Database Develop

Is it worth it?

I am a SPV M3100 (Tytn 1) owner at the moment running Schap's 4.30 Full ROM and the handset runs very well.
On Monday I am out of contract and can either upgrade to the Tytn2 with Orange free of charge or move to T-Mobile and their version for practically nothing (Orange or T-Mobile will be dependent on Orange offering me a decent data package instead of 30Mb for £8).
My main question is really, is it worth upgrading from a Tytn1 to a Tytn2?
On paper it seems to (camera/rom & ram/gps/tilt screen/thinner), but I been scanning through some articles and posts and lots of driver problems have been mentioned? Whats going on with this?
I saw an iPhone the other night and was very impressed with the interface but it lacks 3G/HSDPA and the camera is 2MP and doesnt do video and and and, not to mention having to shell out £269 and an 18 monther on the contract.
Whats the HTC Touch Cruise like and do any UK networks sell it yet?
Thanks in advance for your thoughts...

Will shortly be in same position so am interested in any responses.
I don't see Orange coming up with a decent data plan so I expect to have to leave them for Vodafone/O2 (Tmobile have a reception blackspot just about over my house)
Will probably upgrade so that I can reduce the time to the next upgrade if you see what I mean -not sure I see anything out there in the V near future to make the Kaiser obsolete.
Re Iphone - yeah looked at it but I need the hardware keyboard and have become a bit of a flashaholic etc.
That and I will get the Kaiser free. Don't like the excessive Apple control over everything.

I am with Orange and pretty annoyed myself... I think I'd be leaving too

Well O2 and Vodafone's dataplans are as bad as Orange's. (Voda unlimited = 120mb cap).
Orange did have a Orange World Unlimited package for £8 a month which gave you a gig of use a month which would be enough for me.

Can't really help in regards to whether it's worth the upgrade, as I've never used a TyTN I before, however, in regards to video driver issues, this seems to be hit and miss.
My TyTN II has never had any problems playing video's or games, and for the record, to play my video files I use Kingdia Video Converter to convert to avi, then use Ashampoo Movie Shrink and burn to compress file to QVGA (small file size, great quality). I then use TCPMP with the FLV 0.4.2 plugin to play them.
Not sure if it's because mine is UK bought with Original HTC ROM, but I don't mind as long as it works

Question really is....what do you want / need your phone to do?
I came to the Kaiser (o2 Stellar) from the HTC Universal (o2 XDA Exec) a month ago. I do miss the bigger screen and keyboard of the Uni. Apart from that the Kaiser is better in every way. So much nicer not having to soft reset every other day cos I'm running out of RAM (I have yet to soft reset the Kaiser for any other reason than installing software). So much nicer not having to juggle where I install stuff, it just all goes onto the device in the huge memory available (no sarcasm, after getting by on 30MB, suddenly having nearly 100MB to play with is huge!)
Camera, its a PDA not a SonyEricsson. I was hoping for better pics with a 3MP camera on board but it's no replacement for a real camera. It will do if you have nothing else, and I doubt you'd be disappointed with the results as I suspect the Tytn I camera is no better than the Uni's.
I suppose I do miss the flash on the camera, mainly cos it was a handy torch. I did miss the IR port, but got off my butt and set-up the BT on my PC and now use that instead for file transfers when I don't want to plug the sync lead in.
I have used the Kaiser with a SonyEricsson HBH-100 BT handsfree, it works fine. I also use a SonyEricsson MBR-100 BT thingy to connect to my car stereo and home audio system. Likewise this works perfectly. Finally I have a Nokia 610 car-kit and it connects to that via BTSAP, no problems. All of it straight out of the box, no patches, updates or hot-fixes. BT driver issues? Not in my experience. Only thing that doesn't work with the phone is my older HBH-10 headset. It is about 10yrs old, and is probably just too old to be compatible.
Video? I converted loads of videos years ago to wmv files to use with a HP Ipaq 5450. They play just fine, little jumpy, but this is due to the compression (25mb for 45 mins of video) rather than the device itself, they are jumpy on my laptop too.
Audio? Built in loudspeaker is poor. But what do you expect from something that small that was designed (I guess) for voice, not music. MP3's play well, and when connected to headphones or an external sound system, its great! I bet the type of people that can hear the difference (and care about it) between 192kbs and 320kbs encoding will argue the toss...
GPS. IMHO, no problems. Used it with several apps, gets a fix quickly, holds onto the signal well and is accurate enough. Bench testing against my Garmin standalone GPS (Kaiser plonked on the dash, Garmin with an external roof mounted antenna) both get a good signal and the tracklogs more or less match, good enough for sat-nav anyway (yes the Garmin is more accurate and gets stronger reception but it does have that powered, amplified roof antenna to help it remember! The Kaiser has never failed to get a fix)
WiFi and other data (GPRS, 3G, HSDPA etc) works well. I have the Opera Mini browser as well as PIE. No problems surfing the net, checking email, using MSN or Skype.
Just have a look at the threads in this forum, how many are from newbies asking for help, or moaning something doesn't work when they haven't tried to fix it, or just plain don't know what they are doing?! I'm not saying the Kaiser doesn't have issues for some people, but seriously, if you can get the Kaiser for little or nothing, just upgrade already and if it's really not to your liking stick it on Ebay and make a few hundred! I have a collection of old phones and PDA's so I don't have to use the Kaiser. If it sucked, I would have gone back to my Uni in a heartbeat. The only time I don't use it now is if I'm going out and want a phone with me I don't mind loosing or breaking.
Hope that helps?

