Related
I have to say after having both phones for the last month I'm not that impressed with the Kaiser.
The lack of accelerated drivers alone is a disappointment.
Other things I don't like are:
No Infrared - I'm not sure what the justification for removing this is.. ok it may save a few pence off the cost - and maybe not many people use it.. but for those of us that do its an annoyance.
Keyboard is worse than the TyTN in every way, it feels worse and definitly doesn't work as well. It misses out more keypresses than the TyTN ever did. (I appreciate this could well be a ROM issue but i've tried a few and they all do it.)
Screen presses are ignored a LOT.. compared to the TyTN its absolutly hellish having to whack the screen sometimes for it to respond.
No light (ok it was crap for flash anyways but it was useful with VJCandela as a torch)
Autofocus isn't any better at focussing, its just slower. It's better for macro shots definitly.. and you dont have to manually twist the lever on the back of the phone.. but it certainly isnt up to sony ericsson AF camera standards.
The softkeys are absolutly stupid, if you have big fingers you press start call or end call half the time instead of the softkey purely because of the ridge that runs round the top of the softkeys from the call buttons being too high.
The internal softkeys are also now in a stupid place to make way for the blindingly bright caps lock lights that were not needed..
The phone slides the wrong way making it incompatible with cases and some accessories for the TyTN as well as frustrating to use for a TyTN user.
The stylus is crap compared to the extending one on the TyTN, and again means I cant use the spare ones id bought for the TyTN..
The extra memory and flash space are very nice.. and the GPS is fantastic.. but I'd rather have those 2 features alone bolted onto the hermes hardware..
Way to go HTC.. alienate one of the biggest markets.. I certainly wont be upgrading again in the future before I have a good look at competitors devices..
Some of your points on the touchscreen responsiveness etc are fair, but I think the design and overall build quality of the Kaiser beats the Hermes. The tilting screen is a really nice improvement, and while I can see how the change in orientation might be difficult for some Hermes owners to adjust to, I don't see how it's in any way inferior - just different. I prefer the solid stylus to an extending version too.
It's much better having all the buttons grouped together IMO - everything's within easy reach. I have (I'd say) moderate size fingers, and have no problem there.
Both camera and keyboard performance could be improved, but I think we're getting into the whole, wider driver issue there. I think the Kaiser still has the potential to be much improved, and I'm vaguely hopeful that those improvements will come.
sambartle said:
I have to say after having both phones for the last month I'm not that impressed with the Kaiser.
The lack of accelerated drivers alone is a disappointment.
Other things I don't like are:
No Infrared - I'm not sure what the justification for removing this is.. ok it may save a few pence off the cost - and maybe not many people use it.. but for those of us that do its an annoyance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its an ancient technology that has been surpassed by both bluetooth and wifi, what could you possibly need to use infrared for these days?
sambartle said:
Keyboard is worse than the TyTN in every way, it feels worse and definitly doesn't work as well. It misses out more keypresses than the TyTN ever did. (I appreciate this could well be a ROM issue but i've tried a few and they all do it.)
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Click to collapse
I find the keyboard on the Kaiser, sooo much better than on the Hermes, with the Hermes I actually used the onscreen keyboard instead, it was that bad. The kaiser now has a very usable keyboard that is finally comparable with my P990i. With the only exception being the space-bar, which for some reason can press twice (left and right) which is slightly annoying.
sambartle said:
Screen presses are ignored a LOT.. compared to the TyTN its absolutly hellish having to whack the screen sometimes for it to respond.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't have an issue with this at all, screen seems to be the same as it was on the Hermes, perhaps take a look at KaiserTweak, there's a setting in there I think.
sambartle said:
No light (ok it was crap for flash anyways but it was useful with VJCandela as a torch)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agree with you here, a light would have been nice, but only for using it as a torch, useless for taking photos.
sambartle said:
Autofocus isn't any better at focussing, its just slower. It's better for macro shots definitly.. and you dont have to manually twist the lever on the back of the phone.. but it certainly isnt up to sony ericsson AF camera standards.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't really take many pictures, and even less since the camera (due to driver issue) is so bad on the Kaiser, but I will agree, that compared to my P990i, the autofocus is poor.
The softkeys are absolutly stupid, if you have big fingers you press start call or end call half the time instead of the softkey purely because of the ridge that runs round the top of the softkeys from the call buttons being too high.
sambartle said:
The internal softkeys are also now in a stupid place to make way for the blindingly bright caps lock lights that were not needed..
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Click to collapse
I think the complete opposite, I always used to catch them stupid softkeys on the Hermes keyboard, so I am happy they've been moved now
sambartle said:
The phone slides the wrong way making it incompatible with cases and some accessories for the TyTN as well as frustrating to use for a TyTN user.
