you plan to stick with Total Commander – just as with the iPhone plug-in.
1.5.3 Nokia Symbian S60
Nokia's Ovi Suite 1.1 (current version as of 01/15/2009): seems to only partially work:
File explorer: works OK
Nokia Map Loader (updated itself to 2.0.2): has continuously kept displaying "Waiting for device" in both PC Suite and Data Transfer modes when started from outside Ovi Suite already having recognized my phone. Started from inside the latter, the same happened.
Content copier: seems to work OK
Nokia Software Updater: isn't compatible:
Nokia Application Installer: a no-go either, it isn't able to read the installed apps:
Note that there is another report on Ovi Suite HERE. He seems to only use it for PIM synching, which also worked on my configuration. However, he doesn't mention whether he had any success with running the failing submodules I've listed above.
Also note that there's a report on installing the standard PC Suite HERE. You might want to prefer it to the Ovi Suite for the time being.
Note that S60 phones are perfectly accessible in mass storage mode.
1.5.3.1 BT dial-up via the N95
BT dial-up networking (via my N95) worked flawlessly on all my three notebooks. Note that even if you install Nokia's suite, it'll list your device as an unknown one:
Nevertheless, BT DUN will still work OK.

1.5.4 BlackBerry
RIM's official desktop synchronization tool, Desktop Manager 4.7.0 B50 US English - Without Media Manager, works just great, I've experienced no problems at all so far. (Tested backing up, application deployment etc.)
I had no problems with recognizing the phone after installing Desktop Manager either (unlike with Windows Mobile in certain USB configurations):
1.6 Battery runtime
I've very thoroughly tested (running multi-hour tests in a controlled environment: 0% CPU usage, lowest backlight level) the impact on the battery life of switching from XP to W7 on both my Thinkpad t42p and HP TC1100. The results are stellar: W7 in no way consumes more battery than XP under exactly the same circumstances (again, assuming 0% CPU load – active usage of Aero and, consequently, the graphic processor, may have had an adverse effect on battery life). The battery meter and the "remaining time" are pretty dependable. The real runtime I've measured on the TC1100 was somewhat (about 9%) lower than predicted with hight charge levels; however, this may have been a result of using a third-party, comparatively cheap battery (with the wear level of about 15%) in the TC1100, while I run a brand new (wear level 0%), factory battery in my t42p.
Note that if you have a notebook with a touchpad, it's possible you'll see two EXE files starting by SynTP (one of them is SynTPenh.exe) in the process list of Windows, consuming 1-2% CPU time (measured at 600 MHz) all the time. You can safely kill these processes; unlike what's stated HERE, the touchpad (and the pointing stick / USB mice) will still work.
That is, while some people state Vista has worse battery consumption than XP (see for example Finnish Tietokone's 1/2009 article in the printed mag), this certainly doesn't seem to be the case. (Also note that other people state the opposite – see THIS.) I also recommend THIS article on the additional power usage of Aero and THIS on Microsoft's promising 11-15% better battery life under W7 than under XP.
2. A thorough report on installing W7 on my notebooks
In the following sections, I explain how I installed W7 on my notebooks, what my experience is and what you should pay attention to. Note that while I "only" discuss three models, most of the stuff I state can be generalized. For example, you'll need to use exactly the same apps and drivers (Hotkey fix etc.) on most other Thinkpads and the same Wacom driver on your Tablet PC if it has Wacom hardware but the factory driver doesn't support pressure sensitivity (as is the case with the TC1100).
2.1 HP TC1100 Tablet PC
This was a pretty hard nut to crack. First, the VGA support. By default, a generic VGA driver is installed, which doesn't even support screen rotation (orientation change). That is, the first thing you do should be installing the video driver (THIS file [linked from HERE]) and disabling D3D to avoid crashes.
After connecting to the Net and right-clicking all the unknwon devices and letting them to automatically update, the only "Unknown device" remains will be the buttons – everything else will be found online after install. This means you'll only need to install the video driver (again, don't forget to disable acceleration to at least D3D levels!), Q Menu (THIS file) and the button drivers (THIS file) of the official HP drivers – nothing else. And, of course, the Wacom driver from the Wacom folks (and NOT the HP ones – the one automatically installed), should you need pressure sensitivity.
You might also want to check out THIS for an excellent writeup on the TC1100. BTW, speaking of the same thread, you might also want to have a look at THIS
Some additional remarks:
2.1.1 SD card support
In a nuthsell, it doesn't work – at least for the time being.
2.1.1.1 Auto-installed driver
If you let it auto-install the driver when you insert a <= (smaller or equal than) 1 GB card, it'll only work until you reboot your machine. After you do reboot the TC1100, it won't work even with <=1 GB cards – inserting them will result in an immediate crash. The same will happen if you insert >1GB card in the slot even before the first reboot – they'll freeze the TC1100 for the time the cards are in (but not later – unlike after reboots).
I've played quite a bit with trying to find and remove the driver, TI UltraMedia_sd, from the system – in vain. There's no such driver in Device Manager; removing the similar-named System Devices / TI UltraMedia Firmware Loader Device didn't help; neither did PCMCIA Adapters/Texas Instruments PCI-1620…. I've even run some very thorough searches in the file system under \Windows to find the driver that is installed and needs to be removed so that the subsequent card insertion can trigger the automatic reinstall (and working of the card until the next reboot) but in vain. I've even run searches for .inf files with ‘UltraMedia' – no success. All I've found was references to the above-mentioned System Devices / TI UltraMedia Firmware Loader Device. Removing the instance that could be removed (that is, not the one in the driver repository) didn't help.
2.1.1.2 The XP SD driver
The XP SD driver (sp29116.exe) doesn't help – the card remains invisible if you install it, unlike with the driver that is auto-installed first time you insert a compatible card.

