Wallaby (O2 XDA, T-Mobile MDA, Qtek1010, Siemens SX-56)

As promised in my previous article, I’ve taken a deep look at the latest Windows Mobile 6.1 upgrades for the Dell Axim x51v, HP iPAQ hx4700, HTC Universal and HTC Wizard. All the reviewed ROM versions are based on Windows Mobile 5.2.19209 (Build 19209.1.0.2). I run some VERY thorough SDHC conformance tests because, unfortunately, most (as far as the reviewed models are concerned, all – note that, in this regard, I haven’t tested the Universal) plain WM5 / WM6 devices can NOT be easily made SDHC-compliant. This means you MUST upgrade these devices to some of the newer ROMs (including the ones I’ve reviewed) in order to gain SDHC support. Note that I’ve devoted a separate section (at the end) to my test results showing the results of my trying to “hack†the non-WM6.1 ROM-based devices to accept SDHC cards with the latest hacks available.

As was reported by the excellent XDA-Developers folks, T-Mobile Germany has just released the first REAL and OFFICIAL AKU3.3 ROM for the HTC Wizard we’ve been waiting for half a year. It’s indeed great news that operators do release AKU3.3 ROM’s for the “outdated†Wizard. Frankly, I wouldn't have thought they would.

A quick glance at the operating system version (as can be seen, it’s indeed AKU 3.3.):

(And some other, related screenshots: A screenshot of the desktop installer; the Device Info screen with the ROM versions)

The direct download link to the file is HERE.

No, if you don’t speak German, don’t run to download it – it’s all German. However, if you DO speak the language, and want an official 3.3 ROM, you may want to check it out.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=285696

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=1024503

When the first WM5 devices hit the shelves, people found them very slow to boot in compared to even the (compared to PPC2k/ PPC2k2 devices, which booted in after a reset almost instantenously) already "slow" WM2003/WM2003SE devices.

Fortunately, the situation has, in cases, dramatically changed with the later released ROM upgrades, which is best seen on the example of the HTC Wizard. All the measurements have been made on freshly hard reset devices without installing anything and just measuring the time it takes from resetting the device to opening the Start menu.

I’ve constantly been receiving requests (see for example this thread) to publish more and more power consumption measurements of current Pocket PC devices. Here you are :)

First, please read at least this article (if you haven’t already done so) to understand what this article is all about. I also highly recommend the other articles I’ve linked in from the Recommended links section.

This is a continuation to my previous article on how much power the Bluetooth / infrared units in the HTC Wizard (a.k.a. imate K-Jam, T-Mobile MDA Vario, Qtek 9100, MDA Vario, XDA mini S, SPV M3000, VPA Compact II, Dopod 838) consume.

Now that I don’t really use my HTC Wizard (official i-mate AKU2 ROM version 2.16.9.1 WWE), I have time to run some really lengthy power consumption tests (with the Wizard being uninterruptedly suspended for even days) to properly measure the additional power consumption of the Bluetooth (including it being discoverable) and the infrared unit. Note that, during this, I’ve kept (I’ve just switched it off in the wireless manager) the GSM radio disabled to keep out the “random†factor of the measurements and also keep down the overall power consumption so that the results can be measured with more confidence.

I've just updated my article discussing Windows Mobile Team's article on power consumption issues.

I've tested the power consumption of my HTC Wizard (which I, currently, don't actively use and, consequently, can long-lasting tests like these on it) with disabled radio, enabled Bluetooth (without being discoverable - I'll run some checks to see whether enabling it will result in a more pronounced battery consumption) and enabled infrared auto-receive (as I've pointed out in my previous battery con

If you haven’t heard of this really great application yet, make sure you download it from here (alternate download here), unzip it and read the readme.pdf inside. It’ll explain what to do.

http://www.wincesoft.de

Now that I've received back my HTC Wizard (a.k.a. i-mate K-jam, Qtek 9100, MDA Vario, T-Mobile MDA), I've re-run the tests of the games I weren't able to test on this model to find out whether its processing power is sufficient to run these resouce-hungry titles (and, with Tommy Kombat, to find out whether it's compatible with WM5 at all).

http://www.vodafone.de/business/support_download/software/59345.html

http://www.t-mobile.de/downloads/t-mobile/vario_aku2.0_05-2006.zip

While trying to find a Wizard ROM version that makes it possible to run the software-rendered version of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 by Aspyr Media (of which I’ll soon publish a quick review) on the HTC Wizard, I’ve thoroughly scrutinized the free (dynamic) RAM/ROM size of all the known and recommended ROM versions.