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Click to collapse
I prefer having the d-pad on the left (even though I'm right handed), and thus have no issue with the sliding of the phone, it doesn't take long to get used to, and I don't own any accessories affected by this.
sambartle said:
The stylus is crap compared to the extending one on the TyTN, and again means I cant use the spare ones id bought for the TyTN..
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Click to collapse
FINALLY, HTC did something good, got rid of that god-damn awful stylus from the Hermes, that was the worst stylus I'd ever used. P990i and Kaiser, have much better non-extending ones.
I have to disagree with the OP.
The Kaiser is heads and tails and improvement over the Hermes.
Agreed, the keyboard is one step down in some respects, but umm...that is about it.
It is a solid device with a high end feel. The Tytn is the VW of smartphones, Kaiser is when you walked across the parking lot to the Audi dealership
sambartle said:
I have to say after having both phones for the last month I'm not that impressed with the Kaiser.
The lack of accelerated drivers alone is a disappointment.
Other things I don't like are:
No Infrared - I'm not sure what the justification for removing this is.. ok it may save a few pence off the cost - and maybe not many people use it.. but for those of us that do its an annoyance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Like posted before me, it's an ancient technology. Why IR when you have bluetooth? Plus, you knew about the phone not having IR, so, technically, it's your fault for buying the device and complaining about not having an IR.
Keyboard is worse than the TyTN in every way, it feels worse and definitly doesn't work as well. It misses out more keypresses than the TyTN ever did. (I appreciate this could well be a ROM issue but i've tried a few and they all do it.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't use the built-in keyboard much so I can't comment much but the times I have used it, I have felt no difference between 8525 and Tilt.
Screen presses are ignored a LOT.. compared to the TyTN its absolutly hellish having to whack the screen sometimes for it to respond.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do not have this problem at all.
No light (ok it was crap for flash anyways but it was useful with VJCandela as a torch)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Never cared for it (for taking pictures or flashlight).
Autofocus isn't any better at focussing, its just slower. It's better for macro shots definitly.. and you dont have to manually twist the lever on the back of the phone.. but it certainly isnt up to sony ericsson AF camera standards.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agree with you there, but, then again, I have my digital camera for taking pictures.
The softkeys are absolutly stupid, if you have big fingers you press start call or end call half the time instead of the softkey purely because of the ridge that runs round the top of the softkeys from the call buttons being too high.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No problems here!
The internal softkeys are also now in a stupid place to make way for the blindingly bright caps lock lights that were not needed..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am ok with the placements (better than 8525/Hermes).
The phone slides the wrong way making it incompatible with cases and some accessories for the TyTN as well as frustrating to use for a TyTN user.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Again, you knew about the design before buying it, so, you cannot complain.
The stylus is crap compared to the extending one on the TyTN, and again means I cant use the spare ones id bought for the TyTN..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The stylus is WAYYYYYY BETTEEERRR than the telescoping one in 8525/Hermes.
The extra memory and flash space are very nice.. and the GPS is fantastic.. but I'd rather have those 2 features alone bolted onto the hermes hardware..
Way to go HTC.. alienate one of the biggest markets.. I certainly wont be upgrading again in the future before I have a good look at competitors devices..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Completenutter2 said:
I prefer having the d-pad on the left (even though I'm right handed), and thus have no issue with the sliding of the phone, it doesn't take long to get used to, and I don't own any accessories affected by this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Never thought about this really but now I've looked at it, the left handed D-pad when in landscape is more compatible with a gaming joypad and, as I am right handed, I dont have to shuffle the stylus around in my hand to use it!!
HTC and ergonomics...Whatever next!!
Overall I find the Kaiser an improvent on the Hermes, with a couple of notable exceptions:
-The slightly inferior keyboard (but I've adapted to it)
-The idiotic door on the mico-sd port. You need tweezers to open it. What was wrong with the spring loaded slot on the Hermes?
-The soft reset switch on the Kaiser is too close to the delicate mini USB port. It is very easy to accidentally jam the stylus into the USB port and render the phone completely worthless.
IMO the non-telescoping stylus is a HUGE improvement over the Hermes. Give it a few months and those telescoping styli become loose or end up expanding to their full length on their own for no reason. The Kaiser stylus sits nice and flush with the corner of the case, yet the 'nub' is big enough that you don't have to use tweezers or ruin your fingernails trying to dig it out of the silo.
lcohen999 said:
It is a solid device with a high end feel. The Tytn is the VW of smartphones, Kaiser is when you walked across the parking lot to the Audi dealership
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And paid more for the same car?
Sorry, I like Audi, but to me you don't get your money's worth over VW.
So I think your comparison is right on. The Tytn II, seems like it should be better, and you paid more for it, but after all is said and done, it's not really worth the extra cash.
my 8525 was free and so was my tilt so i feel the price was worth it. ha!