2.1.2 Wacom pressure sensitivity support
As with XP, the factory driver available at the official HP download page doesn't support pressure sensitivity. You must download the XP driver from HERE (if the link doesn't work, go HERE and select Tablet PC from the left and Windows XP from the right list). (I've used XP SP2 compatibility mode and installed it as an administrator.) It's the driver that is automatically installed when you right-click the unknown devices in the device manager after installing W7 and force a driver update.
I've tested it work with Corel Painter X, in Edit / Preferences / Bush Tracking. With a non- pressure sensitive (HP) driver, the lowermost two sliders will remain the same, no matter how much hard you press the pen on the screen on the scrap field; with the Wacom driver, they'll move just like the uppermost sliders. (Photoshop users should take a look at THIS, should they not know how pressure sensitivity can be utilized. A not that interesting video is HERE)
2.1.3 I've tried to hack the following video drivers…
I present you a detailed explanation of what video drivers I've tried to hack to gain both orientation change support (which, again, is supported by the stock HP driver when manually installed) and full video acceleration. So far, I had absolutely no success. Hope the TC1100 folks I've posted my premilinary results to (see THIS and THIS threads) will have more success than me.
2.1.3.1 The laptopvideo2go driver hack
I've thoroughly tested the laptopvideo2go driver hack mentioned at http://www.tabletpcbuzz.com/showthread.php?t=36154&page=2 and explained at http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=9547 . I've downloaded 84.43 from http://www.driverheavendownloads.ne...ile=84.xx/84.43_forceware_winxp2k_english.zip ( linked from http://www.driverheavendownloads.net/nvidia.htm ) and let it decompress itself to under c:\NVIDIA (of course, it couldn't install as it's incompatible with the system). I've replaced the INF file (after changing the two (!) occurrences of Rotateflag in the file from 4 to 0x40) and, after renaming, I've copied the DLL file to the same directory. After this, I've run setup.exe in the same c:\NVIDIA\some subdirectory as an administrator.
It didn't really work – I couldn't find any difference from the stock HP driver (also installed as Administrator, in XP SP2 compatibility mode). While it does support rotation (unlike the standard, stock driver installed by Win7 by default), it also crashes on D3D / movie playback with a nv4_mini.sys BSOD (page fault in nonpaged area).
2.1.3.2 Mobility Modder hack attempts
Also tested with the latest Vista driver (178.24_geforce_winvista_32bit_english_whql.zip) with the driverheaven.net "Mobility Modder" hack. A no go - not even orientation changing is supported.
I've done the same to ForceWare 93.71 WHQL as it's the last driver to support the GeForce 4 MX series, according to the page HERE) – a no-go either.
Note that I haven't tested GeForce Release 179 for Notebooks (see THIS). Dunno if they would work.
2.1.4 Sleep problems
W7 seems to have major sleep problems (note that hibernation is working just great). In many cases, when you resume the notebook from sleeping, it just won't display anything and you'll end up having to restart the entire device by long-holding the Power slider.
That is, don't use Sleep mode for the time being. Also make sure you disable automatic sleep timeouts. Always use hibernation instead.
2.2 IBM ThinkPad t42p
Unlike with the TC1100, I had absolutely no problems with the t42p (and don't have since then, except for some file integration problems. I will keep my eyes open to
The Windows Experience Index (WEI) isn't at all bad, given that it's a 2004 model:
Everything is working (including the volume / ThinkLight / backlight buttons and hibernation / sleeping), except for the additional, IBM-specific functionality like Fn +Space (to quickly switch between the UXGA (1600*1200) and SVGA (800*600) resolution) or Fn + F3 (to dim the screen). There're no on-screen controls for the volume / backlight buttons either.
(Note that the situation is exactly the same on the a31p.)
2.2.1 Emulating the Windows key
As you probably know, Windows 7 uses a lot of keyboard shortcuts to access some advanced functionality. With Windows Aero, one of them is Flip 3D, requiring you to use Win+Tab.
To map an existing button to the Windows button, use THIS utility. It worked flawlessly on my t42p (as usual, installed in XP SP2 compatibility mode and as an administrator). After installing and restarting your PC, go to All Programs / ThinkVantage / Keyboard Customizer Utility, check the Enable key assignments checkbox and select a button to map to the Windows key (uppermost drop-down list):
After this, among other things, Flip 3D will work just fine:
(click the image for a full-sized version)
(Incidentally, if you have a PC with a comparatively good video card but Aero still isn't enabled, you can give a try to the Aero-enabling hack described in the article Hack to Force Enable Aero in Windows 7)
2.2.2 Other stuff to install
You'll want to install the two files (Hotkey Driver and System Interface Driver) also linked from the first post HERE. Note that, as has also been explained in the post, you'll need to execute c:\DRIVERS\WIN\HOTKEY\SETUP.exe and c:\DRIVERS\WIN\SMIIF\SETUP.EXE – that is, simply downloading and executing the two installers won't suffice as all they do is decompressing their content. After this, not only the standard (sleep / hibernation / backlight / volume / Fn + F7 [switching between internal and external monitors]) hotkeys will work (or, on the A3x-series like the a31p, the app buttons on the left), but also for example zooming (Fn – Space; it's also used as sending the current window to the other desktop.) Also note that, during install, Hotkey Driver may display an error message. (This happened on my t42p but, interestingly, it didn't do the same on my a31p.
Incidentally, external monitors will work just fine. I've tested this with an external Viewsonic monitor with the native resolution of 1680*1050 (WSXGA+). When duplicating the built-in display's content, UXGA was used on both (the built-in and external) monitors (meaning a bit suboptimal, but still pretty good rendition on the external one); when extending the desktop, both LCD's were driven at their native resolution (UXGA for the built-in and WSXGA+ for the external one):

You'll also want to download and install ThinkVantage Active Protection so that your hard disk will be protected.
Also, you may also want to install ThinkVantage System Update. It will install the following recommended updates:
Note that it doesn't install for example the Hotkey Driver needed for additional hotkeys. The most interesting app it installed was Lenovo Services' Lenovo System Toolbox (also available as a separate download HERE; see for example THIS for more info), which is pretty nice:
Note that it can also be installed on the a31p; a screenshot showing it running on mine:
Finally, if you have an IBM Thinkpad notebook, don't forget there's a dedicated forum to them at Thinkpads.com - make sure you check it out!
2.3 IBM Thinkpad a31p
I've also installed W7 on my aging, but, because of the UXGA IPS screen, still pretty cool a31p. It works OK, except for the lack of D3D.
I've tried to hack the driver with Mobility Modder (see my dedicated thread HERE); so far, without any success.

For some reason, it's not possible to run WEI on the a31p, unlike on my TC1100 or t42p. At the end, it always reports an error (note that D3D is disabled):
Note that, while the Hotkey driver (one of the two apps needed to be able to see the on-screen feedback of the volume / backlight etc. messages; the other is the System Interface Driver) isn't stated to be compatible with the a31p, it's working just great on the a31p.
Also note that you won't want to install ThinkVantage System Update as, unlike with newer models, it won't offer to install anything.
3. Verdict - is it worth giving it a try?
Definitely. If you wanted the niceties of Vista, particularly if you're a Tablet PC user, but without the snail-alike speed and major compatibility problems, installing Windows 7 is a must. You won't be disappointed, particularly not if you don't have any kind of driver compatibility issues (most importantly, graphics acceleration problems.) Believe me: Windows 7 is orders of magnitude cleaner, better and faster than Vista.

Loving Windows 7 so far - vast improvement over Vista - even in Beta!
BUT when I try to start WMDC it stops working straight away then the green screen comes up and it says 'connecting' even when no device is connecting - and there it remains....

Thanks a lot!
Great and complete review mate!
Cheers,

With Nokia PC Suite, you have to take MSI installer or right click on installer program and set as Windows XP SP2 compatibility, i have Windows Server 2008 and is the same issue
btw,Nokia PC Suite works flawlessly!!

