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This is probably a really stupid question - but would it be easily possible to "upgrade" the tilt's screen to VGA? Like with the screen from this phone http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/08/e-tens-glofiish-m800-a-better-x800-with-qwerty/
??
The screens look almost the same size if not the same size.... would the screen "plug" be the same.. (is it "standard" for windows mobile phones like VGA is?) and would the OS pickup the new screen?
Sexy thought - having a screen like that on this Tilt.
I'm sure if the measurements are right and you have tons of know-how, it's possible. My best advice would be to hit a mobile site which is tech-y related and hit up some of their guys to try it out.
If you find the answer, let me know. Replacement screens for most PDA's are fairly cheap on eBay.
J
Here's a couple of reasons why putting a VGA screen in the Tilt is a bad idea:
1) VGA screens consume more power on average than QVGA -- it's likely the reason why we don't see many VGA screen phones today -- and the ones that do exist aren't quad band.
2) The processor has to push 4x the number of pixels in VGA which means it needs a fairly beefy processor and a takes corresponding hit on battery life.
(this may also tie into reason 1)
3) VGA support in Windows Media has historically been half-assed, to the point where some view it as a failed experiment.
As a previous Toshiba e800 owner, I can tell you firsthand that VGA caused more problems than it solved. Microsoft decided that smoother fonts and icons were a priority over screen real estate, so while everything looked prettier it didn't really do anything for productivity. There were a few exceptions, like being able to view Exel sheets in VGA but not with Pocket Exel (only Clearvue apps allowed you to display, but not edit, in true VGA -- which was completely goofy). Then along came a couple of brilliant guys who found a way to unlock true VGA mode for everything which was great but caused a number of incompatabilies with older software that was designed when all PocketPC screens were QVGA. Switching between faux-VGA and true-VGA required a soft reset which for some reason took *minutes* in WM2003SE. Playing games was a pain. Trust me.
VGA devices that came after that point were only marginally better. The Loox 720 used a faster processor but it had no graphics accelerator, which really dragged down the performance. The Axim X50V and X51V had graphics acceleration but with a unique Intel chip that had very little support and documentation. HP's offering was decent but had a nonstandard touch d-pad. The HTC Universal tried to strike a balance between power consumption and I'm not sure if it really succeeded in that respect. There was an Asus VGA model that didn't seem to go anywhere, and a very tasty looking Acer model (n311) that either never saw the light of day or was only released in a country whose name I cannot pronounce nor spell.
So if you do decide to go the VGA route in the Tilt:
The Tilt/Kaiser roms likely do not have native VGA support, meaning that you will need to tweak or rewrite the display drivers. I don't think it would be difficult to get the Tilt to display in 'pixel doubled' mode but the results will likely look less than stellar. Support for the ATI acceleration in the Kaiser is either broken or nonexistant at the moment, and no documentation is available. That is a huge blow to getting anything VGA displaying at a decent speed.
One last reality check: Most of the previous VGA devices used screens that were between 3.5 and 4 inches. The Kaiser screen is 2.8 inches. You might see a modest improvement in picture, but it's likely your eyes can't resolve the majority of the extra pixels. (keep in mind that the average user views a PDA screen from about 2 feet away).
in short, if you REALLY must have VGA, go buy a Glofish (and say bye to HSDPA and quadband)
I retract my previous statements. On second thought, it would really suck to have a Tilt with a screen with the quality of, say, a PSP's screen. I couldn't imagine being forced to watch a video file on such a device.
J
What about the eten glofish m800.... which has come out recently.... with triband UMTS/Quad Band GSm and one of the best GPS chipsets available?
Hey guys, was just wondering... Most new HTC phones look awfully similar, just a somewhat different chassis and some random memory upgrade. Does anyone know if they change more stuff "under the hood" that isn't shown in the specs? I'm talking about better screens (brighter, higher contrast etc), faster memory and so on.