FWIW the Kaiser is streets ahead of the Hermes.
The Hermes was a huge leap forward from the Wizard, and the Kaiser is another leap forward again.
Of course if mine didnt scroll or actually do what I wanted when I wanted it to then I might feel differently...
jgermuga said:
And paid more for the same car?
Sorry, I like Audi, but to me you don't get your money's worth over VW.
So I think your comparison is right on. The Tytn II, seems like it should be better, and you paid more for it, but after all is said and done, it's not really worth the extra cash.
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Click to collapse
A3 vs GTi
no comparison (I'm sure you can guess what I drive)
lcohen999 said:
A3 vs GTi
no comparison (I'm sure you can guess what I drive)
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Click to collapse
OH..got an A3 as my business car last trip back to the UK...Was like Sh*t off of the preverbial shovel (as we say in Yorkshire!).
Loved that week...Mmmmm!
Soz, was drooling there...
Back to my basic Murano...
Eos vs A4 Cabriolet, $7,500 less + DSG and a hard top with sunroof (no quatro option though).
Guess which I drive?
jgermuga said:
Eos vs A4 Cabriolet, $7,500 less + DSG and a hard top with sunroof (no quatro option though).
Guess which I drive?
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Click to collapse
SOD OFF!! hate these people with nice cars....
OOps..anyone think we have gone off topic a bit here...
sambartle said:
No Infrared - I'm not sure what the justification for removing this is.. ok it may save a few pence off the cost - and maybe not many people use it.. but for those of us that do its an annoyance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Generally I love the Kaiser (as I'm sure some know from a certain thread!) and I have no way to compare it to the Hermes. But I do have to agree on the IR thing. It was great for quick file transfers and Activesync. OK so I have now spent a day fiddling with the Kaiser and got my laptop and it working just as well over bluetooth but it was still nice as a backup incase the USB ever failed as you can't establish a new partnership over bluetooth, only IR / USB. Another thing I did use IR for was as a remote shutter release for my camera. Bit of hacking and it saved me UK£25 on buying the proper remote. So there are still applications for IR.
Also the camera flash(light). I came from the HTC Universal which had these things too.
Overall, I knew what the Kaiser had, what it didn't and made my choice with that info so I can't complain, just agreeeing with the OP on a couple of points that I can relate too.
Oh, and I drive a Vauxhall (GM) car, never bought into buying a badge! (though you could buy a Skoda, it's the same car, just a lower purchase price!)
Steve-C said:
Generally I love the Kaiser (as I'm sure some know from a certain thread!) and I have no way to compare it to the Hermes. But I do have to agree on the IR thing. It was great for quick file transfers and Activesync. OK so I have now spent a day fiddling with the Kaiser and got my laptop and it working just as well over bluetooth but it was still nice as a backup incase the USB ever failed as you can't establish a new partnership over bluetooth, only IR / USB. Another thing I did use IR for was as a remote shutter release for my camera. Bit of hacking and it saved me UK£25 on buying the proper remote. So there are still applications for IR.
Also the camera flash(light). I came from the HTC Universal which had these things too.
Overall, I knew what the Kaiser had, what it didn't and made my choice with that info so I can't complain, just agreeeing with the OP on a couple of points that I can relate too.
Oh, and I drive a Vauxhall (GM) car, never bought into buying a badge! (though you could buy a Skoda, it's the same car, just a lower purchase price!)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Totally agree with all your points on the Kaiser Steve, as to be honest, I TOO miss the IR for its compatibility to Vcard transfer to people with older phones.
A Skoda???
Audi A4 £23k, VW Passat £19k, Skoda Octavia £14k. Same floorpan, engine, errr everything really. Is a badge really worth £9,000?! (And the Skoda comes with a flappy paddle gearbox as standard...) Off topic...nah!
IMO the d-pad is muuuuch better than the tytn's. the only thing i was missing when i've started using Kaiser was the comm-manager button,
but with Hbutton it's no big deal to map another key to Comm-Manager.
I never liked the Email and Internet button at the top...now i'm quiet happy with all buttons in one place...
No need for flashlight...never used, and if i ever use, plamp would be enough bright i think.
And the Keyboard feels much better with the fingers...just love it...
my car: opel omega..... no further comment...
My biggest form factor nit compared to the 8125 is that the stylis needs to be retrieved from the left side while the keyboard is open, which makes it difficult to pull out if you are right handed as your left hand is in the way. On the 8125, it was in the upper right hand corner while the keyboard was out and pulling the stylis was very handy. Not sure how the 8525 was set up, but I think it was the same as the 8125, right?
Besides that, the 8125 had stereo speakers, which I sometimes used for music but really made the most difference when on a speaker phone call. And the normal 2.5" headphone jack was a plus. Why HTC does not include a USB adapter (which csot more to ship than the purchase price) is beyond me. It's like someone said, "Hey, let come up with a proprietary headphone jack so that no one can use a third party headset without buying an adapter, which we don't even sell???