UPDATE (Jun/05/2009): Windows 7 RC1 on the HP TC1100 and the IBM Thinkpad t42p
HP TC 1100
I've played quite a bit with the current (RC1, build 7100) version of Windows 7 on the HP TC1100 tablet. I'm pretty much impressed - the new version works quite a bit better than the old one.
Drivers
I installed (from the local filesystem) the same three drivers as with the previous (7000) build: the video, the Q menu and the button drivers. Note that at least the Q Menu installation must be run in SP2 mode / as an admin; otherwise, it'll display loading CPQ32.dll failed. (Please see section "2.1 HP TC1100 Tablet PC" in my previous article for more info.)
So far, I'm impressed:
- there's no need to disable D3D (video acceleration) any more. Video playback performance is approximately as good as under XP.
- multiple thumbnails are correctly displayed, even in Portrait mode. Sure, there certainly isn't any real visual effects - for example, dynamically showing the window of the thumbnail which the cursor is hovering over or dynamically showing on the thumbnail itself a miniaturized, scaled-down version of it.
- now, it sees the Windows XP partition previously invisible for build 7000. I keep XP on the first and W7 on the second partition. In build 7000, it remained invisible; in RC1, it's correctly mounted as D:
- there doesn't seem to be excess CPU usage when operating in battery mode. When doing the same on AC power, however, the CPU seems to be running at a higher speed, which results in considerable warming up.
- the headphones port works out of the box, without the need to install any driver - as opposed to past W7 versions. It works
- as far as mobile devices are concerned, I've encountered no problems accessing Windows Mobile (including running Pocket Controller Pro 6.02) and iPhone (including running iTunes 8.1.1) devices. With iPhone, the PdaNet USB server, QuickPwn 2.25 and T-Pot 1.1 works OK. Note: you should stay away from flashing new ROM's onto WinMo devices. Note I haven't tested the tips published HERE - they may work just fine. Also note firmware update and jailbreaking work just fine with the iPhone.
Problems:
- Recovering from sleep (suspend) still doesn't work reliably. Hibernation works flawlessly. That is, if you absolutely must use suspending, stay away. If, on the other hand the additional shutdown / bootup time of hibernation isn't a problem, this isn't that big an issue.
- the three hardware icons (rotate screen etc.) are not usable (albeit they certainly are visible to the button handler app - see Hardware and Sound / Set tablet buttons to perform certain tasks)
- rotate screen doesn't work when invoked through, for example, mapping it onto a hardware button. You must always go to Appearance and Personalization / Display / Adjust Screen Resolution and change the screen orientation there; I know of no shortcuts of doing this. Note: if you (un)dock the TC1100, the screen orientation changes accordingly.
- still no SD card reader support (PCMCIA card adapters and USB readers work, of course).
Note that one of my readers, Kieslar, in a comment under my initial article stated the following: "I was able to get rotation and D3D accelleration working on my TC1100 in Windows 7. After some searching online, I noticed that when the 84.43 drivers were first released, someone was having nv4_mini.sys related BSODs. Downgrading to version 82.12 fixed the BSOD for him, so I thought I'd give it a try.
I completely uninstalled 84.43. Then I downloaded 82.12 from http://www.driverheavendownloads.net/nvidia.htm and copied hpqvdisp.dll and the modified nv4_disp.inf (with Rotateflag instances changed to 0x40) to the same directory. After installing, it no longer crashed on D3D or movie playback! "
I don't know whether you can get better graphics acceleration performance (for example, to enable dynamic window thumbnails) using this driver than the one, sp27014.exe (HP's own driver), I recommended in my initial article. I certainly welcome any reader feedback on this.
On the IBM Thinkpad t42p, basically everything is OK. However, I've encountered problems with recovering from suspension (sleep) sometime - albeit in no way as often as on the TC1100. In about every twentieth reboot, I also run into the blue screen of death when trying to read the hibernated notebook state. This means if you do hibernate (or, suspend) your notebook, make sure you've saved everything before that, in case you don't manage to restart it. Nevertheless, I like Windows 7 on my t42p a lot, mostly because of the highly useful, graphics accelerated dynamic thumbnails.

UPDATE (somewhat later, the same day):
1.) in the meantime, I've found out there is also an excellent Wiki article dedicated to setting up Windows 7 on the HP TC1100 HERE. It should be the most important guide you follow when updating.
So far, I've tested the following (and found them all working):
a. video driver. By getting the 82.12 installer and, after executing it, it decompressed itself to a directory. I've copied the two hacked files, as is explained, into the directory where the 82.12 installer decompressed itself. After the installation, resuming from sleep started to work. Excellent!
b. the "Mail" button hack. After the recommended Registry hack, it indeed started working; both short- and long presses are registered.
c. the screen rotation hack via the Hardware and Sounds / Tablet PC Settings / Go to Orientation link (it's a link, not a button BTW). After the hack, screen rotation started to work when assigned to a hardware button. (I still need to find out how to make the three "soft" buttons work on the front.)
2.) I keep you posted when I learn something / test stuff. Currently, I'm installing Windows 7 on my IBM Thinkpad a31p to see whether the D3D problems are gone on it too and running the CPU voltage decrease tests on the TC1100 to reduce heat / ventilation.

UPDATE (Jun/7/2009) : I've played a lot with undervoltaging my HP TC1100 and IBM Thinkpad t42p as is explained at http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=235824 (and recommended in the above-linked TC1100 Wiki).
I have GREAT results. I've managed to decrease the voltage with more than 0.2V on the Pentium M Dothan-based t42p and slightly less on the Pentium M Banias-based TC1100.
On the TC1100, the cooldown advantage I've managed to get is about 2C degree at full CPU usage. (The TC1100 uses the Pentium M ULV CPU, which already is, as you may have guessed, running on lower voltages.) Nevertheless, this already means the fan "kicks in" far less often. With a protective case on (which doesn't let the TC1100 cool down, except for the two fan openings) and only browsing Web pages with Opera, without the Flash plug-in (which is a real CPU hog, even when running in the background; this is why I don't let Opera install the Flash plug-in but just copy the URL of a page I want to see its Flash content into IE) installed, it only started after about 30 minutes. Without the case, the fan has never kicked in.
I've got even better results with the t42p. The CPU running at 2 GHz and 1.32V, the maximum temperature I recorded was 82C and the average 77-79C. The CPU undervolted to 1.1160V (which is two selectable values more than the already-unstable [Orthos displays a computation error] 1.0840V; 1.1000 would have resulted in 60C), I got the maximum of 61C. That is, about 20C less than in the default case!
I was pretty lucky with decreasing the minimum voltage (at 600 MHz). Instead of the default ~0.98V, I've found out 0.7320V is still sufficient. (Going even lower, 0.7160V, has resulted in Orthos displaying a computation error.) VERY impressive!
Note that, under Windows 7, when returning from hibernation, it will auto-start in the background. It also displays an icon in the lower right corner of the screen (hidden by default in Windows 7). It might be useful to disable it (right-click and Hide) to further reduce CPU usage.
I can only recommend the RightMark overclock app - it will REALLY cool down your notebook. The CPU consuming considerably less power (and dissipating far less heat) will not only resulting in major battery life savings, but also a much more silent notebook. And, of course, it's easier to work with a notebook that doesn't overheat - even if fan noise or higher power consumption isn't an issue with you. For example, the IBM Thinkpad t42p has the fan in the lower right edge of the notebook (unlike, for example, the, in this regard, better-designed IBM Thinkpad a31p, which has the same in the upper right edge). The notebook running a CPU-intensive task makes working pretty hard: everytime you let at least part of your hand drop from the notebook, you'll almost burn it in the stream of the hot air. With undervoltaging in place, this effect is far less pronounced - after all, the stream of air itself is about 20 degrees cooler.
Three screenshots of my TC1100 and t42p undervoltaged. Note that, with the TC1100, I fine-tuned all the voltages - not only the highest and lowest (for 1 GHz and 600MHz, respectively). With the t42p, I used the automatic computation, based on the manually-set and checked highest and lowest frequency values, compute them. Of course, I've tested their stability (as on the TC1100) by disabling the highest-frequency checkboxes in turn, one after another.
TC1100
T42p
Still another remark: if yours isn't a Core (2) Duo CPU (but, say, a Pentium M Dothan or Banias), then, in the "Advanced CPU settings" tab, there will be almost nothing you can en/disable, unlike with later CPU editions.
All in all, I can only recommend undervoltaging. It's well worth the effort and time.
Some other benchmarks I've made, showing how the heat buildup depends on the voltage:
At 2 GHz:
1.2280V: 68C
1.1800V: 66C
1.1480V: 64c
1.1160V: 61c
1.1000V: 60c
At 600 MHz:
0.7800V: 43c
0.7640V: 42c
0.7480V: 41c
0.7320V: 40c