It depends what you want out of a phone. My comparisons are between my Vodafone 1605 (unlocked Hermes) and my HTC TyTN II (unlocked Kaiser).
Camera: Useable but crap. Needs one of the cooked roms and cab update to get any real use from it.
Camera Flash: Missing on Kaiser. I used to use this a lot as a torch when taking instrument reaings outside in the dark.
Wifi: My Kaiser is better.
GPS: TomTom is brilliant and sold the Kaiser to me.
Video: Mine seems ok but I'm not a heavy user. Many people seem to have driver problems so I assume they use video more than me - also, I don't use streaming video so I can't comment - this may also be where all the video driver problems are.
Tilting Screen: A bit of a gimmick for normal use, but ok for watching a movie on a plane.
Speed: With Dutty's ROMs my Kaiser feels faster but this may just be imagined.
Memory: I'm a heavy user of space. I have 51 add on programs including converters, dictionaries and translators etc. Kaiser definately better.
All in all I'm glad I upgraded to the Kaisr, but despite that I haven't got the heart to get rid of my Hermes yet...

I will seriously miss the flash, especially with the camera.
And my Hermes does everything I need it to do right now, but things like more ROM/RAM, better camera (in MP), etc would be nice. But I dont fancy wasting an upgrade. (UK people will know what I mean by that).

My vodafone 1605 is a TyTN 1 and I upgraded to a TyTN 2. In most areas I don't think that there is much improvement with the new phone.
If you're happy with the TyTN 1 I wouldn't bother yet unless GPS becomes a real necessity, of unless you're a gadget freak who needs the latest and greatest. Maybe you should wait a while and then when you become less happy with your TyTN look at upgrading then - it won't be too long before the Kaiser comes down in price or there are newer versions available.

Well money isn't really a factor. In the UK we can upgrade our phone at the end of the contract term, normally for free. If I don't upgrade then I will just be wasting an opportunity.

That is my thought exactly. I think it will be a year at least before anything fantasticaly better comes out so then allowing time for initial bugs to be worked out, I think I will upgrade to the Kaiser so when contract ends in 18 months it should be about time for the next big thing.
Incidentally, I do have the 1gb Orange data bundle but it expires sson and cannotbe renewed.
120mb or 200 on O2 should do me quite well - 30mb however is just too little.

I upgraded from the Hermes to the Kaiser. Never looked back since.
Apart from the ****e Orange data packages. Currently using unlimited off-peak for £5 a month. Not ideal, but I work office hours anyways.....