Do they think they are Apple or sumthin?
I knew that would be a controversial post..
I actually agree that the D-Pad on the left is better... However.. the phones crap for playing games anyways.. and once they had ruined it on the hermes i'd have preferred it to stay how it was as I was used to it and my accessories would have worked.
I'm now wondering if the reason my screen is so poor compared to the hermes is something to do with the screen protector then if no one else sees it as a problem, I used a custom crystal-clear harder more plastic one on the hermes.. on the kaiser I used the one supplied with the phone (the crappy rubbery plastic one supplied in the box - im not sure if it comes with all tytn2's or if Orange add it), maybe that is in some way affecting the screen?
The stylus I might get used too.. but at the moment I definitely prefer the thicker one from the tytn and never had any problems with it coming loose (though I lost a few from putting them down and walking off)
Infrared is useful for all kinds of things.. I can use it to talk to older phones, older laptops for a modem connection, servers for a terminal.. all sorts of stuff. Its almost essential. I didn't actually know until the first time I tried to use it that it wasn't there!! Its a shocking ommission in my eyes.
Its like removing the dvd drive from every pc and saying yes dvd's are old you should all burn and use hddvd or bluray now.
The build quality is better, or feels it.. but I think time will tell how robust the hinge is, it certainly doesn't look as strong as the hermes fixing..
What a great example of the media's double standards. They give the Diamond 2/6 stars and heavily criticize the battery life for not lasting through heavy use over a weekend. Their review of the iPhone 3G, a 5/6 star device, mentions that you'll need to charge the device every other day even with moderate use. So why is one product slammed and one product just barely criticized? It's like everyone is terrified to criticize the iPhone. Ridiculous.
However, on the speed of the Diamond, which is his primary complaint, I have to agree with him somewhat - even with the latest ROM update from a couple of weeks back, it's still too slow. Sometimes moving from element to element happens reasonably quickly, but there's still a delay where nothing happens at all. That might have been acceptable three years ago, but it's not acceptable today. Too often, it will stall out moving from one thing to the next. The funny thing is that even with that criticism, it's still the best Professional device I've used overall, at least one without a keyboard. On the stability front, even with no third party applications installed, I've had to soft reset it once after about a week of using it, which was a bit disappointing. Since then it's been two weeks without need for a reset, which is pretty good - although I'm spoiled by my T-Mobile Dash; I might have to reboot it once every three months at the worst.
On the looks front, the HTC Touch Diamond does very well. I took it to an AMD event in Austin a couple of weeks ago, and the "wow" factor it had when people looked at it was interesting - everyone loved it, until they started using it and guess what the first thing they said was? "Hmm - it's not very fast, is it?". That's an unfortunate reality about the state of the Touch Diamond right now - I'm really hoping that over the next few months, HTC's software engineers can optimize the Touch Diamond further and eliminate some of those delays.
Shockingly for any of you who know how I feel about most Apple products, I'm probably going to pick up an iPhone (likely a used one) so I can get more hands-on time with Apple's on-screen keyboard - I want to understand the subtleties of their approach vs. HTCs, because I can't seem to get any comfortable degree of accuracy with the Diamond's on-screen keyboard...I make error after error and I'm longing for a physical keyboard again.
Touch Diamond owners: how's your experience with the device so far? Do you agree with this review and rating of 2/6 stars?
(please note: I didn't write this..came from a pocket pc source)
I find my Diamond fast enough, loads of features in such a small device, GPS is very accurate and I find that outdoors it tends to average 9-10 sats which is brilliant, my Tytn 2 managed 7-8 outdoors.
Wi-Fi is fast and connects quickly, overall I would give this phone a 9 out of 10. The only thing that lets it down is the lack of storage, 8gb should have been the minimum, if the iPhone has 8gb and 16gb why the bloody hell did they only put 4gb in I don't know, it's not that the 8gb chips are expensive
Considering you can pick up 8gb micro sd cards for around £18, this was a really stupid decision.
PCPRO are a bunch of Iphone Fan Boys - I wouldn't take much notice of such a biased review
The on screen keyboard is rubbish. PCM keyboard is better but there is no decent VGA skin and I have now switched to cootek touchpal which is pretty good.
I still would prefer a hardware keyboard though so it looks like my hard earned cash may be going the way of a touch pro.
I think it is too slow and I have one with the old rom which was rubbish and a new one which is slightly better but still miles slower than my touch cruise.
I think touch flow 3d is way crapper than the interface on a touch cruise. Way too fiddly to select things. I also preferred more hardware buttons. The battery is rubbish.