UPDATE (9/Jun/2009): I've installed W7 RC1 on the IBM Thinkpad a31p too. Works wonderfully: no video acceleration / suspend / hibernation problems.
It has detected all the drivers except for the video driver (which you'll want to change) and the wireless driver. That is, all I needed to do was getting and decompressing the Wi-Fi (1awc32ww.exe) and the video (1rd635ww.exe) driver and just navigate to the target directories under c:\drivers from the hardware manager, after clicking the traditional "Update driver".
Unfortunately, the old FireGL card in the a31p is unable to do any of the hardware acceleration niceties; that is, don't expect anything fancy. Nevertheless for example video playback works just great - unlike without video acceleration (the case with the a31p running the previous public beta).

UPDATE (12/Jun/2009): after reading a dedicated post of a msnews.microsoft.com member, I've also played a bit with external monitors and the usable resolutions.
Under XP, using HP's above-linked official driver, the maximal external resolution is 1600*1200 and there's no way of using 16:9 or 16:10 aspect ratios (only 4:3):
Under Windows 7, if you do use the hacked video driver (see the first update above on installing it), you can select anything up to 2048*1536, including 16:9 and 16:10 aspect ratios:
These high resolutions do work (I've tested them up to 1600*1024; my TFT monitor only being an SXGA (1280*1024) one, I couldn't test higher resolutions).
This is another advantage of switching to Windows 7, particularly if you have a non-4:3 monitor / projector or one with a resolution higher than 1600*1200 (UXGA). Nevertheless, it might be possible the new driver can be used under XP too, offering the same, additional resolutions and aspect rations. It's just that the official HP driver doesn't.
A caveat: sometimes I couldn't see these resolutions. I had to switch to Portrait (on the primary, built-in one) and remove / reinsert the VGA cable to be able to see them. That is, if you don't see them, don't despair: do the same as I've done.

Excellent thread Menneisyys. If I might add, I came across problems connecting my daxian x999+ to Windows 7 WMDC. Here's how I was able to resolve the problem:
http://www.jeedo.net/howto/windows-mobile-connection-error-on-windows-7/
Please note I'm using Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bit retail.

Comparing Rooted Android against Jailbroken iPhone

Hi all,
In the past three years, we've witnessed greatly increased competition among smartphones. Android and iPhone are considered by some to be the two most serious contenders, and both have attracted many new users who migrated from the other platform. I myself was a devoted winmo user, and had used every generation of winmo phones/PDA since the late 90's. When iPhone was first released, I did not take it seriously at all, because there were so many limitations and the initial phone did not support third party applications. I made the change from winmo to iPhone only in 2009 after a rather detailed comparison exercise between winmo and iPhone. I've been more than happy with my decision and the jailbroken phone. However, technology does not stay still, and there has been lots of changes especially in the hardware end and the entry of Google into the smartphone business. Personally, I'm greately tempted by the potential of hugh screen size offered by handsets such as the HTC supersonic, and would like to understand if my smartphone experience could be enhanced even more by switching to Android. I also think that this topic area would appear on the forum for every single Android phone, and it might be good to centralise the discussion to get the maximum input possible. Hence this thread.
RULE FOR THID THREAD:
Rule 1: General Courtesy:
I would like to state that this is not a thread for any basher or haters of Google or Apple. If you're one of them, please leave and preach your anti-evil corporation philosophy elsewhere. This is also not meant to be a thread to try to convert any Google phone user to iPhone or vise versa, so while I recognise it's going to be hard, please try your best to stay objective and refrain from imposing your opinion as the only possible logical choice on others. I plead that all you all observe this, so as to get to the end of all the discussion and research as efficiently as possible.
Note: While it is not within my power to remove trouble makers, I will not be responding to any troll on this thread.
Rule 2: Discuss one area at a time, with suitable heading in the title of your post.
This thread may become very long, and people interested in finding out specific comparison should not be made to read through every word in every post. So, let's always describe in the title of your post what your points pertain to.
For now, the title descriptions to be used are: (If you feel the need to have additional topic area for comparision, please let me know so that it can be added here)
- Cut and paste design
- Multitasking design
- hardware button design
- multimedia capabilities
- Touchscreen technology
- Storage capability
- Processor and graphic capability
- Market place
- Application software
- Vendor support
- Firmware upgrade
- Battery life and design
- Camera and video
- Best GPS software (I feel that this is important enough to warrant distinct segregation)
- Theme and UI customization capabiilty
- User interface of applications
- User interface of desktop/sprinboard/program launcher/widget/task switcher
- Application defaults
- Notification handling
- Best web browsing application
- Global search
- Speech recognition
- Device management (backup, restore, syncing, etc)
- Side loading of applications
- File Management and Access
- Using it as a business phone
Rule 3: FULL potential of the phone. You can tweak, customize, as long as the procedure could reasonably be expected of an ordinary user.
Since this thread is mean to help END user choose the BEST phones in the market, the capability that you discuss must come from application programs that has already been made available to the public rather than something that can be done but requires programming knowledge to achieve it. Similar, it. A jailbroken/rooted phone's capability can be discussed as long as the jailbreak tool is available and could reasonably be performed by an average user without hacking skill to personally do the hacking themselves. Also, since my intention is mainly to find out which should be my next phone, we should base it on OS4.0 in iPhone, iPhone HD, and the best possible Android hardware likely to be available in the next few months, and I assume this is HTC Supersonic.
Therefore, no "the phone is crippled out of the box" type of debates please.
Rule 4: Focus on describing the capability rather then merely state your opinion on your preference without backing it up. (For this reason, I'll only draw up a comparision chart after giving everyone the chance to state all the known facts.). Try to state the name of the program/utility that you would use to achieve that capability. I think this would be highly educational.
Enough rules for now. Let's see how it goes.
Thank you for participating on this thread.
Cheers.

