The HTC Shift Official Specs – Scanned Brochure

Well some people don't know me yet J so some "Doubting Thomases" have claimed my specs from HTC might not be the right ones. Well – here they are...

Press here for High Res Download	Press here for High Res Download

Direct from the Hand that feeds you the news. J

All brochure content is of course (C) HTC.

HTC Athena / Advantage X7500 WM6 officially available

Get WM6 for X7500

Now the upgrade is available for all WWE editions. Register at www.htc.com to download the WM6 update.

You can read my comments here

Recap of the latest news

Symbian Related

The Nokia E90 Bug list – I got it and I like it – despite the bugs

No VPN for Symbian – Why ?

Installing Exchange Certificates on S60 – Tutorial on S60 VPN

Nokia N95 - RIP – dead and gone – never Nokia N95 again

HTC & WM6 Related

Sneak Peak at HTC Shift – Mini Review HTC Shift

HTC Shift to Launch at Gitex In Dubai – The Launch is confirmed

HTC Athena / Advantage X7500 Windows Mobile 6 Review – the WM6 Mobile ROM review

12 New Phones from i-Mate – i-Mate launch at Gitex

Being HTC Touched – HTC Touch Review

Skype Related

Skype in Dubai – Skype is again working in Dubai without tricks

Sneak Peak at the HTC Shift

As I'm writing here now – I'm sitting with a HTC Shift prototype. No not the final – but a late prototype. I had a chance to play with it for a while.

My initial impressions are that it is a really solid device. Much better than I anticipated. The screen tilt stuff works well and you can position the screen as you like. The screen supports is really only 800 x 480 but supports 1024 x 600 resolution – but at 1024x600 it can seem a bit "muddy to look at"

The current model only got a "limited" Windows Mobile 6 built in. No Mobile Office in it. Bit of a shame. But it does support e-mail. I don't know if you can install custom applications like Skype on it. But it is connected to the "pc" part so it will act as a modem in Vista for your Mobile Data Connection. But it does have parts of the HCT Touch (the phone) front screen interface with calendar, clock and weather + direct access to mail. It did not seem to enable the Vista Windows Mobile Sync interface to sync the Windows Mobile part. But one can hope that changes for the final version – so you don't have to double sync your outlook to get calendar and mail in to the Windows Mobile part.

Unfortunately Windows Mobile do only support 640 x 480 – so when in Windows Mobile mode the screen is "enlarged to fill the 600 pixel screen height – but leaves 16:9 equal empty bars at either side.

The mouse works well and the device seems quite snappy. It claims a Vista Performance index of 2.0 which is quite reasonable for such a small pc. But it does have a camera on the front for Skype J and other Web Chat systems. Nice.

But the keyboard is very very small. You can't touch type on it – but tactile feed is great and I do think you can get away with writing on it at a reasonable speed when you get used to it – but 2 finger typing seems best J But a lot better than my Sony UX-90s.

The Pen is a typical HTC "fold out" pen. Not the best really. And I hate not having an active touch screen like on my ThinkPad X60. But newest "rumour" is it will support multi touch for a lot of things. J Fx. Place 2 fingers on screen and move fingers closer together to zoom in – and move them apart to zoom out. Nice touch (no pun intended)

HTC Shift shipping and price

Price point will be the same as the HTC Advantage x7500. So in UAE Dirham – about 5.000. (US$1.362) Shipping is said to start no later than 4 weeks after Gitex. Nice and small christmas gift then :-) More info from Gitex during 8-12 of September. :-)

Will I get one.. Yes I ordered one FIRST in LINE... J It will replace my Sony UX-90 I guess.

more HTC Stuff:
HTC Shift to Launch at Gitex
HTC Advantage X7500 WM6 Official ROM Review

Over and out for today.

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.

Official WM6 for HTC X7500

WM6 for HTC Athena / X7500

Just got it on a memory card J and are upgrading as we speak.

Full version name is RUU_Athena_HTC_WWE_2.21.405.2_1.50.00.00_Ship

Upgrade complete – now customizing J So far no problems.