For example, I've got a TyTN atm that I love, but I've always thought the screen is a bit washed out and not as bright as most other phones. Also there is quite a lot of backlight bleed on it. I know there are hacks (vijay's stuff) to make the screen brighter, but I guess I wonder if HTC has done anything on the newer models? Mainly I'm tempted to get the Touch Cruise when it comes out with T-Mobile in the UK. Has anyone compared these two LCDs? Since the CPU speed is virtually the same, does that mean the phones are as fast or has HTC done other hardware changes to the Cruise to speed it up?
I guess what I want as a more responsive HTC phone with an iPhone quality display
Unfortunately Pocket PC displays aren't that good for the moment. At least for the qVGA ones. But VGA displays support high resolution of 640x480 and thats better than an iPhone or any others. These VGA devices are usually huge and heavy except for fre Eten models which sport VGA display on qVGA size! If you go for Eten, you cannot expect much customisation as xda-dev is away from them But eten makes good custom ROMs themselves..
Regards,
Carty..
Yeah, but I'm not just talking about resolution and DPI, what about colour reproduction and contrast? Besides, I can't get Eten phones with T-Mobile UK
And, does anyone know if the ROM/RAM read/write speeds has changed over the past few years? My _old_ HTC Tornado seems to have the same R/W speeds as my TyTN...
all pda makers oem their screen from various panel makers
and if prizing change they get other panels so it can variate even
between the same pda bought on different times of the year
about speed then it's pretty much up to the interfaces of the varous cpu's
omap, intel, samsung, Qualcomm
both features and speeds variate
my advice is to look at some benchmarks pocket mechanics can benchmark
and google have tons of hits on benchsmarks of pda's
yeah please
Hi boys and girls, maybe some of you will find my question absurd, but that`s because they have not seen, what i saw a couple of weeks ago. A know a guy who owns one of those unpopular ASUS PDAs, and a couple of weeks back, he showed me that some Russian guys managed to change the resolution of his device from 240x320 to 480 x 640, which was amazing ... everything was looking so much better ... hence i thought it wasnt such a big deal, because i thought his pda`s screen has more colors than the TC as well, but seems like it wasnt that ... a friend bought the Touch Diamond 2 days back and when i saw the display i was amazed how nice everything looked ... no crappy color transitions ... all colors were so smooth ... so i told him how frustrated i am that htc didnt place more colors on my display as well ... later to realise that actually the diamond and the touch cruise have the same ammount of collors ... which takes me to my question ... does someone know if its possible to change the resolution of the Touch Cruise from 240x320 to 480x640 ? I`m sure alot of people will be interested in that as well.
You cannot change the resolution to anything higher than the hardware supports. The Cruise supports 240x320 and that's it. The diamond and Asus you saw has 480x640 support. When running these vga devices you will get a lot better graphics if you switch from stretching a 240x320 application to 480x640 compared to running a native 480x640 application.
It's like saying that you saw a guy going from black-and-white to full color on his color tv, and asking if that's possible on your old black-and-white travel tv as well.
NOT possible. Touch Cruise/Polaris have 320*240 pixels (76800 pixels).
You CAN'T split 1 pixel in 4 parts. It is not possible and never will be.
As strange as it may sound, i've seen a tablet PC that actually allows you to set a "higher than native" screen resolution. The driver simply scales the output image down to the native resolution, and yea, it looks terrible.
PS: To the original poster, don't get it wrong, you can't increase your screen resolution this way, just the resolution windows "thinks" is supported, and it looks like crap. Neither i ever seen this done on WinCE/WM.
After i made the post i talked with the guy who did that ... and yes he said it was due to to a software change of resolution and doesnt have the full potential of the VGA screens ... sadly i`m stuck to the not so nice looking display of my TC ... hopefully i`ll upgrade to a better device in the near future ... though it might not be a HTC, having in mind what they did regarding the 3D drivers ... i`m a bit dissapointed ... Thanks guys for the answers.
dotpocket
There is a program that allows you to change youre device's resolution to 480x640 but it just makes everything smaller. its called dotpocket.