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Cut and Paste design
Android
-------
Please correct me if I'm wrong, my understanding is that the cut and paste design is a little inconsistent depending on the OEM. I've personally played with a Samsung Galaxy, and noted two different cut and paste design:
1) Press and hold. Unfortunately, there is no magnifying glass pop up to indicate the position of the cursor. You have then to use the joystick(not sure if this is what they call it) to position it.
2) I vaguely remember at other place, method 1 is not supported. You have to use the hardware button , and select an item there in order to do copy and paste.
Recently, I had a chance to look at a video showing the cut and paste in one of the HTC Android phones, and noted a third method, very similar to iPhone, but the magnifying glass is square rather than round.
I also got the impression that copy and paste is not supported on non-enterable field. I'm seeking users with expertise to correct/enhance this piece of information.
Edit: See post #71 for some more precise description on how cut and paste works in Android, described by dsymbol.
iPhone
------
Press and hold will provide the handle to select the text for copying. This pretty much work across all the places, including email, webpages, on both enterable and non-enterable fields.
Edit: However, there ARE also some rare exceptions where inconsistencies have been found, mainly arising from software created before iPhone introduced cut and paste in version 3.0 I think. An example that comes to my mind is an office document application called QuickOffice, which was around prior to OS3.0 I think. Here, to select text in the word document, instead of holding your finger down, you have to double tap to reveal the handle for text selection, you then press an icon at the bottom to copy or cut. This is quite different from the usual methods used by applications using the Apple's standard API. Most office documents applications including Office2 (It is actually Office square, with a little 2 at the top right of the word Office) and Document to Go are using the familiar cut and paste used everywhere else.

Multimedia capability
A. Using hardware button to start/pause/skip/repeat song and change volume without headset
- iPhone: Yes, using a Cydia application called VolumeButton Extender
- Android: hardware button can only control volume and not pause/play/skip/repeat.
B. Using supplied headset to start/pause/skip/repeat song and control volume
- iPhone: Yes.
- Android: It can start/pause/skip/repeat with the phone in the pocket, but any volume change must be done on the device itself.
C: Volume change increment:
- iPhone: 16 volume increment, allowing you have have the volume closest to your need, e.g, listening music while trying to get to sleep without being kept awake.
- Android: 8 only, therefore offering less precise volume level for the user. Not sure if this is device specific or generic across all Android phones.
D: Playlist combining audio and video files and playing video files with phone shut off.
- iPhone: Yes. In order to play video with screen completely shut off, switch off the phone, and on the lock screen start the music player, then switch off.
- Android: It is possible to play music video with the screen shut off, but you cannot combine video and audio in the playlist. In fact the default music player does not play video - only audio.
I invite Android users to help to beef up or correct information pertaining to rooted Android phone's capabilities.

Multitasking
A: Extend of multitasking for third party applications.
Android: All applications seems to be kept alive regardless of the situations.
iPhone: If you use the Backgrounder, all applications and processes could be kept alive. If you use the smart multitasking from Apple itself, only processes that needs to be kept alive are kept alive. Such processes include GPS function, audio streaming, file upload/download where the service must be completed without interuption. Apple believes that this smart multitasking is the key to battary life and performance, so have chosen this implementation instead of what Steve Job called an easy but wrong method of "full multitasking". Application's "state" is saved, so users need not exit an application when switching to another one.
B: Methods of task switching by showing active tasks and choosing it.
Android: Menu button to show the most recently used task, which could be different from active task. Hence a newly boot up Android might not show the phone application although it is already active. This is the only method for switching to other running application without going to the program launcher.
iPhone: Many options exist to show active tasks and choosing which to switch to. Method of invoking could be one of the 19 ways provided by the Activator(methods include single click of home key, double click of home key, press and hold the home key, shake the device, double press the sleep button quickly, press and hold the sleep button, slide into the screen from below, slide into the screen from bottom left, slide into the screen from bottom right, pinch the springboard, spread the springboard, double tap the status bar, tap and hold the status bar, swipe down the status bar, swipe left on the status bar, swipe right on the status bar, tap on volume heads up display, press volume down then up, press volume up then down.)
Kirikae: list the active task. You can kill the application or switch to it there.
Circuitous: List the icons of the active task. You can kill the application or switch to it there.
Multiflow: Display and switch to task Palm Pre style. You may close the application by swiping it off, among many available methods.
ProSwitcher: Display and switch to task Palm Pre style. You may close the application by swiping it off, among many available methods.
There are others doing more or less the same thing which I would not bother listing on. You just have to choose a method that suits your own preference and personality.
With OS4.0, double click of home button will show the most recent task on the dock and switch to the application there. You might close the application by holding the icon until it wobbles and press the deletion badge.
C: Going directly to the next and previous application without bringing up a list of task:
Android: You may use the back button to go the previous application. Going to the next application is not supported by one click/touch operation.
iPhone: Using Circuiutous, you may use any of the 19 methods mentioned above to go to the next and previous application. Some people find it extremely intuitive to swipe the taskbar left and right to go to next or previous application, similar to the way pictures are changed. You could of course also use hardware button if that's what you prefer.
I invite Android users to correct/beef up any unmentioned methods.

boi youre wastin your time,
pick up your iphone and go to hell with it...

steve,
It would be nice and easier to just have a comparison table like the one Sethos II made.

gogol said:
steve,
It would be nice and easier to just have a comparison table like the one Sethos II made.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the suggestion. My intention was to draw that up only after all the facts are known, rather than making biased conclusion without the benefit of complete information. It will be included later. That's why I've reserved a few empty posts to do just that.

Battery life and design
A. Removable battary - This is something that I cherish quite a lot during my winmo days. I liked the ability to carry along spare battaries before I board the plane for a long trip for example, where power source is an issue.
Android - YES!
iPhone - No. There are alternative portable power packs but they tend to make the phone bulkier. There are also portable chargers, but these solution is just not as good as having user replaceable battaries.

File Manager and Access
A. File Manager
iPhone:
Using an application like iFile from Cydia, users could see all the directories and subdirectories, and files in all directories. It also allows the files to be copied, deleted, moved. Clicking on a picture would display the picture, clicking on a music file will play the music file.
However, if you're trying to do a file attachment on a forum like here, it cannot be done.
Android: Same weakness due to not having a native file manager???
B. Ability for all applications to use the same directory?
iPhone:
Generally there is no such capability, although there are exception (e.g. The music player dTune could play music files downloaded with the Music Meow application). Therefore, if I have more than one spreadsheet programs in an iPhone, these different applications could not update the same spreadsheet file because the file has to be stored in the application's own directory. iFile of course could access any directory and display files in any directory.
Android:
Any such limitation? Which are some of the popular spreadsheet applications for example? Could you specify the location of the saved files to be anywhere?

