Expert: Werner "Menneisyys" Ruotsalainen

After my thorough and, for example, PPCT frontpaged elaboration on the current i-mate lineup, let me speak about my experiences with the new, highly anticipated models either announced or showcased at MWC (or just recently released): the Samsung SGH-i780, the HP iPAQ 21x, the new Toshiba models, the E-Ten V900, The Gigabyte MS808 etc. (And, I’ll quickly mention the T-Mobile-only (!), high-end, VGA MDA Compact IV too.)

Samsung SGH-i780

First, I REALLY recommend Mobile-Review’s two-part review of this VERY nice device. In here, I generally don’t repeat what has already been explained there (except for a quick summary); I only elaborate on what I don’t agree with in the review and deem it necessary to add.

This is a pretty promising and high-spec’ed, still, very light (120g – somewhat more than the 112g, original [and, capability-wise, much-much inferior] HTC Touch, the same as the Nokia N95 and the T-Mobile MDA Touch Plus (HTC Nike 200); somewhat less than the HTC Touch Cruise P3650 (HTC Polaris 100) and MUCH less than the Kaiser) Pocket PC with a BlackBerry-alike thumbboard, a square 320*320 (yes, you've read it right: NOT those awful, incompatible-with-most-titles 240*240 screens!) screen, the latest-and-(almost the) greatest Marvel Xscale PXA310 CPU (as opposed to the old Intel Xscale PXA270 series still used in most current and forthcoming, Xscale-based devices – see for example the i-mate 6150 / 8150) and an optical touchpad (as opposed to traditional D-pads).

(From top left to right: the HTC Universal (i-mate JasJar), HTC s310 / Oxygen (SPV C100), the SGH-i780 (from bottom left to right): T-Mobile Shadow (HTC Kii 100), Samsung SGH-i640, BlackBerry 8800 and Nokia N95)

(From left to right: the HTC Universal (i-mate JasJar) with an extended battery, HTC s310 / Oxygen (SPV C100), T-Mobile Shadow, Samsung SGH-i640, BlackBerry 8800, Nokia N95 and the the SGH-i780)

(The same as before at the bottom; on the top, the new Benq, the HP iPAQ 610 (more on it later) and the HTC s730)

I've played a lot with the latter (the touchpad) at Barcelona and, frankly, didn’t quite like it. Of course, I need to admit I’ve already been spoiled by the touchpad of the HP iPAQ hx4700, which I hated. Frankly, I’ve found the “optical touchpad” of the Samsung a bit worse:

1. it’s definitely smaller than that of the iPAQ. It should have been made much bigger, even on the expense of the neighboring, huge buttons.
2. I’ve found it harder to operate. With the hx4700, you can both just touch the touchpad and press it hard: both will work. With the Samsung, only light touching works.

The fact that, unlike with the iPAQ, it can be pressed down (“Action”), is a plus, however, when compared to the hx4700.

All in all, if I REALLY need to use something being able to position quicker, I would still prefer to see something like the trackball in recent BlackBerry models (everything newer than the 8700). It has its own problems (for example, it needs to be cleaned now and then – fortunately, it’s comparatively easy on the BlackBerry), but is a FAR faster, FAR more precise and FAR more gaming / e-book reading-friendly pointing method than such a small touchpad. I know this as I’m also a BlackBerry 8800 user (as has also been mentioned HERE). Windows Mobile manufacturers, are you listening? It’s better to forget this touchpad thing altogether (again, remember the hx4700’s fate!) and use trackballs instead.

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The underlying chipset in a handheld device or phone has probably the biggest impact on major properties of the device like battery life, the (in)ability to use 3G and overall performance, particularly when it comes to graphics. Even users that don’t know much of of the hardware of these devices know that, for example, at least in the Windows Mobile world (as opposed to Symbian devices), TI OMAP almost exclusively means very good battery life but reduced performance and lack of hardware acceleration of, for example, 3D or video decoding. In this installment of my MWC series, I explain and evaluate most of the remaining, announced new chipsets.

In Part I of my CPU/chipset-related MWC series, I’ve elaborated on the brand new and really-really cool MWC announcement of Samsung. I’ve also introduced the latest technology from Imagination Technologies and have also touched on Qualcomm. Let’s start with the latter.

Qualcomm

In the previous article, I’ve promised I would fill you in on their latest chipset, the QST1x0x (QST1000, QST1100 and QST1105). I’ve already linked to the official announcement in a later, generic article. Now, let me elaborate on the new chipsets a bit more thoroughly.

