Misc news (DivX Mobile Player quick review; great Pocket Controller rebate etc)

1. Machines at War (see review of a previous version HERE), probably the best RTS (Real-Time Strategy) for Windows Mobile, has been updated to version 1.2, introducing even some new units. Well worth checking out.

2. the free and excellent (!) Doom clone, DoomGLES, has also been updated, now delivering far better GoForce performance.

3. if you still haven’t purchased Orions (the best turn-based strategy game for Windows Mobile) during the last, 40% rebate, now, you have a chance of getting it for free if you post a reply to THIS thread

4. PDAmill has released Pachinko Go!. The blurb is as follows: "What the heck is Pachinko? Gravity, Skill, and Luck! It's a unique game which is kind of a cross between a vertical pinball game and a slot machine which is extremely popular in Japan (and growing more popular worldwide every day). This simple, yet addicting game contains 3 unique Pachinko games in one package, including many unlockable extras to acquire, extending the gameplay even more!"

5. Still speaking of PDAmill, now, after a year of their completely stopping porting their games to the platform, they’ve made available all of their Palm titles for free (!). You can find them HERE.

6. SOTi’s Pocket Controller, which is without doubt the most powerful PDA remote controller solution (see THIS for more info & comparison to the alternatives), is offered for 10 euros (about $15), incl. VAT for EU residents, only till 05/11/2008. Go get it – it’s really a bargain for this price.

7. There’s a new, free platform game Greedy Penguins HERE for both Windows Mobile Pocket PC’s / Smartphones and Symbian S60 / UIQ3.

8. If you’ve read the latest updates to my iPAQ 210 review, you already know this, but it’s still worth devoting a separate bullet in here too: I’ve thoroughly benchmarked the brand new Marvell Xscale PXA310 platform and found out that, unlike even Samsung’s low-end CPU’s, it has the same (high) power consumption upon high CPU load. It’s certainly bad news. The good news is that it’s certainly faster than the PXA270, particularly at playing back AVC stuff now that CorePlayer 1.2.x has added WMMX optimizations. And, according to the CorePlayer folks, this is just the beginning – a lot more optimizations and performance enhancements will follow! (Also see my related, new chipset reports HERE and HERE)

9. The DivX folks have released a new (0.90) beta of their free (!) DivX / XviD player DivX Mobile Player for Windows Mobile and Symbian (note that while they state there’s no 0.90 for the latter, only 0.89, the internal version number does state it’s too 0.90). Note that you’ll need to register yourself in order to be able to access the app; after this, click the URL that comes in the e-mail, change your password and, then, go HERE to directly access the downloads.

Back in the pre-1.2.0 CorePlayer times, several Symbian people used to state (see for example THIS, THIS, THIS, THIS and THIS) CorePlayer was definitely inferior to this application. This is why I was extremely interested in the results of my tests. CorePlayer 1.2+ (on all the three test devices) has beaten DivX Mobile Player in every respect.

I’ve quickly tested it on several real-world (high-resolution; mostly 576- and 640-wide) DivX- and XviD-encoded videos. It delivered acceptable results on both the two Windows Mobile handsets (HP iPAQ 210 and HTC Universal running Ranyu’s 7.6 of WM6.1) and Symbian (Nokia N95 with firmware version v21) when playing back most DivX videos. There were rarely dropped frames (albeit the playback wasn’t as smooth as under CorePlayer).

Playing back my XviD-encoded test video, however, was painfully stuttering under Windows Mobile and a little stuttering under Symbian. (I REALLY recommend THIS video; pay special attention to the camera moving in the second sketch with the office dialog). The same videos played back flawlessly under the latest versions (1.2.3 for WinMo and 1.2.0 for Symbian) of CorePlayer.

It isn’t able to play back standard ASP videos created in Nero Recode (after renaming them to .AVI’s so that the player finds them); it complains about being incompatible. (The same videos, of course, play back OK under CorePlayer, as has also been explained in my H.264 Bible.) Of course it won’t play back the much more advanced AVC (H.264) videos either.

All in all, you may want to give it a try if you prefer free stuff – but don’t forget: CorePlayer is still much better, more compatible and more efficient. The only drawback of the latter is not being free.

10. New hardware-wise, there is a plethora of new information. See for example THIS (a generic overview), THIS and THIS (HTC Diamond) etc. Of course, these threads / articles will be outdated today with HTC’s official announcements, which will be reported on by many portals; see for example MoDaCo’s related thread HERE and MsMobiles’ HERE).

11. There’s a nice hands-on review of the DVB-T receiving capabilities of the Gigabyte gSmart t600 HERE at MsMobiles. Before I finally publish my Digital TV Bible, it gives you a clear picture of what you can expect of DVB-T-capable handsets, reception capabilities- and battery life-wise.

12. The Xperia X1 will be released in mid-September; see THIS and THIS. According to one of my sources, who received it for beta testing, it does have 3D hardware acceleration, which is certainly very good news. It, however, has a rather bad thumbboard – much worse than those of the HTC Universal or the HTC Kaiser / AT&T Tilt. Now, I only wish it had a digital TV (DVB-T and -H at least for us Europeans; MediaFLO / DVB-H for Americans, T-DMB for Koreans etc.) receiver.... Too bad S-E’s engineers didn’t bother including one or don’t plan to offer a version (even with slightly bigger size) with one.