HTC SHIFT launch at Gitex in Dubai

The much awaited HTC Shift is rumoured to launch at the Gitex Computer Exhibition in Dubai that takes place from 8^th to 12^th of September 2007. I have heard from an inside source that the entire HTC Staff will have HTC Shifts to demo, and work with from Gitex and onwards (read – HAVE to work with! and they have to ditch their old notebooks for this one). Chippy confirmed Gitex as the launch date as well on the UMPC Portal

The HTC Shift is a portable Vista based UMPC with a built in Windows Mobile Computer. So it is a combination device, giving you the benefits of having a "Real" Computer when you need it and a Windows Mobile device for the quick and dirty stuff.

Battery life is said to be about 3 hours running Vista and 5 days of battery life if you only use the Windows Mobile part.

It is going to be interesting to see how HTC have made the integration between the two devices. It would be a killer if both "machines" have access to the same file system, so you don't need to copy/paste between them.

Well the Shift is on my wish list for Ramadan or Christmas J anyway. Gitex btw. got a big "Gitex Shopping Section" where you usually can buy the latest gadgets - so one can hope it will be available there.

Nokia S60 VPN gone missing

Guys – how hard can it be to put VPN on a Symbian Phone

I do really love my new Nokia E90. Great screens – easy to use. My Roadsync is up and running with my exchange private certificates (see previous article). But the biggest missing object from my phone is ability to use VPN.

I'm constantly on non-encrypted Access Points everywhere. I don't check anything with passwords, unless I can get through a VPN connection on my computer.

But checking the built in Nokia E90 Communications tutorial – it states:

"For VPN usage..." (go through tutorial..) Contact your systems administrator." - Nokia – are you taking the piss?

But Nokia forgot to inform the world's system administrators on how to provide VPN access to a Nokia Phone. Hacks exists on the Internet on how to use "older" E series Nokia Phones Mobility VPN package, and install it on the E90. But that requires mechanical software skills most people do not have. You have to do a LOT of work to get your VPN up and running, including getting special security certification to "encrypt" the settings you send to the phone. And Nokia has strategically removed the "download" options around the world for the "old" VPN software, leaving even hard ball techy guys in need of VPN with only one solution – find a "pirate" copy.

MovianVPN used to be a solution. But Certicom does not offer that anymore. You can still buy the Movian VPN for S60 from anthavpn but despite 3 attempts to contact them about E90 compatibility I have so far to succeed. Not a single answer so we must assume they have gone bust or are to busy selling anthavpn solution for Microsoft Mobiles. And that is despite Microsoft Mobiles got VPN built in out of the box.

So dear dear Nokia, please wake up and make a good VPN client available for the S60v3 series of phones. I would not mind to pay – as long as it can connect to standard VPN boxes out there like Cisco or my Microsoft Server based VPN – or even OpenVPN. I just need something so I know my browsing is secure and no one can sniff my passwords – and when I am in "Protected" areas, where VoIP is blocked by network operators –that I can tunnel home and establish my phone connection anyway.

My only alternative is changing to the HTC Kaiser (TyTN II) when it comes out and once again be able to surf and call with piece of mind – which pretty much have the same specs as the E90. So Dear Reader – write your Nokia representative J and complain! I did!

Kaz911

Being HTC Touched

The hype is on – let you fingers do the walking – or in case of the touch phones – the sliding. There are two new touch phones in the market – one is the Apple iPhone and the HTC Touch.

I’m the happy guy with a HTC Touch Phone. The phone is one of the latest models from HTC, with Windows Mobile 6. Since many people already have described the Windows Mobile 6 interface, I’ll try to concentrate on what sets the Touch apart from other phones.

The Hardware
The basic HTC Touch is a very slim and elegant phone. Look absolutely stunning. A phone for the fashion conscious J You can’t really appreciate the tiny size before it is in your hands. It got the typical HTC Extended Mini USB for charging and for headsets – so don’t expect to use any Jack based headsets for it.

SIM card and memory card is hidden on the right hand side – a bit hard to get to – but works okay. Camera is a “standard” 2 mpix picture with okay quality but no autofocus. Quality of pictures are okay – but not better than okay.

Call and Hang-up buttons are very small – and a bit unhandy and hard to press – but in the “keeping” the design small – and nice looking I guess there was not a lot more they could do – or was there?

The “Rocker” pad is again a bit small for me. (The button you use to scroll up/down/right/left). Too often I find myself hitting the middle pad (enter) by mistake.