Been There Done That
Had been with Orange for a while but was a very devout Nokia "Smartphones" Fanboy.
Had a free upgrade due and already had 2 of Nokia top phones at the time and instead of wasting the upgrade I upgraded to the SPV M3100 (Tytn I) just over a year ago. And boy was it something different. The hardware keyboard was a massive god sent. And just the sheer functionality of the phone coupled with the wide amount of apps you could install on it, plus the so much more useful roms I upgraded to courtesy of everyones fave developer forum. Really started becoming a massive tool and made my commuting time into Central London from the outskirts really productive and enjoyable.
Last week was due the annual upgrade and having checked out the features of the new Tytn II online, dived in without a second thought. After the initial transitional period and all the rom installations and getting the settings to suit my own individual needs. I can safely say that the beloved M3100 is been on a window sill gathering dust. Installed Duttys Dual Touch Rom II, a few apps, a few games, set up Windows Live and my own work emails and now just waiting on the 8GB Micro SDHC card i order and i should be all set.
Play Dvdrips and TVRips on TCMP with no lag and Dutty's rom doesnt seem to slow down too much, so havent reallly felt the affects of the missing graphics drivers. Just feels so natural now. I can safely say that if someone created a better Internet Browser solution right now I would definitely stop using the laptop for casual use. At the moment using a combination of Picsel, Opera, and IE and none seem to be doing a complete job. Picsel is awesomely fast and useable but its still in early development and doesnt support complete web solutions.
As for Orange, their data packages have never been the best but i usually use the net heavy apps like Windows Live Messenger, Youtube streaming and Net browsing in the Office or at home where theres a Wifi connection. But to be honest none of the other Network Providers have great deals and i've been with all at one point or another T-Mobile Web n Walk is good but they've started blocking certain ports that limit what you can do or so i have heard. The off peak data package (if you work 9-5) doesnt seem too bad.
But hopefully they'll come out with better packages soon.

Hi, interested you have skype working on your Xda Stellar - I can't seem to get this working? I downloaded the windows mobile version of skype and get a "this is not a valid pocket pc application" message and it fails to install.... Do you have any ideas?? Thanks

I am with vodafone and in a position to upgrade to which will be my first HTC phone. I was looking at kaiser but am thinking of hanging on for a couple of months for the HTC touch pro.

Kaiser audio quality
Hi,
I just upgraded from Hermes to Kaiser, and I'm comparing the two units at the moment.
I noticed that audio quality of Hermes is better, especially when listening to mp3s.
Does anyone agree?

I'd try and get a HTC Touch Pro if possible, just make sure it's the Pro and not the Diamond as you'll get the better (larger) battery and not have to give up the keyboard. The feature list of the Touch Pro is much better then the Kaiser.
The Kaiser is after all just an "update" that only new features are a slightly larger storage (not much of an issue with an SD-Card though) and built in GPS (but an externall bluetooth GPS gives you more battery.) On the downside of the Kaiser you have to convert videos to play just on your device where as with the Hermes I could use the same vids for my PC - which is basicly a downgrade.

contacted HTC UK regarding tytn II

Hi everyone.
I am new to this forum but have owned several HTC phones in the past and have always been happy with them until now!
After reading through this forum for many hours and signing the tytn II petition I decided to phone HTC UK direct and speak with their customer services department regarding the issues with the camera/Video drivers.
I spoke to a nice chap who told me that they are aware of the issue and need more people to actually phone in and tell them directly about the problem as they do not monitor the forums themselves. He also said that they will be working on a fix but need more proof as they could not replicate the problem with their own tytn II. (So,how can they be aware but not be able to replicate the problem we are all having??)
He also told me that if I where to put video footage of the problem on youtube and phone him back with the link he could forward this as proof to the relevant people............Seems a bit strange, but thats what he told me to do.
The problem is I do not posess a seperate video camera to actually video the tytn II playing video (if that makes any sense). So,if any of you lads or lasses can take some video footage of the problems and let me have the link,I will phone HTC again and get it sorted.
Do you think I was being fobbed off,and does anyone here think that the youtube video would actually be taken seriously by HTC?
Take care all..........Richard

This basically confirms what they told me and some other chaps as well:
1. They need more people calling in. Just signing the petition and discussing the matter on this forum doesn't really bring us any closer
2. They are somewhat aware of the issue but since too few people who buy this primarilly business oriented product do demending video stuff (like emulation, full res video, touch screen gaming, 3d gaming etc) they can't really see the issue on a broad scale. (Which brings us back to 1: they need more people calling support about this).
If someone has the ability to capture a video of playing a 640x480 XviD, playing a touchscreen 2D-game, trying to launch a GL ES game and trying say a demanding emulator and then uploading it to youtube then we could send the link to HTC for "proof".
I could try to capture it using mymobiler but I don't have the appropriate application for vista to do it and I don't have a video camera.