On the plus side the screen is amazing and web browsing is pretty good now. Lots of other things can be resized e.g. fonts in emails using the scroller which is pretty neat.
stuartforrest said:
...
I think it is too slow and I have one with the old rom which was rubbish and a new one which is slightly better but still miles slower than my touch cruise.
....
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Click to collapse
Hmmm. Funny. I had the cruise and I found the Diamond (even with the eariler rom) to be faster - enough to keep and be happy with (the Cruise went back to the store for being too slow- dialing was impossible, as you needed to wait long seconds before entering the next digit). I can't use Opera. Not a positive experience. I use IE.
So this tells me it's all VERY VERY subjective.
VGA skin for PCM keyboard. Resco Keyboard is a good alternative too.
http://pocketcm.com/phorum/read.php?14,1813
Personally if you are going to use your fingers, PCM is better
Its the Mac Versus PC arguement all over again!!!!!
I saw only one, extremely true and valid review up till now, and that was at Phonearena.com.
http://www.phonearena.com/htmls/HTC-Touch-Diamond-Review-review-r_1956.html
i think the IPhone was very pushed by the press, they say to everyone "that thing is best, you need it!" bu i think there it will be soon a few people how see that the iphone is not all and it is to expensive for what it give. all these brandings, sim locks and many other is stupid. ok they ca be removed, but then the waranty is lost. but everyone who will the iphone shuld get one, i was lucky with my diamond, and with any other htc.
and about the rating on pc pro is unrealistic, i think they love realy the iphone and won't accept that are other phones are available and are as good as the iphone!
whys everyone so shocked? its like the video game industry and every other industry. they get paid and are given incentives to give good reviews (early test models, etc..)...that way everyone rushes out to buy the product..
They really need to try dutty's new ROM.. and if battery life is a problem for them, they could always go get the beefier battery. I'm happy with my Diamond - 2/6 is rediculous rating.
Okay wow, FINALLY a Windows Mobile device with a DECENT CPU. I don't care if it's a one-day-lasting charge. I LOVE the speed. 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU.
If you haven't yet seen it, look around on YouTube for videos of the Toshiba TG01 that just entered release last month. It runs WM6.5's titanium sooooo smoothly with an incredibly high framerate.
I know it doesn't have a QWERTY keyboard, but almost every feature matches the XPERIA including the WVGA resolution screen, only slightly bigger which I like anyway. And it is a capacitance touchscreen like the iPhone... also with no annoying frame around it for dust to collect... Perfect!
It also has an accelerometer.
So I'm willing to give up on my XPERIA, but being that the TG01 is not HTC-based, would there be as much developer interest and would there be many custom ROM's made for it once it's "HardSPL'd" so to speak?
Another question is: should I wait for the Toshiba K01 which features a QWERTY keyboard instead? I've used an iPhone a few times and the on-screen keyboard was rather irritating.... is it something I'd get used to? Would I be able to use services like biotouch.exe by HTC which greatly improves touch accuracy?
holdout said:
Okay wow, FINALLY a Windows Mobile device with a DECENT CPU. I don't care if it's a one-day-lasting charge. I LOVE the speed. 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU.
If you haven't yet seen it, look around on YouTube for videos of the Toshiba TG01 that just entered release last month. It runs WM6.5's titanium sooooo smoothly with an incredibly high framerate.
I know it doesn't have a QWERTY keyboard, but almost every feature matches the XPERIA including the WVGA resolution screen, only slightly bigger which I like anyway. And it is a capacitance touchscreen like the iPhone... also with no annoying frame around it for dust to collect... Perfect!
It also has an accelerometer.
So I'm willing to give up on my XPERIA, but being that the TG01 is not HTC-based, would there be as much developer interest and would there be many custom ROM's made for it once it's "HardSPL'd" so to speak?
Another question is: should I wait for the Toshiba K01 which features a QWERTY keyboard instead? I've used an iPhone a few times and the on-screen keyboard was rather irritating.... is it something I'd get used to? Would I be able to use services like biotouch.exe by HTC which greatly improves touch accuracy?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There will be alot of developer interest, there won't be any forums here. There will probably be custom ROMs just like the Dell Axim PDA. There won't be alot of ROMs though I bet.
I wouldn't get any Toshiba phone. From what I've seen they have no idea what they are doing. The only thing really unique about it is the amazing screen domain and the fast CPU.
Sooner or later HTC [Earth's most dedicated Windows Mobile phone smith] will release a processor just as good as the snapdragon. I wouldn't even get the TK01 because obviously I haven't seen the phone in real pictures and I by the looks of the TG01 they are disappointing us and I know that Toshiba is pulling the iPhone trick by limiting the hardware features. They will slowly improve hardware to increase future sales. HTC is a better choice, because they make improvements that are much better than most other manufacturers except for Nokia which I think make better phones every time.