The Touch Pro is a great phone. But some things can be improved.
I would like the communities help and will provide some of my own knowledge.
One of these problems is the camera and its video performance. Other phones using the same GFX chipset have been advertised to be able to do VGA (640x480) recording @ 30 FPS. The Raphael only does a maximum of QCIF (352x288) @ 25 FPS and even this drops to sometimes even 4 FPS in bad light conditions. Even videos made in maximum resolution lack a good bitrate and shows blocks (bad quality) when played back.
Taking things one step at a time I think we should try to improve the quality for the existing video mode. So I did some research on the forums. This is what I’ve found.
The way I see it is (even for pictures not only video) is that the camera switches to some kind of “night mode” as soon as it is pointed towards a dark area. This is automatic and happens by itself. We have to find some way to turn this off as it causes more problems than it solves. And no changing white balance from auto to something else does not help. I haven’t been able to find a solution for this so I need the communities help.
I’ve looked through the registry and found settings for bitrates and FPS. I’ve played with them and they don’t make any difference.
So does anyone have a solution to this “night mode” problem ? any ideas ? Once we solve this we can move on to solve the low bitrates problem.
All opinions are welcome.
I think the Touch Pro uses the same chipset as Xperia's X1a instead of the X1i's Qualcomm chipset. Probably one of those rolled of the same assemblely line but some got hardware options disabled.
In video recording, wish the camera would maintain fps instead of longer exposure time.
I just want to disable the low light compensation, the so called "night mode" because it sucks and thats what causes the camera slow down. Someone must be up to the task ?
Maybe we can rip the X1 camera software when it comes out ?
Without the drop in the FPS, there would not be enough light exposure to capture any discernable image. You would end up with 30fps of black screen. The CCD and image processor simply aren't strong enough to compensate, and I doubt there's any software fix available.
There was a temporary fix for the very same problem on the Kaiser. Go into camera mode turn the screen off for about 15 sec and turn it back on . A bug in the camera software would disable the low light compensation. The pictures and videos were darker but not completely black so to say. They were very viewable but the performance was super improved. The same bug does not exist in the Raphael. But there must be some way to turn it off.
StashCompInc what?! Almoste everyday I find new issues about htc latest ppcs :angry: .. so pitty..
Have you tried to contact Ateksoft? Let's hope that they will release something for the latest qualcomm devices
http://www.ateksoft.com/
They dont have any email on thier site. And any thing you ask them about their coolcamera software they dont reply. I wonder if there is a developer here that can create a new camera software ?
Im wondering about this problem as well. There must be a way to override this function.. the Cam is actually OK under wery bright light conditions. But as soon as it gets a litte darker, the cam is unusable. Ive noticed that if you change the whitebalance under some lighting conditions there is a small improvement. Still no fixes for this problem? you should think with the prosessor and the ram in this device there should be no problem getting the cam viewer to work properly..
We need a new camera software which supports video, 640*480 @ 30 FPS. Wonder if anyone on the forum can write one ?
But will that fix the choppy cam viewer? Or will it just make it worse? I saw somebody mention that the ccd chip just werent good enough. And that should suggest that this is a hardware issue. But if someone could provide us with a new cam software we would know for sure. or at least find a solution to override the nightmode it goes in to when dark or darker lighting conditions.
Yeah, CoolCamera is a software but does not work with the Raphael. Thier support does not answer questions for a new version update.
hmm. okey. Then all we can do is wait and see if perhaps somebody here in the forum maybe comes with a solution.
I dont think there will be, we had the same problem with the Kaiser and still no solution.
Thats a shame. I didnt buy this device cause of the cam. But when i notice that the cam actually functions good under some conditions, im just annoyed by the fact that its not optimized. i really cant se the problem in fixing this. But if the responce from HTC support is that the pro is not a multimedia device, end of story. Then it seems that we wont get any further with this.