13. Pocket PC Thoughts runs a Win a Copy of SpaceTime 3.0 contest HERE – might be worth checking out if you need the best calculator available for Windows Mobile and have missed Valentine’s day’s excellent ($7) offer.

14. Spb Mobile Shell has been updated to v2.1

15. Desktop grade IE6 coming to Windows Mobile 6.1 by the end of 2008 – at last. See a related thread HERE, where I’ve also posted my remarks.

Cross-posted to (might be worth checking out for additional info / discussions!): PPCT, AximSite, XDA-Developers - 1, BrightHand, HowardForums, MoDaCo; (only the DivX Player: ) HowardForums - 2, AAS, Symbian-freak.

UPDATE (05/07/2008 1:00AM CET): Sorry guys and gals, I’ve forgotten to provide a link to the SOTI sale: it’s HERE. (Don’t be afraid of it listing an iPAQ 5455 / 5550; it runs on everything.) Let me know if you need with the German - I've provided some instructions on downloading / purchasing in for example HERE.

Incidentally, there’re a lot more excellent titles in their "10 (apps) for 10 (euros) special" list offer; for example, for Windows Mobile, Documents To Go Smartphone, Resco Explorer and Photo Viewer 2007; for Blackberry, MSDict Concise Oxford American Dictionary and, for Symbian, ALON MP3 Dictaphone for S60 3rd Edition 2.85. I’ll definitely review the latter and compare it to VITO’s AudioNotes and the other call recording-capable apps I’ve reviewed for Symbian. By the way, as far as the Blackberry version of MSDict Concise Oxford American Dictionary is concerned, the link on the 10 (apps) for 10 (euros) special page doesn’t work; follow THIS instead.

UPDATE (05/07/2008): as promised, a detailed evaluation and review of ALON MP3 Dictaphone. I also took the chance to re-test the (still) current Ultimate Voice Recorder 4.01 on the latest, v21 firmware and to update the chart initially published in my first and, because it’s based on a very early firmware version, not very good review (now, with firmware version v21, I’d write a much better review of the handset) published HERE. Please consult the call recording-related part of the linked article for more info on the other applications. Note that the Ultimate Voice Recorder 4.01 column has been completely retested in the chart below to find out whether it still has a bad initial lag and it is shut down when there’s no memory left. I haven’t re-tested VITO’s app (which, just like UVR, hasn’t changed either since my review); note that its price has dramatically dropped in the meantime (just some days after I’ve paid full price for it – oh well, I was pretty unlucky… :) ).

A more detailed pro / cons list of the application, regarding both recording and playing:

Call / voice recorder:

Pros:

- supports all kinds of MP3 recording, even high-quality ones (while VITO’s app only supports 8kHz) and the memory-saving AMR
- moderately low power consumption (about 0.71 W at 96 kbps / 48 kHz MP3 and 0.4 W at AMR recording; including the idle power consumption – about 0.07 W – of the handset)
- once started, stays in memory – doesn’t get killed, unlike UVR
- call recording list shows the call direction; so do the filename, which has the format date, even including milliseconds_direction_$$_number (like in 20080507095443_I_AL$$*********** ) – that is, all the necessary info
- absolutely no lag at call recording start / cutting at the end, unlike with both VITO’s app and UVR – in this regard, absolutely the best
- a lot of additional (playback & streaming) functionality
- successfully suppressed the initial beep at starting to record most of the time – just like UVR

Cons:

- if you record to a storage card, it sometimes crashes after stopping recording incoming calls, losing the entire conversation on my v21 N95 – a MAJOR bug. (No such problems with UVR.) Restarts also happen during normal (non-call recording) dictaphone use. This has only happened with a really crowded (some 2500 HE-AACv2 songs) 4Gbyte card; not when recording to the main storage. That is, if you encounter crashes, ALWAYS record to the main storage – with AMR call recording, this won’t take much memory
- no auto start upon system reboots, unlike Ultimate Voice Recorder
- while the PDF screenshot shows the contact information being used (instead of the phone number), it didn’t work in my tests

The player:

Pros:

- WMA, MP3, (no HE-AACv2!) AAC, OGG support
- Internet streaming
- 3-Band Parametric Equalizer – with a considerable power usage hit, though

Cons:

- no HE-AACv2 support, which would be welcome on non-high-end N series devices not containing a HE-AACv2 decoder: crashes when trying to play them
- on the N95, doesn’t support the volume buttons
- Power consumption with MP3: without equalizer: 0.67W - as opposed to the built-in player’s considerably lower power usage; with equalizer (one-point [haven’t tested with more points] strong gain around 10 kHz), 0.85W. (Note that, with WMA, approximately the same (0.49W) as with the built-in player of N95.)
- No AVRCP support for BT A2DP users (unlike with the built-in player)
- No goodies like the excellent stereo widening of the built-in player

Verdict

Really recommended if you need absolutely the best call recorder application. While its playback functionalities aren’t the best (except for the bookmark support, N95’s Music Player is way better), there are no major problems with the recorder. (Again, I need to emphasize that accessing the system-level contacts to look up contact names didn’t really work on my N95. This problem, however, is much less acute than, say, the major lagging / cutting and background shutdown problems of the alternatives.) Particularly now that mobile2day.de offers it for 10 euros only (incl. VAT), quite a bargain. (Of course, if your handheld is not a Nokia N95, you will want to give the test version a thorough try.)

ALON review cross-posted to: HowardForums, AAS, Symbian-freak.

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