Side loading of applications
Sideloading allows users to install programs which were not from the officially sactioned market place:
Android: - Yes.
iPhone - Yes. Non-programmer type users could install applications from the Cydia store. These are often program that Apple won't approve, but could also contain applications removed from the App Store such as porn applications.

Multimedia capabilities
A. Video playback test.
I invite anyone to provide links of videos for testing purposes to compare the two phone's playback capability.
For now, I would like to get you guys to refer to this thread and see if the video play by just clicking on the link. If not, are you able to download it and play smoothly, without pause or frame loss? Without the audio/video going out of sync? Details about this video is in post #7. The file is made for the screen resolution of HD2.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=645610
iPhone:
Yes. Without conversion, it plays smoothly although the video is not made for the iPhone screen resolution.
See youtube videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAGqKYlSnHA - this is playing after downloading the file
Here is the video test when played directly rather than downloded first.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C39CHtqOAso
Android:
Does it play?

Did I miss something or there's nothing about, say, business capabilities - Exchange and Office support? Don't know how to label the post, but here's the question:
On the iPhone, I know there are office package(s) available, but here's what I want to know - how do you transfer files there? Do you get a documents folder or do you need to look for a directory with one of those cryptic names? Also, how does it handle email attachments? Can I save a ppt I receive for later use in the office program?
With regard to Exchange - can I have full support that will include push for Tasks, Email, Calendar and Contacts? Not push for the latter three and manual sync for Tasks?

Best GPS software
iPhone:
Probably no single vendor can justifiably claim that they have the best GPS in every country. TomTom is the best in Australia (I'll justify that assessment later), but it is probably not as good in say Navigon in US, if we base it on sales statistics. The major choices are:
TomTom
Navigon
iGO
NDrive
Sygic
M6 (which I understand is the best in Asean)
Copilot
Each user may have a different idea of what constitute the best. Some value live traffics, some speed warning, some completeness of road speed information for speed monitoring, some warning upon approaching schools, some the ability to perform google search in addition to POI search, some 3D realistic view, some music control within the application, some intelligent routing that considers traffic congestions among other things, some text to speech, some multitouch user interface for map zooming in and out, some completeness of safety camera database, some map currency.
In Australia, my own preference is TomTom. It has extremely nice user interface, google search , very complete speed information for all roads, map is quite up to date for most places, it incorporates pinch and zoom, warn you when appraoching safety camera and when you overspeed, allows easy control of music without leaving the application, has 3D realistic view for major highway exits and intersections, decent text to speech option. After receiving phone calls, it automatically resume with the most up-to-seconds GPS coordinate and location without waiting for signal. If the call is terminated by the other party there is no need to touch the phone for the resume to be completed.
Sygic also uses the same map, but the UI is bad and reminds me of the winmo style, although the UI is still way better than winmo type of GPS.
Navigon, Copilot, iGo, NDrive all uses maps with rather incomplete speed information in Australia.
Android GPS ??
Which is the best in Australia and what can it do?

Note: I use Android, so if it sounds like I am biased, it's because I am (Although I tried to stay unbias). I removed some categories because I felt that either I did not know the answer (Rare) or that I didn't feel like taking the time to write one up. These are NOT definitive answers based on potential, this is purely from stock functionality (With touches on their equivalent of being rooted sometimes). Why did I do a stock comparison? This because 1) That's what most people will use and 2) The limits of both OS' when rooted/jailbroken are almost non-existent
- Cut and paste design
iPhone: Hold over text, magnifying glass comes up, release to get the two bars then drag them to copy. This is pretty straight-forward.
Android: Method 1- Hold on text entry place, then choose "Select All" or "select Text"
Method 2- If your device has a keyboard, hold the shift button and select text (Works in most places)
Method 3 (Limited to 2.1 sense Users)- Same as iPhone, but it has a few more options than cut, copy, paste.
- Multitasking design
iPhone; Currently not available for stock and I have no experience of it with a kailbroken iPhone
Android: Android multi-tasks without tweaking. It can hold as many app in memory as RAM allows (It will only kill processes when the processes kill themselves or when it runs out of memory, in which case it kills the oldest ones). To see a list of RECENTLY running processes, hold the home button. This will bring up a list of the last 6 used (Obviously it's not practical to show the 50 or so the Nexus can have running at the same time).
- hardware button design
iPhone: Home button which is multi-functional (Home, Double tap will have different functions depending on users choice/firmware), (Camera Button?), Volume Rocker, and Sleep/Wake Button.
Android: All Android phones MUST include at least a Home Button (also multi-functional, but not as much so), a Menu Button, a Back Button, and as far as I know an End Call Button. They also usually include a camera button and a volume rocker.
- multimedia capabilities
Not quite sure what we want here, but if it is how the experience is, the iPhone wins pretty heavily. Android can do the same exact things, but it looks ugly while doing it. Sense Users have the best form of Music app in Htc Music, but I'll try to stick to stock for now.
- Storage capability
iPhone: Whichever size you buy is what you're stuck with for life (16 or 32gb in 3GS)
Android: Normally have limited internal memory (Action of phone manufacturer) which means many apps may not be installed (Not a problem as most Android apps are under 1mb). Sdcards are used, give an "unlimited" amount of external storage.
- Processor and graphic capability
iPhone: Pretty sure it's 600 mhz, correct me if wrong
Android: So far we're at 1ghz, need I say more?
- Market place
iPhone: Don't own one so someone else will need to cover this
Android: Mention what you need to know and one of us Android users will tell you.
- Application software
Not quite sure what we mean by this.
- Vendor support
Both operating systems is for as long as the hardware capabilities don't force them to stop supporting it.
- Firmware upgrade
iPhone: Upgrade through iTunes, you may not get all features in the firmware update.
Android: OTA updates, if you're getting the update you usually get everything in it.
- Battery life and design
iPhone: No removable battery, and from what I've heard, battery life sucks.
Android: Removable Batteries, from what I've heard, the Nexus can go a day and a half no problem. The Nexus is thinner than iPhone, has a bigger screen, looks sexy but the iPhone would win in this department (But the plastic backs kind of kill it on the iPhone for me)
- Best GPS software (I feel that this is important enough to warrant distinct segregation)
iPhone: Third-Party apps, not sure which is best
Android: The Google Navigation is by far the best I have ever used
- Theme and UI customization capabiilty
iPhone: Out of the box, you can change the lockscreen wallpaper and move icons around.
Android: Wallpaper, Homescreens, can replace anything if you don't like it (Most apps will allow you to use that instead of the stock app equivalent).
- User interface of applications:
iPhone: In my opinion, they are all a little stale because they use the SAME exact interface (But that's the point of a user interface).They use the bar at top, bar at bottom for navigation, it's all equivalent to the stock apps
Android: They vary a little more in UI but they all are the same on thie inside. Press Menu to view options, they all have the grey bar (Mostly because this is integrated into the Android framework)
- User interface of desktop/sprinboard/program launcher/widget/task switcher
iPhone:
{
"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"
}
Android:
- Notification handling
iPhone: Annoying popups, 'nuf said
Android: Status bar, pull down to see all notifications
- Best web browsing application
Not really a fair comparison as iPhone has two (Opera or Safari)
- Global search
iPhone: Can search all device files from homescreen
Android: Same as iPhone but the web search is also integrated
- Speech recognition
iPhone: Voice Over, For Music and...? purposes
Android: Voice Search by holding the search button, Voice Dialer by holding send button, voice keyboard in all text entry fields
- Side loading of applications
Clarification?
- File Management and Access
iPhone: Not sure
Android: Have full access to the all partitions other than the system partition (AFAIK) without root.