The new chipset, as you can check it online too, has three submodels: the cheapest and non-connected QST1000, which promises some additional niceties compared to the current MSM7200(A) chipset many Windows Mobile devices are currently based on; for example,

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1. App news / rebates:

a. (still a preview, but still much more advanced than version 1.1.3 released a month ago) CorePlayer 1.2, finally, released for Windows Mobile. See THIS for more info. The Symbian version, as opposed to what was announced a month ago (then, the CoreCodec folks only promised a Windows Mobile release for February), seems to hit the shelves very soon too - see THIS thread. It, among other things, promises hardware acceleration. I'm really looking forward to the dramatic speed / efficiency increase this could mean on current high-end Nokias like the N95 using the latest TI OMAP & PowerVR-based chipsets.

b. ALL of VITO Technology's products are available for $7 (!!) only: go purchase them while the offer lasts! (I'm pretty unlucky, it seems: it was just before MWC that I purchased their AudioNotes for Symbian S60v3 for some $25... should I have known this GREAT rebate beforehand... )

2. Gaming & emulation news:

a. Creatonia made free!

Insenic, who, in the past, have already made two of their previously commercial titles free, decided to do the same to their pretty nice RPG title Creatonia. While the biggest problems (for example, the lack of in-game music, the dull graphics etc.) are still present, it's really worth getting for free. See THIS for a review (frontpaged on several sites).

b. a new version of Commodore 64 emulator for both the MS Smartphone (WM6 Standard) and Pocket PC (WM6 Pro / Classic) platform, PocketHobbit, is released, with a lot of niceties like native QVGA support (remember? It was me who wrote an extended, QVGA-enabled Smartphone version of the original) and frame rate settings. See THIS for a generic overview of emulating the Commodore 64 under Windows Mobile. It's available HERE (NOT on the old links).

c. Astraware has released a fully-fledged, very interesting strategy game Westward, which is certainly worth checking out. There is a great Just Another Mobile Moday review HERE. It runs on both Pocket PC's and Smartphones (and even Palm OS devices).

d. Beijing Huike Technology, the developers of Dark Street reviewed HERE, have released four additional games for both the Pocket PC and MS Smartphone:

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Samsung

Architecture-wise, it’s without doubt Samsung’s MWC announcement of a brand new, high-end chipset (also having a CPU), the S3C6410 (and its budget version, the S3C6430), that may be the most interesting to Windows Mobile users.

As you may already know, Samsung’s SC3244x (for example, the SC32442 used in the HTC P6300 (HTC Panda), E-Ten’s late 2007/early 2008 models like the X650 and the M800 etc – see the complete list HERE and HERE for the SC32442 and the SC32440, respectively), the chipset used in several current(!) Windows Mobile devices, is REALLY outdated. I’ve shown numerous examples and proofs of this (see for example THIS) - for example, the very bad CPU usage of A2DP (about 50% at 400 MHz) and the complete lack of advanced multimedia (MP3 / AAC) en/decoding support (this is why you can’t, for example, use the high-quality Resco audio codec pack with (old) Samsung CPU’s, as has also been pointed out HERE). These two tasks are all far better handled by any other, current CPU’s like Intel XScales (even the “old” PXA-2XX ones) and TI OMAP’s (again, even the oldest ones used in Windows Mobile 5+ devices). The only real advantage of the SC3244x is the CPU usage-independent power consumption – the other two, above-mentioned architectures can’t boast with this. (See the bottom section of THIS article for a proof.)

Before MWC, as far as their newer chipsets are concerned, only the S3C6400 was known. For example, E-Ten’s brand new, high-end, feature-packed V900 (to be released in April) will have this chipset. (Currently, there’re no other existing/announced devices (see THIS) with this CPU.)

This chipset is the base (the direct predecessor, parent) of the new S3C6410/ S3C6430 models. In this respect, it’s pretty much comparable to the Marvell XScale PXA270 as opposed to the PXA310, let alone the even more feature-rich PXA320.

The just-announced S3C6410, which is an even more advanced version of the S3C6400 , is even better; for example, it supports hardware 3D acceleration. Again, it’s like the PXA310 or the PXA320 compared to the PXA270. Unfortunately, currently, no future devices are known to have it.

(the 3D performance demo of the brand new S3C6410; you can see the S3C6410 flier I’ve also made some shots of here)

(multimedia demo on the older S3C6400)

(HD AX audio decoding demo on the older S3C6400)

(this is how an imaginary device could house the S3C6400)

Note that, currently, the only available online information is the above-linked one. While it does explain the advantages of the new S3C6410 platform over the “old” S3C6400 one, it’s definitely worth checking out their offline brochure I’ve taken a shot of (with my Nokia N95 – man, it DOES have a very nice camera. Hear that, Windows Mobile ODM’s? We want something similar on WM too!) Also note that Samsung’s portal doesn’t have any information on the S3C6430 at all. Finally, note that none of the other portals reporting on MWC have anything else on the new CPU than the above-linked press release (see for example MobileBurn, electronista.com, techon - these are the sites mentioning S3C6410 I could find via Google). That is, it’s in by me that you get a full rundown of the differences between the new CPU’s and the “old” S3C6400.

