HTC Athena /Advantage / HTC X7500 WM6 Review

HTC X7500 Windows Mobile 6 (WM6) First Impressions

As you might have read, I just got the upgrade to the HTC Athena / HTC X7500 to Windows Mobile 6. It is an official ROM – named "shipping". The full file name of the ROM is RUU_Athena_HTC_WWE_2.21.405.

So I guess if you keep searching on Google for RUU_Athena_HTC_WWE – you might find it popping up somewhere very very soon. But I can't share this ROM with you L since I want to maintain my great relationship with my HTC contacts. So don't even bother to ask J

Release date? My guesstimate is end of this week or beginning of next. The file is build time stamped the 21. August J so I guess HTC is just waiting for final go before official release.

The WM6 Version Numbers

OS Version : CE OS 5.2.1238 Build 17745.0.2.3
Radio – 1.50
ROM Version : 2.21.405.2
ROM Date : 07/20/07

Initial Impression of WM6 for HTC Advantage X7500

Well the news and improvements are small and but some of my issues with the X7500/Athena has been resolved, but the most annoying "feature" is still the same. Namely not TRUE OS supported VGA support despite screen being 640 x 480. Now if you are only surfing on Internet it does not matter at all. But if you want to use the X7500 as a desktop "replacement" from time to time – it is really annoying that you cannot utilize the high screen resolution. I had really hoped that with WM6 native support for 640x480 that this would have been resolved. L

Open Mobile Excel and you only got 5 x 8 Rows to work in and all menu texts are oversized for a 5" screen. My Nokia E90 – has a slightly larger resolution (800x352) but manages to present me with 14 x13 rows of data and that is still readable.

Open Word – and your typing is great if you are near sighted. But everything again is "oversized" and not really great to work on.

Mail – is also oversized and not using the great real estate the screen offers.

What a shame – It actually turns a potential business tool in to a toy, which for me is a total deal breaker and therefore my X7500 goes up for sale, and I'll stick to my Nokia E90 for the time being. (and get the HTC Shift when that comes out..)

Another thing missing from my ROM is the VoIP part of WM6. HTC has some issues including it – so I hope another upgrade is on the way.

Another thing that would have been nice is the "HTC Touch" front screen, to which I have grown rather fond. But that is not included in this ROM. So only the TyTN II / Kaiser will get that it seems. (Well officially anyway)

Last thing that does not really bother me – but is "the talk of forums" is the powerbar only moves in 10% steps – and with the new firmware this has not changed. Still 0-10-20-30-40-50-60-70-80-90-100%... Nothing in between.

Last bug just found.. I got 3 SMS's while writing this. Read them –and noticed after a while that I still had one "Unread" SMS. But none unread in my Inbox. I deleted all SMS's – but still shows 1 unread.:-)

But on to the good things:

• The Touch Screen works a lot better. Much better finger control and more consistent "pressure sensitivity". Before when pressing on screen – the device would ignore finger presses if you was not careful. This issue has been resolved.
  
• Phone seems to react quite a lot quicker.
  
• Windows Update is working now – but did not find any updates J
  
• Wi-Fi seems to work a lot better than before. When streaming from ORB before i could never get "re-buffer" free streams at more than 160 kbps. Now I can do 320 kbps without a hitch. Coverage test will follow later.
  

This was my Initial Impressions – out with the X7500 for now... And let's see if someone can make a High Res WM6 device where all the applications are using the big screen as they should. (Remember Windows 2.11?...)

I really look forward to Gitex J - greeting from Dubai.

Skype in Dubai – working today

As some of you might have noticed, my residence is in Dubai. A country where the government has an active protection policy towards Internet usage. That means that a lot of things are blocked, so you can't access them.

There are two telecoms companies here. Etisalat and DU. Both are partly owned by the government of Dubai. And each has different "content" blocks in place, protecting people from themselves. J

But that bad thing is – that both are blocking access to use Internet Phones now. Before only Etisalat was blocking access, but now both block by active packet inspection. That unfortunately means no access to VoIP without VPN (Virtual Private Network).

The protection is done to protect their phone revenues, since 70% of the population here are expats. So International phoning is a big revenue generator for them. (Some say as much as 80% of their income is from International Phone charges)

But the past couple of days, it actually seems like Skype 3.5.0.202 can get through perfectly without any problems. (On the DU network anyway)

One can only hope they are coming to their senses and are opening up for VoIP use. Unfortunately SIP is still blocked by them L

Nokia N95 critics review

Well - who have not awaited the Nokia N95 with impatience?

I did -and bought it the first place I saw it. Nice phone - runs Nokia Series 60 V3 - (a Nokia Symbian version).

Among the features much talked about was 5 mpix camera, built in GPS, and VoIP via Wireless 802.11x networks. (Wi-Fi) and yes the phone does have a 5 mpix camera - but what does that help when the images that it captures are only 200-400 KB? and looks like crap? It does have autofocus and Carl Zeiss lens, but I think Mr. Zeiss would turn in his grave if he saw the quality of this camera. I'd rather have a 3 mpix great quality camera - than a 5 mpix bad... NOKIA!!

And built in GPS - great stuff - apart from GPS fix to satellites takes forever (I have never tried less than 5 minutes) - and the maps here are like 5 years old... (Dubai, UAE) and to use Navigation you have to pay an obscene amount of money for it.. Damn Nokia - this is stupid...

And voice over IP (VOIP) - then N95 excels in not disclosing all possible settings in the edit menu. You have to write custom software to edit things like the Stun server etc. So in short it only works with the "partner" of Nokia - VOIP Service - Gizmo Project. That is all right - but... then you should not label it as an VOIP phone - but as a "tether" VoIP client with limited ability..

Which brings me to the Wireless Performance... Again here - someone wanted to save dollars... The wireless Wi-Fi interface almost needs line of sight to work. Even my worst other phones with Wi-Fi have never had a problem - but the N95 surely is a bad performer.

And then the barcode scanning - used with the camera?? I have tried to scan multiple barcodes - and all with the same result... no recognized barcode (so far)

And last but not least - the importing of own certificates does not work on my N95... Which means my Exchange RoadSync software asks for every connection... “Are you sure?” “Are you sure?”... but my exchange certificate - the phone won't accept..

Damn - bit of small grapes .. Lets hope future firmware updates will erase the problems... :-)

have a nice one! :-)

Damn