Yeah I know but we dont have a choice. I need a device that does everything since I dont want to carry more than one device. And this seems to be the best bet.
Someone here should mod the CoolCamera Software or the HTC one or maybe make one completely new one.
I think you already know this, but the camera in TP is limited due to some patent issues in America. That's the reason why X1i(international) records better video than X1a(america). I believe it's the software which is limiting the video resolution and camera fps.
Do not expect anything better from HTC unless they make an european version of the device. Now it's the same device for all over the world.
So you also believe this to be a software issue rather than bad hardware? If so then somebody should be able to change the coolcamera software as mentioned before or to make fixes to the software thats allready in the TP. I also bought this product to get a sort off all in one device. And as said before, i didnt expect the cam to perform as good as my N95. But i did expect it to be usable. And as it is now, its really a pain in the ass. Now im seriously thinking about getting another device. And its a damn shame. Cause the TP i just a really beautiful and practical device..
That should not stop others (developers) from modding or porting a new camera software.
My old XDA IIi is able to record VGA video @12-15fps with CoolCamera whereas the maximum that can be achieved via HTC software is QVGA @15fps ! So, a piece of software can definitely help !
Yeah exactly and that phone is old by far. The Raphael has a lot more power just limited by video. Someone please write/hack (from another device X1 ?) a better camera software !!! I will pay for it if it has improvements !
I'm very surprised the Nexus S didn't come out with a higher resolution Super Amoled screen. Apparently, 2.3 supports higher resolution according to wikipedia. I'm just waiting for a new android phone with a higher resolution/pixel density to put the iphone 4 to shame.
Imagine, a Super Amoled screen with a 1024x768 or 1280x720 resolution would be the best mobile phone screen in the world.
When do you think we will realistically see android phones with higher resolution displays?
The current Super AMOLED screen already trades blows with the Retina Display. I'm sure there will be higher res screens at some point but whats the rush? Wouldnt a higher resolution screen be more of a burden on battery than the current screens already are anyway? I'd see resolutions that high being more relevant for tablets and PMP than phones.
Why? It will drain battery more and more, and higher resolution don't need for still small display. Just imagine, MP3 player with Desktop resolution.
Haha? Try push sensor button, wtf it's so small...
U wanna get more ability to use sensor keyboard? (sarcastic)
Well, android definitely needs to match or better the 640x960 resolution of the iPhone 4 to maintain feature parity.
The current SuperAMOLED screens are less battery consuming than old LCD and Retina, so bigger resolutions shouldn't be a battery problem.
But what's the point of having 1280x768 on a 4" screen?
I'm pretty satisfied with 480x320 on 3.2" and 800x480 on 4" looks also awesome.
The Meizu M9 have a 960x640 display, but (even if you are in china) this little boy is still difficult to find.
The next Meizu (M9ii) will have a 1280×854 or 1280×800 4" screen, and should be animated by a Tegra2 with 1Gb of RAM. They said that the release date will be on middle 2011, so maybe we will be able to grap it in the late 2011.
The two phones are running on a custom android 2.2 (the UI is very different from the classical Android).
For the battery, it's more backlight that drains power.
A higher resolution will only put a little more stress on the GPU, but if the OS is well coded, it should not consume a lot more.
DPI, its all about DPI
You can have all the DPI in the world, but all its gonna mean is LAG and Battery if we're still relying on the CPU to push pixels.
dimon222 said:
Why? It will drain battery more and more, and higher resolution don't need for still small display. Just imagine, MP3 player with Desktop resolution.
Haha? Try push sensor button, wtf it's so small...
U wanna get more ability to use sensor keyboard? (sarcastic)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You have absolutely no comprehension of what resolution is. Look at the iphone going from 480x320 to 960x640. Did the icons get smaller? No I didn't think so. You simply put more pixels into an icon the same size. Because it seems you're under the impression that pixel count determines image size.
however, there is no need for a higher resolution because the display is that too small. better resolution would look like the same as the resolution looks on current phones.