And the touch screen keyboard is a nuisance. With a resistive screen if you planning on using two thumbs then don't get Toshiba TG01. I read that you hate iPhone's touch screen keyboard, and I am sure you're gonna hate Toshiba's current lack of multitouch which makes it worst. If you planning on typing gradually or with a stylus, then it would be okay choice.
I think Toshiba will handle the sensitivity well. It's just that many prefer multitouch typing, and we don't have that technology implemented on Windows Mobile yet.
Beside you are trading off for a headphone jack, keyboard, and media panel.
Would you rather type slowly on your Toshiba TG01 and consume 10 minutes or type quickly on your Xperia and consume 4 minutes?
The choice is yours. The CPU only affects one portion of speed. The button design of the phone is important too.
Also when the phone dies within 1 day, imagining a situation in which you can't charge the phone for 3 hours. You've consumed 3 hours of productivity and entertainment. So your opinion that battery life is not important is totally wrong. Having a fast phone but not being able to use is like having slow phone and being able to use it.
However, I think that fast CPUs might make devices last longer because it makes the device more stable and less prone to application hang and issues.
The TG01 has nothing going for it except the CPU. 1ghz is nice, but when you have no keyboard and a superbly annoying interface I have to say - no thank you.
okay point taken... so it's a resistive touch indeed. i mistakenly assumed that its smooth hard screen surface meant it has a capacitance touch.... how do they get the two films of sensor sheets to make contact underneath a hard screen surface?
i was just typing on my xperia on-screen with maxkey/fingerkeyb2 keyboards and the like. i dont think i type fast enough for me to want multitouch on-screen typing hehe.
yes i overlooked the headphone jack which means a lot to people... for me personally i havent used my headphone jack once though... hehe.
and i only used my xperia for entertainment when i first got it then i simply got bored of it hahaha...
i dont see how their interface is annoying. i'd probably still stick with wm6.5's titanium home screen but i still havent tried their strips/blinds interface which still looks rather intuitive nonetheless. and the shaking gestures is kinda fun lol.
it's funny how some of their marketing mimics XPERIA's colour scheme.
you're right about the battery life though..... i guess that's my only drawback........
personally i'm really digging the size. i love how it's big (slightly larger screen size than the iphone). xperia is really cool being that it's so sleek and fits very comfortably in your hand, but i always expected the screen to be larger and put that high resolution to better use. after all my vision isn't 20/20 haha. i think the trend for smallest/compact has now turned to being all about largest/slimmest... easier on the eyes and good for HD stuff (i.e. nVidia tegra, HTC MAX 4G). big slabs yet thin...
ohhh welllzzz..... guess i'll wait....
OK, this is bulls*it. But my 2 cents.
Fine, everybody is talking about the Toshiba 1GHz, how fast it is/it is gonna be, how it'll kick XYZ ass, etc. But hey, do people really know what 1GHz is? Do they know how fast it'll REALLY be? It's not too far away when HTC was having an issue with low graphics quality.
1GHz is just a number, looking nice in the papers. But without propper drivers etc. it doesn't neccessarily have to be as fast as for example devices with 800MHz today.
There is of course a sort of people who will always wait for the fastest (yeah dude, it's in the papers, dude!) device, although they won't fully use it. That reminds me an old Greek tale about a donkey and straw - he was also waiting for better and better until he died, alone and hungry.
So my advice - try it first, then make decision
Well the 1ghz snapdragon aint an CortexA8 but people say its faster then the cortex and it also uses arm instruction set V7 but since windows mobile doesnt even use instruction set 6 youre kinda screwed and you wont benefit from all the nice gimmicks..
You are all talking about how it sounds on paper.
Get out and actually TRY ONE!
IT ****ING ROCKS!!!!
I went to my local Orange shop this afternoon to see one and have a play with it.
The handset is about the size of the old XDA Exec (HTC Universal) but thinner than an iPhone. In fact the 4.1" screen is almost as big as my Polaris.
It's lightweight, but feels solid and well built. The screen was clear and bright, even under the shop's bright lighting. The phone comes with WinMo6.1, but I'll bet that Toshiba will have an upgrade to WinMo6.5 at some future date.
The touchscreen is sensitive and responsive, but the most obvious indicator of speed is the screen flip when you turn the phone on it's side. Most HTC devices take a second or two to flip the screen from portrait to landscape. This takes no more than 0.5s. The delay is barely noticeable.
There's no D-pad and only 4 small buttons on the bottom strip of the phone, so if you find it hard to use a phone without a D-pad, this may be a deal-breaker. That said, the screen is so large that you should be able to hit on-screen controls easily. The SIP keyboard is nicely sized and I was able to type quickly with no spelling errors (I didn't notice any obvious autocorrecting going on). The numbers layout is in a line though, and I would have preferred a "telephone" layout for the numbers.
