New version of popular, alternative Web browser, Thunderhawk, out – now with additional Left-Handed Landscape support!

http://www.bitstream.com/wireless/products/pocketpc/

Thunderhawk is a decent, alternative Web browser for the Pocket PC and Microsoft Smartphone, which is definitely worth giving a try, particularly if you have a low-resolution (QVGA) Pocket PC. It's a bit pricey but it has a 30-day trial version for a free ride. What's new in the new version? There aren't much changes in the new version, except for the explicit support for the left-handed landscape mode. The lack of it, so far, made it impossible to use the built-in hardware keyboard on several HTC Pocket PC Phone Edition devices (HTC Wizard, HTC Universal etc.) with previous versions. On these devices, the orientation change is automatic now. You can also override this (on other Pocket PC's without slide-out or mini-notebook hardware keyboard too) using the new drop-down list in Settings, as can be seen in this screenshot. Otherwise, there aren't anything new in the application compared to the latest, 2.1 one, reviewed and compared to the alternatives in the Bible of Pocket PC Web Browsers (see the section Recommended reading for the links). Please note that it still doesn't support the VGA resolution (it does run on VGA devices but only delivers QVGA-resolution and, therefore, blurry images/text) and heavily lacks even basic capabilities like text selection and copy to the clipboard or multitab/multiwindow support (let alone advanced features like in-page text search, URL copy, image save, page save etc). Despite its shortcomings, I still heartily recommend it for QVGA users (where the lack of the real VGA resolution isn't an issue) – you'll like it very much if you don't need any added features or multitabs, just a quick browser that beautifully and quickly renders even complex, multi-column pages, with reduced bandwidth usage and first-class Java/JavaScript compatibility. Java compatibility-wise, it can be the only right choice for many VGA users too because current Pocket Internet Explorer plug-ins (and NetFront) only have limited, JDK1.3-only support at most (Opera and Minimo doesn't have any Java support); Thunderhawk supports even JDK1.5. Problems/remarks I've thoroughly tested it on my WM5 HTC Wizard, which also has built-in keyboard and, in general, was happy with it. Some remarks, though:

1. Do not open/close the keyboard while you are using Thunderhawk
2. the cursor keys on the built-in keyboard not necessarily scroll the screen in the right direction (the D-pad on the PDA works perfectly)
3. after exiting the application, you will need to explicitly switch back to Portrait mode because the operating system will be left in left-handed landscape mode.

Recommended reading Roundup of Web Browsers (alternatives: iPAQ HQ, AximSite, FirstLoox, PPC Magazine, BrightHand). Please make sure you also follow the links in these threads to my newer articles.