Ok so here is my verdict on iPhone Vs ANDROID
When iPhone was release i was an Apple fanboy form that very time, i paid heavily for iPhones, they were like life to me, i have every iPhone to date and the first android i got was the G1, on using it i could only say one thing, it is the future and it is proved itself day by day
Experiences
1. Jailbroken iPhone
I love how u can do almost anything but nothing in the iPhone, only thing an iPhone drools over is apps and apps and nothing else. iPhone has an edge over android in just apps. For everything else u are crippled and for anything u want to do u ought to have a computer. Battery life is not what i would love and it has a boring interface good enough for 50 year old person who can just understand to dialer and dial
Android
Android is still immature, one thing u would hate about android is that it updates acc. to devices, it will add a feature only when a device is made to have the feature. other things Android is the most customizable OS ever made in the history of smartphones and mobiles. It has a clean interface if u understand it and by far the most efficient in everything it does. You shouldnt be surprised when it updates itself to become more efficient. iPhone revolutionized the designing but android revolutionized software. Android what i say is a complete OS, it just like a mini computer, to use it u dont need to have a computer, u can do everything on the phone itself, u want to add some music, videos anything do it on the phone itself, u want to update, download do it on the phone itself and it is robust enough to even create websites, i created my website using my android phone and nothing else, Android has endless possibilities.
Multimedia-
u dont have to be tied to computer to do anything on android. U can use anything 3rd party if u dont like stock, 3rd party has the ability to add more stuff which is not in stock. onlu con is that u have no equalizer.
It can play more formats than iPhone, u dont need to convert and sync music, u r not tied to use the default music player. The gallery is the best one around.
Android has the most user friendly interface, what u need most is on the desktop others in the drawer. In iPhone u have to arrange every app u install, u can just move in one way, what u have on front is the same old apps icons, android u have icons, widgets and more.
iPhone has one prop and that is app android has one con that is less apps thats it. everything is editable if u r rooted, u can edit anything u want, u have the source to the platform, u can build one urself, if u know coding u can add everything and anything to it
So Android is gonna have more apps in some time and iPhone will age sooner than intended. Comparing Rooted Android to iPhone is like comparing Gold to Brick. As i already told with ur android being rooted u can add any feature urself by editing directly in the source code, and iPhone u r stuck with Cydia developers who can change how the iPhone OS functions but can only add features

vangrieg said:
Did I miss something or there's nothing about, say, business capabilities - Exchange and Office support? Don't know how to label the post, but here's the question:
On the iPhone, I know there are office package(s) available, but here's what I want to know - how do you transfer files there? Do you get a documents folder or do you need to look for a directory with one of those cryptic names? Also, how does it handle email attachments? Can I save a ppt I receive for later use in the office program?
With regard to Exchange - can I have full support that will include push for Tasks, Email, Calendar and Contacts? Not push for the latter three and manual sync for Tasks?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, good point. It must be considered.
What are "business capabilities" though? I think we need to have a good list of what these are. Let start with what you already got and add some to it myself:
- Exchange support (perhaps even MULTIPLE exchange support) for address, calendar, tasks, and email.
- Ability to edit and create office documents with reasonably complete functions in say excel spreadsheet.
- Saving attachments in email, editing them, and resending them out.
- Presence of client applications that works together with enterprise software such as SAP.
- Ability to remote wipe data from lost phones
- Ability to install corporate applications over the air
- Conference call or even video conferencing to substitute face to face meetings
- Printing of documents (e.g. customers require receipts, written quotation, etc)
- Ability to prevent data from physically removed from the phone via MicroSDHC card or alternatively ability to enforce highly reliable data encryption on data stored there.
- Ability to enforce use of password on phone?
- Ability to PREVENT it from becoming so much fun that employees spend all their time on facebook, chats, and games??? (Hence they would prefer RIM phones??)
Anyone else can think of what the corporate IT people might look for in choosing a corporate phone? Or is it more of matter of "the boss loves his iPhone, so we have no choice but to allow it?"