The Orange version of the phone comes with an Orange Home screen which mimics the appearance and functions of the OmniaHD interface. Think of TouchFlo3D with the slider up and down the left side of the screen instead of across the bottom of the screen. I consider it to be nicer to use than WinMo6.5' Titanium UI which tends to fill the screen with text.
OFC, people are more interested in the new "Stripes" UI that Toshiba are presenting with this phone. Orange have kindly provided a simple way to switch between the Orange Home screen and Stripes from the Program list.
The Stripes UI is nice to look at and the rotation of the stripes is smooth, but it's insanely sensitive to swipes. If you want to swipe along one or two stripes, you have to use a small or slow gesture because a normal swipe sends the stripes *flying* along.
The stripes themselves are simply categories of functions. There's phone calls, SMS messages, audio/video, GPS and a few others as well. You can also change the colour scheme between about 3 presets. I'm just wondering how long it will be before some enterprising coder dumps the ROM and extracts the cab for the Stripes UI. I personally prefer the Orange Home screen, but that's just me.
The phone comes with CorePlayer out of the box and is the primary video player from Stripes. It also comes with a G.I.Joe trailer and it's fantastically clear and colourful for video playback. I don't think video playback will be a problem with double the usual processing power.
The one thing I didn't get to try was the internet or phone calls because I was hoping to try the "shake twice to answer" feature. The microSD slot is under the back plate where the battery and SIM go. It will also reliably take up to 32GB chips (if you can afford them).
All it would take is for someone to develop an LCARS theme Today screen and it would be just like the PADs from Star Trek:TNG. It's thin and light, but big enough to hold onto and read easily. If you like the Touch Diamond 2 but wanted a bigger screen, seriously consider the TG01.
As a former Xperia owner (I'm selling my latest replacement), the TG01 is functionally superior to the X1. It *feels* faster and the larger screen seems almost overwhelming if you're used to the 2.8" screen of the X1.
My only problem w/ TG01 is it only support 2100mzh UMTS which render useless for AT&T's 3G
everybody can make a 1ghz cpu but to make one which performs like one is the deal
and if it use the batt 3 times as fast as a say 333Mhz cpu it sort of beats the purpose
of it being in a handheld device
okay dude , if u wanna have the 1ghz cpu chances are u need it for smooth gaming/emulation purposes , but how u gonna get around that without any HW keyboard ?? the TG01 isnt the x1 killer *yet*
ZenithUK said:
You are all talking about how it sounds on paper.
Get out and actually TRY ONE!
IT ****ING ROCKS!!!!
I went to my local Orange shop this afternoon to see one and have a play with it.
The handset is about the size of the old XDA Exec (HTC Universal) but thinner than an iPhone. In fact the 4.1" screen is almost as big as my Polaris.
It's lightweight, but feels solid and well built. The screen was clear and bright, even under the shop's bright lighting. The phone comes with WinMo6.1, but I'll bet that Toshiba will have an upgrade to WinMo6.5 at some future date.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think Toshiba will release a rom update. Just google "Toshiba e550G Windows Mobile Petition", you will know why I sad that.
If I decide to get the TG01, I would approach the likes of cmonex and Olipro (OliNex team) with a view to getting a Hard-SPL for it.
As for ROM cooking, I've been looking at the tutorials with interest lately. As I understand it, it all starts with a ROM dump.
Dedicated sub forum
As xda will not have a dedicated sub forum for Toshiba tg01 (a pity), I suggest you all got to MoDaCo.com which now has a dedicated sub forum for the tg01. It was this forum that made i900 what it is today.
http://TG01.MoDaCo.com
If you look in the i900 section, you can see that huge activity and rom cooking going on there a, so don't be fool by the new topic start up for the tg01. see for example http://www.modaco.com/category/342/i...ia-modaco-com/
I'm very interested in this phone, but I wont go to Orange because of their poor internet bundle.
As far as Emulation/Gaming is concerned, you can either use a bluetooth gamepad (which can be found on ebay) or use a wired pc gamepad through the TG01's USB Host
Early results from FPSECE show that this is an emulation beast!! (see http://www.fpsece.net/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=78&sid=2b0fb50428f1a74faa25c3061036641f)
saw the tg01 in the shop today. for me the device is too big, i could not fit it in my jeans pocket and it does not look very good, although it is very thin.
Ganondolf said:
saw the tg01 in the shop today. for me the device is too big, i could not fit it in my jeans pocket and it does not look very good, although it is very thin.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How does it not fit?
nevermind said:
But hey, do people really know what 1GHz is? Do they know how fast it'll REALLY be?