But the glass front on the touch is excellent. It makes it very easy to clean the screen and to keep it looking nice. It does not collect the dirt in the corners like other of the HTC phones with “embedded” screens does. Absolutely a nice feature. But it also seems like it hinders Pen operation a bit, since you feel like you have to “push” a bit hard on the glass for the pen to react. Hopefully a firmware update will change the sensitivity a bit. The screen itself looks okay. Very sharp but seems a little low key on colour resolution. The Colour dept just seems a bit low compared to some of my other PDA devices. But absolutely does the job.

The speed / processor / memory in the phone seem a bit “under” average. The phone is slow to react in many situations. Available memory is quite low, and quite often you will get the “Not enough memory to execute program” error message. But thanks good HTC has a “close” program feature which not many Windows mobile phones has as standard. (Hold the pen on the close “X” for a sec. too really close the program)

WiFi sensitivity is excellent though – just as good as my HTC S710. It can pickup and use WiFi where my different notebooks give up. (Sony UX90s, ThinkPad X60 tablet, and a lot of other devices). On connection with a Zyxel access point, the Internet Explorer shows some “fun” errors though. (Does not work) but any other access point I have tried works like a charm. Opera browser on the same access point works fine – what a puzzle..

Phone is only GPRS/EDGE based so no 3G. But speed seems usable.

Software
Well the big thing here is Windows Mobile 6 + HTCs custom touch interface. The Touch interface is a shell / GUI on top of Windows Mobile 6, so you can operate your touch phone with your fingers – a lot easier than you can in standard Windows Mobile 6.

It works really well – a lot better than I expected. Using your fingers to navigate to your different applications is great. The only problem is that is a shell on top of the standard Windows Mobile 6. So in the middle of your joy and ease of use – you launch a program not optimized for touch (mail, browser, office pack and any other standard Windows Mobile software) you are then back at the standard not finger optimized piece of software, forcing you to get out your pen.

And this is where the concept fails. All the glitz and glitter falls apart and you are back at a standard pen based PDA.

But since most people do not really spend that much time editing documents on the PDA – I think most people will find the HTC Touch a nice phone for daily use. Most navigation is done with fingers between mail/sms and phone book, and here the Touch shines. Reading mail and sms works fine with your fingers – but replying to them does not. But the most used features are supported by the Touch overlay on the phone. So all in all – a big step forward in the usability of the Windows Mobile PDA interface. Now just modify the Message applications (SMS/E-Mail) so you can write on the screen with your fingertips. That would then cover 80% of the device usage. Then optimize the media player and we are at 90%.

Maybe this concept phone can show Microsoft some of the things needed for a great touch interface, and HTC and Microsoft can cooperate on optimizing future versions of Windows Mobile to be truly touch enabled. At least Apples iPhone is forcing them to look in that direction.
In conclusion – a great phone for its intended audience. A competitor to iPhone – I don’t know yet since I have not tried it on.... But my feeling is that is a semi worthy contender. Size is perfect, battery life is okay, WiFi is superb. Price is right and Windows Mobile is now actually a usable phone interface. So go get it :-) It is worth it!

Star rating (subjective) 8 out of 10. The last 2 stars will be awarded when majority of applications support “Touch” with your fingers.

iPhone – what is the buzz about?

The world is a strange place. Apple launches a phone with specifications worse than any top range phone. They provide a nice design, but a mediocre phone. Touted as the first ever multimedia phone the adverts are well “less than true”

I have tested more than a fair share of phones – from Symbian (Nokia/Sony Ericsson) to every other Microsoft phone (HTC/I-mate and many others)

Right now my phone is the HCT S710. A Microsoft WM6 based phone, with browser, media player, WiFi, GSM Edge/GPRS and basically everything I need for business. It even got a real keyboard. I can stream files from my Microsoft Media Center to my phone in great quality. The WiFi is the best I ever seen – the phone can pickup and use wireless signals from every room in my flat where often my notebooks, other phones and gadgets can’t pickup any signals. (2nd best is actually my Sony US90s...)

But the real iPhone deal breaker for me is that it is NOT a business phone – its a consumer phone. No integration with Microsoft Exchange – only POP3 and maybe IMAP mail – not good enough in our day in age.

And what about forcing you to have iTunes on your pc? What a piece of crap software... just to run your phone? I wish Apple could make nice software and not only make up for it by making it “look nice”...

So the only iPhone i consider buying is the Cisco/Linksys one :-)