Thanks for this.
charnsingh_online said:
I love how u can do almost anything but nothing in the iPhone, only thing an iPhone drools over is apps and apps and nothing else. iPhone has an edge over android in just apps. For everything else u are crippled
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you comprehensively list in which areas iPhone is crippled? Sometimes people think that a phone can't do certainly thing, but it could be due to lack of awareness and knowledge of the capability. Thats' one of the reason for having this thread - to learn from each other. To get maximum benefit from each other's experience, let's keep our mind open to new information.
charnsingh_online said:
and for anything u want to do u ought to have a computer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really? This is new to me. I would like to offer a different perspective on this.
I know iPhone lets you install new programs and updates , buy music/video/movies, edit photo taken, compile musics, and make songs of your own, send files to another phone without going through a computer.
There are only three things that strictly requires computer:
a. Install new firmware and perform restore, which is once in a while event that I would rather use my PC anyway in view of how large the file is and how expensive my 3G data quota would cost me.
b. Performing backup and restore. This would also include backing up application data such as that for eWallet, GolfCard, PocketMoney, etc.
c. Syncing to outlook
You may see the need for a computer to do this as a negative, but I personally see that as a positive. Because with this I have the ability to backup my entire device and if my phone requires a restore/hard reset/or replacement, I can recover every applications including the data quickly. It is not practical to do backup of such large amount of data over the air. It is also not assuring from security viewpoint to keep any of your phone data in the cloud. The only place to keep them is your own PC.
charnsingh_online said:
Battery life is not what i would love
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In terms of length of a single battery, I really do not have any complaint against iPhone. It is more or less the same situation with the other HTC phones which I owned. It varies depending on usage pattern, brightness level, how tempted you are to look at the beautiful screen every 5 minutes, whether you leave location service/bluetooth/3G/wifi running, the strength of the cell signal, etc. Frankly, I think it's hard to say which battery is better due to the difficulties in measurement, different age of the batteries being compared, etc.
The only complain I had was the fact that it's non-replaceable.
charnsingh_online said:
it has a boring interface
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I assume you're talking about the home page here?
Have you used home page replacement products such as Overboard or Pogoplank? Or themes.
charnsingh_online said:
Android is still immature, one thing u would hate about android is that it updates acc. to devices, it will add a feature only when a device is made to have the feature.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't quite understand what you mean by "it updates acc. to devices" or "will add a feature only when a device to made to have a feature"- would you mind clarify this point please? Has this got anything to do with the "fragmentation" problem that they talked about?
charnsingh_online said:
other things Android is the most customizable OS ever made in the history of smartphones and mobiles.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Would you mind explain in a little more details on what sorts of customization are possible?
charnsingh_online said:
It has a clean interface if u understand it and by far the most efficient in everything it does.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How so?
charnsingh_online said:
is a complete OS, it just like a mini computer, to use it u dont need to have a computer, u can do everything on the phone itself, u want to add some music, videos anything do it on the phone itself, u want to update, download do it on the phone itself and it is robust enough to even create websites, i created my website using my android phone and nothing else, Android has endless possibilities.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you of the impression that adding music, videos, updates, download are not possible on iPhone and that everything has to be done on the PC first?
charnsingh_online said:
u dont have to be tied to computer to do anything on android. U can use anything 3rd party if u dont like stock, 3rd party has the ability to add more stuff which is not in stock. onlu con is that u have no equalizer.
It can play more formats than iPhone, u dont need to convert and sync music, u r not tied to use the default music player. The gallery is the best one around.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How is this different from iPhone again?
charnsingh_online said:
Android has the most user friendly interface, what u need most is on the desktop others in the drawer. In iPhone u have to arrange every app u install, u can just move in one way, what u have on front is the same old apps icons, android u have icons, widgets and more.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you explain in what way it has the most user friendly interface? Here you're talking about the desktop/program launcher. So you said that the frequently used programs can be kept on the desktop along with widgets, etc, and then you can have "drawer" to contain the other programs, right?
Please tell me when you're in the middle of a program and wish to start a new program inside one of the drawers, what is the procedure to start that program. Is it 1)Menu to go to desktop 2) Swipe to the place where drawer is located 3) click on the drawer 4) touch the icon of the drawer?
charnsingh_online said:
iPhone has one prop and that is app android has one con that is less apps thats it. everything is editable if u r rooted, u can edit anything u want, u have the source to the platform, u can build one urself, if u know coding u can add everything and anything to it
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charnsingh_online said:
As i already told with ur android being rooted u can add any feature urself by editing directly in the source code, and iPhone u r stuck with Cydia developers who can change how the iPhone OS functions but can only add features
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You may or may not be right here. I don't know the technical aspect of the two platform to judge. However, for the purpose of this thread, as mentioned in post 1, we're only looking at the capability of the phone from the viewpoint of the masses of ordinary users out there, not the OS programmer. So, if you don't mind, I'd skip this. But just for curiosity, do you yourself modify the Android OS now by editing in the source code of Android OS?
charnsingh_online said:
So Android is gonna have more apps in some time and iPhone will age sooner than intended.
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I hope so. I hope to see TomTom for Android ASAP.

a few questions on the future of WP7 modding

Hey ya,
I own a Samsung Omnia for about 3 weeks and the restrictions of this OS make me more and more consider changing to Android or Symbian ^3 (my current 2nd phone Nokia 5800 is not exactly what you call technically up to date, but all in all i find it definitely much better than the Omnia!!).
This are my personal points of criticism:
1. As always I want to read some news lying in the bed at night. The large screen and the pretty fast browser makes it a pleasing experience, but my eyes nearly start hurting because of the brightness I have already set to the minimum. There isn't even a registry hack out there to fix it. I tried myself to jerk around a little with the registry but the changes had no effect....
2. I am in an unknown city and need to find a filling station ASAP so I type in "filling station [name of the city]" in bing maps > No results
Well, so I look for a filling station like in the good old days.. by serching it offline.
3. I wanna place the WLAN Wizard on the homescreen just like with my 5800. Mission Impossible.
4. I wanna assort the immensity of apps by categories in order to keep the overview. Mission Impossible.
5. I wanna use the Omnia as a WLAN hot spot just like with my dated 5800. Mission Impossible.
6. I wanna pair the Omnia with a Bluetooth Keyboard. Incompatible.
7. I wanna PAUSE the camcorder, recording a video. Impossible!!
8. I wanna skip a video or mp3 by touching the timline. Impossible.
9. I wanna open the bookmarks-menue when the browser is in landscape mode. Impossible.
10. I wanna launch some apps that promise to make the UI more flexible (like "advanced settings" or the registry editror") ~> revoked by Microsoft. Please uninstall.
I know that there are even more restrictions (not possible to set a ringtone, no BT file transfer etc.).
Regarding all these defects I feel like Microsoft wants to sh1t their customers.
WP7 is expensive and so damn unflexible.
Now the questions:
1. Do you think that there'll ever be a registry hack to change the screen brightness?
2. Might it be possible to install Android on WP7 Phones some day?
3. Will MS bring the HID-Profile with an update?
greets

1. Changing screen brightness is something I'm sure M-soft will address eventually.
2. It is highly unlikely especially on non-HTC devices. It's obvious what you want in a phone is android and you should've looked into the device much more thoroughly before making your purchase. WP7 is not the OS for everyone just like any other OS.
3. HID profile is unlikely to be fully integrated due to the fact that it typically allows too much file access and because they want it to sync strictly over zune it is unlikely that they will be fully integrating it though I would not be shocked to see microsoft exclusive Wireless devices as they have done with the Xbox.

[Bounty]Lenovo Mirage Solo OS Rebuild

Fair warning: I know only mostly what I want, I have no clue how difficult it will be to achieve, and therefor have no idea how to price the work. There are several people interested in this project though, so I'm sure a good budget can be reached.
I have several copies of Lenovo+Google's ill-fated virtual reality headset, which I would like to turn into actually functional devices. The kernel is Android 8 with some additional hooks (I have a copy with the additional required files). I also have one that has developer access of some kind, which may make the process easier.
The primary problems the device needs fixed:
Needs USB File transfer (disabled completely currently)
Needs access to cameras (Especially necessary for AR passthrough)
Needs Task Manager
Needs better widget and notification area systems (Currently, to skip a song on, say, spotify, you have to exit the app you're in, navigate to spotify, switch the song, restart the app you were in. The notifications are also not context aware, so you can't click on one to go to the referenced app)
Support for alternate controllers (basic, such as keyboard or bluetooth PSX)
According to the last person I attempted to hire for this, it would be easier to start from scratch than to implement an altered rom, but I don't think he understood how the 360 virtual environment and camera tracking systems were integrated (not that I do, but I know enough to know that building them out from scratch would be a massive undertaking).
Here is the current road map document, which is still a work in progress.
Any assistance, direction, or paid work would be appreciated, as I've been stumped on where to even begin for over a year.

MOD ACTION:
Thread closed since bounty threads are not allowed on XDA.
@bridgebrain