The number I phoned was a standard 0845 number so the cost of the phone call was standard rate,no expensive tech support lines which is good.
Everyone phone their local tech support lines and maybe they will finally get something done.

m4dc4tuk said:
Do you think I was being fobbed off,and does anyone here think that the youtube video would actually be taken seriously by HTC?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, right. YouTube on my Kaiser... What else, huh? Maybe free porn for everyone too? And how about PROPER BLUETOOTH HEADSET & VOICE DIALLING SUPPORT?!?!
Sorry about that, but I just can't stand all that moaning about video drivers/issues/whatever in business-oriented phone, which was definitely NOT designed to be all-you-can-eat-multimedia-monster. Of course, it would be nice to watch full-quality movies, but what I'd really, I mean *really*, like to have is properly working voice over Bluetooth headset, just like it used to work in Wizard and Hermes, just like it SHOULD work on phones such as Kaiser... This is quite serious bugger, for some even disqualifying Kaiser as a primary phone, but apparently not that many people seem to care about it, anyway.
And please, do not respond to this post - I am not going to subscribe it, so no replies will come into my mailbox. Thanks.

Hey mate.
I am replying anyway
I think you got the wrong end of the stick,not youtube videos on the kaiser,just a video posted on youtube showing the Kaiser faults so they can see for themselves the issues we are having.
I also agree with you on the bluetooth issue but for me the video is more important as I use the phone as a general entertainment device whilst travelling.
Cheers.......Richard

I've started this by doing a video of the extremely reduced performance when using the stylus.
I'll follow it up soon enough with videos of the absent GLES, and generally poor video performance. Please feel free to spread and link this as much as you want. If you want the original .avi-files let me know and I'll send them to you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhHG377wkQU

For those of you who want to capture your own videos I recommend these applications:
http://www.mymobiler.com/ (For getting the video output of your phone on your computer screen)
http://www.etrusoft.com/screen-recorder/ (For capturing only the active video area of your phone through mymobiler)
Just capture using the default settings and then upload to youtube and presto.
It will even be a lot easier on the eye than a videocam capture.

Youtube is on the Kaiser, pr0n is free to anyone anyways
i couldnt find the number, do you mind posting the whole number so i can call them?
will also make a video tomorrow, i have Call Of Duty, and its appauling the software rendering .. because it has no hardware drivers whatsoever, only cpu =/
also eva_d, if you bought a pc with an 8800GTX, and it couldnt play an old game or even run an emulator that your 5 year old laptop could play, wouldnt you just be asking yourself: "whats the point in paying so much for it?"

Anyone have a USA Number?

Here's another one (extreme case) that shows of the lousy video performance when using directdraw:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xeb8-m5opDA
Since I already have this set up feel free to send me/link/tip about apps that I can capture videos of to show HTC. (For an example, I don't have any GL ES game at the moment)
Also make sure you rate the videos high and comment them etc.
Also if someone can capture a video of the extremely slow camera that would be nice as well.
For some reason it's not possible to capture that image using mymobiler (probably bypassing the normal interfaces for increased performance which makes it even sillier since it's so slow )
redsrule2500 said:
Anyone have a USA Number?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Check my signature. (Or just htc.com )

That is great, I will contact HTC UK again tomorrow morning and give them the link to the youtube video.

Post up the Uk tel number
i am still shocked that HTC could not have sorted the camera out . its like having a Aston Martin and a 8 track player to listen to music with.

huh... i will make a comparisson with my wizard xD... its really stupid that the wizard supports a simple game as Pocket breakout and the kaiser just sucks in it =/...
[[ makin video x)]]

London luke said:
Post up the Uk tel number
i am still shocked that HTC could not have sorted the camera out . its like having a Aston Martin and a 8 track player to listen to music with.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Check my sig, or just to to www.htc.com and click support.

HTC UK technical support number http://www.europe.htc.com/en/support/csbyphone.html
I did not give them my serial number as my TyTN is a Tmobile branded MDa vario III

Since we've already have to people requesting the info:
Here are all HTC telephone numbers:
http://www.htc.com/support/care_hotline.htm

call everyone!! Call!!!