(again, click the pictures to get a full-resolution, readable one!)

As can clearly be seen, the S3C6410 is a much more advanced version of the S3C6400: it uses 65 nm technology instead of the 90 nm one (most probably resulting in major power and size savings), it has advanced 2D capabilities (for example, H.264 hardware decoding – as is also explained in the online version) and even 3D hardware acceleration. The “budget” S3C6430 seems to be exactly the same as the S3C6410; the only difference seems to be the complete lack of 3D hardware acceleration. Hope we’ll still see the latter (that is, the S3C6410) with proper (!) 3D drivers.

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I’ve also thoroughly checked out the booths of the two major competitors of Windows Mobile, RIM (Research in Motion; a.k.a. the BlackBerry folks) and Nokia.

BlackBerry

Before visiting the RIM booth, I had hoped for at least a glimpse of the forthcoming 4.5 version of the BlackBerry operating system delivering some long-awaited niceties like A2DP (stereo Bluetooth) support and HTML e-mail (the latter meaning no more need for BBSmart, the well-known additional HTML rendering program for the operating system). Unfortunately, there haven’t been any sign or any information on the new OS at all. Actually, as far as A2DP is concerned, they have only released an external device, the Remote Stereo Gateway, providing similar functionality. As it’s just an external dongle, I didn’t even bother to thoroughly test it. (Assuming it’s available at MWC at all – at least I haven’t seen it in person.)

(Also see THIS CrackBerry article if interested.)

Moving from the question of the new OS to other subjects, there isn’t much to report on new hard- or software either. Most of their new (press) releases / announcements are “only” mobile operator-related; for example, deepening their strategic relationship with Vodafone. Probably the only real announcement they’ve made, which might be of interest to BB users, is the launch of Blackberry Unite, which is a free download and is supposed to have for example remote access to desktop files and communicating with other Blackberry Unite users. I don’t know whether it allows for talking to non- Blackberry Unite users (read: MSN / Google Talk etc.); it seems it doesn’t. No problem, though – I’m pretty much happy with IM+ on my BB 8800. (Albeit, it was surely pretty expensive.)

There has also been another announcement customers of BB may be interested in much more than just plain relationship deepening reports: that of nuTsie. It’s a music transcoding / streaming service like the highly recommended (see my related articles) ORB on Windows Mobile – but, it seems, without the capabilities of transcoding streaming audio/video (I may be wrong though). (Also see THIS CrackBerry article / post if interested.)

There have been several third-party BlackBerry developers in the BB booth. Of them, I’ve paid a visit to Gameloft, the well-known Java MIDlet game developer for all MIDlet-compatible platforms, to see what (BB-compatible) games they have and how they run on BB hardware. After having realized they didn’t have the famous jump'n'run RayMan on the test BB Pearl, I’ve asked for a quick test of Nitro Street Racing (a well-known and famous title on other platforms - a pleasure to play on particularly the 3D hardware accelerated Nokia high-end N-series phones).

To tell the truth, I didn’t enjoy the game at all. The graphics / animation was pretty slow, even on the (comparatively) low-resolution screen of the Pearl (which means the higher-resolution 8800 / Curve series may be even more sluggish). It’s indeed pretty much certain that the BB platform isn’t the best suited for computing power-intensive applications like games – or, for that matter, even for running Opera Mini if you absolutely need the best performance. (For example, bringing up the long list of my Opera Mini favorites is done much faster on the Nokia N95 or any of my Windows Mobile devices running Jbed than on my BB 8800). I don’t know whether it’s just because the MIDlet manager of the device (which runs all these third-party apps) is just unoptimized or the hardware itself is plain slow, but it really doesn’t matter when the net result is concerned – the entire thing is slow.

Nokia

There is more to report on Nokia – but not so much as I had previously hoped for.

First, the new hardware. Unfortunately, there aren’t really any revolutional devices from them – just the N96 and the N78. They’re slightly better than their predecessors (except for the lack of the camera protection and the 3D hardware acceleration on the former; it also lacks the Xenon flash of the N82 but this is pretty much understandable, given that you need a comparatively large capacitor for flash) but in no way revolutionary – except for the native support for DVB-H if you’re into watching TV (and your country already has DVB-H TV broadcasts.)

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