This information will be essential to anyone that wants to run memory-intensive programs (mainly games) that require every single byte of the memory.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=44403

This ROM update has really been waited for - see for example this blog entry - because it contains a lot of goodies like Microsoft's new AKU2.

It's available at the public, official, freely accessible FTP server of Club i-mate here and here. Note that the server is really slow - a lot of Wizard users seem to be downloading the new upgrade.

http://www.smartphonemag.com/blogs/menneisyys/102005MPPPCGames.asp

http://www.hitech.herocraft.com/bcxmas.htm

1. it's WM5 compatible
2. in multiplayer, the very annoying Bluetooth slowdown/lag problems are all gone, even if you host the game on a comparatively slow Pocket PC. For example, when I hosted the game on my iPAQ 2210 (WM2003 400 MHz PXA-255 CPU) or on the HTC Wizard (WM5 195 MHz TI CPU) with four players, I noticed no annoying slowdowns. The same stands for the iPAQ 1940 – its server hosting lag was unacceptable in the previous version. Now, the lag is almost non-existing. The game is so fast that it's possible to play the game with four players at the same time without serious lagging.
3. there're are new multiplayer game modes
4. the main menu background is completely different, along with its background music, which is far better and more original than the previous "Jingle bells" (it's not stereo, though...)
5. unified Pocket PC and Pocket PC Phone Edition installer (the original version had separate installers for the two platforms)
6. in multiplayer, the opponents' direction is shown with green circles on the edge of the screen (in the screenshot, with three opponents)

If you happen to have a HTC Wizard and haven't ever upgraded its ROM, you may really want to consider a ROM upgrade.

To decide whether you need to upgrade, go to Settings/System/Device Information and check out what the ROM version (it's the first row, "ROM version") and what the Radio version (the third row, "Radio version") are.

click for screenshot

These two values are totally independent of each other. An increase in the ROM version may mean better/faster PDA functionality; and, an increase in the Radio version may mean better radio functionality and/or faster data transfers. In this article, I refer to both the ROM and the Radio version when referring to a given upgrade. For example, 1.1.9.3/01.01.10 means the given PDA has ROM version 1.1.9.3 and Radio version 01.01.10.

If you see the pair 1.1.9.3/01.01.10 in here (or, the ROM version starts with 1.1), consider the upgrade. Most HTC Wizard devices are shipped with the original, 1.1.9.3/01.01.10 ROM/Radio version. Therefore, if you haven't upgraded your Wizard yet, it's highly likely that you have this old and very slow ROM.

You'll see increased performance in almost everything if you upgrade. For example, when I upgraded my HTC Wizard to 1.5.4.2/01.12.10, I measured drastic performance improvements in the following areas:

1. USB transfer speeds (for example, I've measured drastically, about 40% increased FTP download speeds over USB after upgrading it to a new ROM version)
2. EDGE access speed (I've measured about 40-60% increase in download speeds over EDGE)
3. Boot-in time after soft resets (51 seconds instead of 70 seconds)

When I next upgraded my Wizard to 1.6.7.1/01.13.10 released early January, I've measured further, drastical EDGE transfer speed increases – the maximal EDGE down/upstream (that is, down- and upload) speeds I measured with 1.6.7.1/01.13.10 were around 20-40% better than with the previous, 1.5.4.2/01.12.10 version. This means new versions almost always deliver enhanced speed.

Pocket PC remote controller applications can be really great – they offer a really easy way to access the Pocket PC from a desktop computer, which, in cases, can even be a remote one. You can use your Pocket PC far easier this way, using the keyboard and mouse of the desktop PC and being able to see the screen of the Pocket PC, with some clients, even zoomed in (magnified).

Over than half a year ago, I've already published an article on this subject. It can be found here (alternatives: MobilitySite, AximSite, PPC Magazine, FirstLoox, BrightHand). In addition, I recommend this blog entry on the latest Pocket Controller version.

Before reading on, reading these two articles is highly recommended.

As I not only discuss the "local" (you use the desktop keyboard/mouse to access your Pocket PC to make it much easier to enter for example text on it and also see its screen on the desktop computer) but also the "remote" way of accessing Pocket PC's, I've also included in the current article a detailed discussion of the current Virtual Network Computing (VNC) servers for the Pocket PC.

In this blog entry, I only elaborate on subjects that haven't or have just superficially been discussed in the previous articles:

1. Windows Mobile 5 (WM5) compliance
2. TCP/IP-based remote access through any kind of network connection
3. image capturing-related capabilities