I just called HTC. The lady said she just got off the phone with someone else complaing about the exact same thing... she said it is just a falut of the Tilt. She said HTC will release a ROM update in a month or so but may or may not address the video drivers; she didn't know. She said email support and see if they know.

grizzley said:
I just called HTC. The lady said she just got off the phone with someone else complaing about the exact same thing... she said it is just a falut of the Tilt. She said HTC will release a ROM update in a month or so but may or may not address the video drivers; she didn't know. She said email support and see if they know.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
HTC never replies to e-mails anyway so that won't help, call again and keep pestering them 'til they go get their supervisor or call their second tier support.
I did that twice, fortunately the HTC support doesn't need much pestering to break (my ISP and cellphone operator needs constant bombardment for 10 minutes straight before they connect me to a supervisor or really go away and try to find anything out with their colleagues)

htcwiki.com
I just got off the phone with US Tech Support. No help at all. All he said was to go to http://www.htcwiki.com/ and state the issue there.

streaming video on O2 XDA Stellar (HTC Kaiser)

Hi
i got this phone a few months back and have never been able to watch streaming videos on youtube, the streaming video program keeps coming back with a 'failed to find network' message, initially i thought this was a fault with the phone but after contacting O2 a dude in the tech support dept told me that 02 wont allow streaming video over there network, yet i had a shot of the i phone 3g and its more than happy to do it, is there any way to get this working
regards,
mark Inglis

Read more... the answer is here.
Ill give you a couple keywords that will help you
1) Skyfire
2) Flashvideobundle
Hope this helps!

Right, still having no succes, i installed the correct version of TCPMP along with the flash video bundle and although the flash video bundle seems to be doing its job TCPMP will absolutely not work, it keeps crashing on startup and generating a crash.txt file, i had a rake for threads for why tcpmp wont work and found a link for a version (exactly the same as the one i tried) that should defo work on my phone but still no success
any suggestions!!!

Watching live video from a website

Before anyone goes and gets upset about my question, let me say that I've looked through the forums and I have tried everything listed from tcmp to youtube player (even though i'm not watching it through youtube) So here's the problem: I am having trouble getting my tilt to allow me to watch live videos from a website. It's live racing from the http://www.doverdowns.com website. I upgraded to wm 6.1 and was able to watch them maybe twice.... it's been a few months though and now it wont even attempt to load. I have not changed anything with the phone and I have no clue what happened. Please let there be someone nice enough to help me out or at least point me in the right direction to help myself. I appreciate it.

slow wifi

i am thinking about buying a Kaiser from a friend and i really like the phone but the wifi is painfully slow is this a common problem with these phones when put aside a iphone you can watch a 3 min video clip on the iphone before the kaiser has even loaded youtube and ebay is just not worth waiting for.
i just really want to know if its faulty or am i to expect this if i buy another ?
please help
thanks tris

triscros said:
i am thinking about buying a Kaiser from a friend and i really like the phone but the wifi is painfully slow is this a common problem with these phones when put aside a iphone you can watch a 3 min video clip on the iphone before the kaiser has even loaded youtube and ebay is just not worth waiting for.
i just really want to know if its faulty or am i to expect this if i buy another ?
please help
thanks tris
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The iPhone is an entertainment device that makes phone calls. It is designed for music, videos and games. So of course it does all those extremely well. The Kaiser is an all around phone, that is a compromise between entertainment and productivity. My Tilt does not play games and video extremely well, but my iPhone does not run Opera, Office or roms customized to my specific needs.
Chose what is the most important to you, and buy a phone that suits those needs.

it just seems unusable on wifi .i know what you mean with the iphone i loved my n85 because i could use it in bed lol but i feel i could fall asleep waiting for google with this

I use wifi home network & work network with my Kaiser wifi & it seems very usable to me.
I often check mail, check eBay,check EX rates & XDA forum ect if the laptop or desktop is not booted up.
Not the fastest but certainly usable & I find Opera 9.5 very good (many ****e builds so need to test a few)

do you find IE is slow ? i really want to keep the phone "i like it" maybe hard reset or updated rom is what i need
when i change a page it says at the bottom 8kb then give it a minute 10kb then pauses time passes and the bar will fill up and 14kb . i don't have the fastest bb (512KBS) but i drove to a friends house that has 8mb to test and its just the same

I doubt the device is faulty. like you say, a ROM & Radio change plus using Opera browser could see improvements. A fresh flash & being choosy with installed apps normally makes drastic improvements.
IE is slow, have not used it for over a year so can't remember how bad it was.