I can see several reasons to be interested in higher screen resolution (but IMHO you will need at least a 3.5" display):
Games
ok, that's not for today, but with ports like the unreal engine on android, phones will become more like a mobile console (PSP phone, for example). A better resolution sounds like a better playing experience, but will still need more powerful hardware (and that's on the way with multi core SOC)
Video
isn't that obvious? and it's essential if you're watching videos with subtitles
Internet
I don't know for you, but on my 800x480 handset, i have to zoom out to have the full page, and zoom in, etc...
With a better screen resolution, the navigation will be easier
It's not interesting for everybody, but I think clivo360 and I are not the only guys looking for a higher resolution screen
Although 4.3" is probably the upper limit for what you'd consider "pocketable", I'd still be attracted to bigger screens and more powerful phones because there are things that can take advantage of them, such as video. Imagine 1080p screens on a phone!
At some point though, phones are probably going to suffer the same problem that PCs did - that hardware outdoes all user needs. Imagine a point where the hardware has reached such a point where for the average user, they don't need the most potent phone anymore. We're already well on the way there. It happened with PCs, where the average user needs office software such as word processing, a spreadsheet, and the Internet, but nothing that demands crazy hardware (the average user is not a high end gamer we're talking here).
A better resolution makes even more difference on an SAMOLED screen compared to an LCD/SLCD - due to the PenTile matrix configuration of pixels a 800x480 SAMOLED screen doesn't really have as many pixels as an 800x480 standard LCD.
Just take a close look at the screen of a Nexus One or Nexus S at some text and you'll see it's slightly fuzzy. See here for more info
Better resolutions aren't available yet because a) it's a relatively new technology and b) manufacturers are having a hard enough time making enough just to cover the existing devices that use them.
AFAIK, there is only one Android device with a larger screen resolution that, as long as you don't live in the good old US of A (and even there it can be done), can make calls: the Samsung Galaxy Tab. But not exactly small enough to fit in your trouser pocket (although it does slip easily into a jacket pocket).
PS: The Tab is fantastic for video (1080p MKV supported), games and general browsing (with plugins set to on-demand) plus the odd short book, although you do look very strange if you answer calls on it without a BT headset (very Trigger Happy).
Ugh, I won't flame people saying we don't need higher resolution, though I wanted to...
Here is one basic application where the higher resolution really does make a difference: Reading text .PDFs.
I tried reading PDFs on my 800 x 480 Samsung Fascinate (Galaxy S) and I wish the text was a little smoother. Sure, I'd like a slightly larger screen (no more than 4.3") but if the screen was larger I'd be even more desperate for higher resolution. I'd like to see 1024 * 640 on a 4" Android.
Higher resolution does not nesc. need more battery/CPU power: it's the brightness that uses the battery most.
critofur said:
I tried reading PDFs on my 800 x 480 Samsung Fascinate (Galaxy S) and I wish the text was a little smoother. Sure, I'd like a slightly larger screen (no more than 4.3") but if the screen was larger I'd be even more desperate for higher resolution. I'd like to see 1024 * 640 on a 4" Android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Doesn't your phone's AMOLED screen use the PenTile matrix? If so, that's a huge factor. I have 2 Droid Incredibles, one AMOLED w/PenTile matrix, the other SLCD. The SLCD has MUCH smoother text despite both being the same 480x800 resolution. AMOLED w/PenTile matrix has a "screen door effect".
Anyway, Toshiba might make your dream come true, and even exceed what you'd like to see.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/16/toshiba-enters-pixel-density-fray-with-367ppi-lcds-for-cellphone/
its true about the screen door effect. texting the g2x is very smooth dispite the resolution being the same as the vibrant.
Not sure I could put larger than 4.3" in my pocket