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I've seen YouTube vids of the final TG01 released product and it is BLAZING fast....
holdout said:
I've seen YouTube vids of the final TG01 released product and it is BLAZING fast....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But the screen rotation is slow.
poetryrocksalot said:
How does it not fit?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
too big, it would fit in a suit jacket pocket but not in my jeans. way too big
Hi all,
Well i had and X1 but not for long and i now own and have used the TG01 for the last few days and it is seriously quick and stable. I'm using SPM Mobile Shell as it just makes the devcie so usable and didn't like the Orange Home screen nor the Toshiba Stripes UI either.
The 1GHz processor isn't just for playing games it transforms how quick WM performs to as there is just no lag or stutter doing anything at all also CorePlayer which is pre installed plays unconverted DivX avi's with no problems no lag no stutter and everything is perfectly in sync to. The other thing is although the screen is resistive as long as you remember this and don't just run your finger over the screen but press lightly and then swipe it really is both very responsive nad fast. It's to early to really give feedback on battery life but as these next generation processors although much faster have been optimised for better power consumption the battery seems to be lasting a day easy and that's with me still constantly playing with things playing Music and watching Video's. One last thing that i thought would be a problem just isn't the lack of 3.5mm point as the Micro USB hands free adapter has a 3.5mm point so just plug in my Shure EC2g ear phones and it's all good much easier when listening to Muisc to answer a call this way.
The last thing i would say is the screen is just amazing Toshiba by using thier flat panel tech on it have done a great job the colours are bright and crisp and it's crystal clear. This devcie really does make WM fast and usable especially once you are using SPM Mobile Shell 3.0 with it well at least it does IMO. Oh and whoever claimed screen roatation is slow is wrong.
Marc
So I just signed a 3 yr contract with Rogers and they are sending me an X1 in the mail. I'm having second thoughts about X1, after hearing about all the problems about it. I might send it back when it arrives and grab an Iphone 3G for the same price under the 15 day grace period. I've had a jailbroken Ipod touch for a while now, and I'm really impressed at what I can do with it and all the incredibly useful apps that you can get. i might add that I'm generally an Apple hater, but I loved this product. I initially got it for personal/car music, but it has been great as an organizer, surfing web, video, games, etc.
I thought the X1 looked like it would be an Iphone killer. It had better battery life, better camera, higher network speed, and simply looks better. The crumbling housings, and keyboard failures are HUGE turn-offs for me. I don't mind a couple of aesthetic cracks after prolonged usage, as long as it doesn't affect the functionality of the device, and if the keyboard problems aren't major.
If I do trade it for an Iphone 3G, I could jailbreak it. I could then get rid of the Ipod touch and ultimately have a good all in one device with it. I worry about the battery life because of this though. Also, the Iphone has the great "Navigon" GPS app.
So what I'm asking is:
1. are there any counter measures you X1 owners take to make it last for a very long time? (i.e. keyboard, housing)
2. would you guys have preferred a jailbroken Iphone over an X1? (can anybody comment on the battery life of the Iphone compared to the X1?)
3. how would you guys compare both devices' features, app availability, and just sheer lasting quality? (it seems like SE is cutting off support for the X1)
Overall, I love the X1's form factor, look and feel, specs, but I need this phone to last. The Iphone on the other hand, has an abundance of useful apps, smooth operation, reliability, customization, and continued software updates, but I heard some things about bad battery life, and I really hate that signature "Apple Iphone" look.
I'm sorry for the super long post, but this is an important choice I need to make, so any insight would be appreciated.
1. the cracking issues are mostly aesthetic, and internal ones at that. They don't impair functionality (unless the crack is in the stylus slot or something). You usually don't even see them unless you remove the battery cover. speaking of which, the battery cover's paint peels of easily, but they're cheap enough to replace, or you can easily refinish or repaint it. My X1 is now black and candy apple red (inspired by the Satio). Looks really, really, really great.
the keyboard wears out after about 6 months or so. All you need to do is clean it (from the inside, which can be a hassle if you don't want to) and it's good as new
the flex cable, though, is a more serious problem. if it wears out, you absolutely need to replace it or you won't be able to use landscape mode
2. Given the above, I still prefer the X1 over the iPhone. Better apps (75% of apple apps are "fart" apps), better screen, multitasking, stylus support, Flash, battery life, customizable look (manila, SPB, pointui), XDA support, etc. However, since you're used to your iTouch, you won't need to learn a whole new OS.
3. I plan to use the X1 for a year more or so. I get enough support here at xda-devs such that my phone has yet to be connected to SEUS at all (my old k850 would get SEUS once a month). I'm using WM "6.6" (6.5.3) while the newest phone that you buy right now only comes with 6.5.
4. I agree. I also don't like the iphone for the main reason that everyone wants one just to "look cool"
If you're into customizing/tinkering, get a WM phone. If you just want a phone out of the box with minimal fuss, get the iphone. And if you decide to go the WM route, I suggest you take the iphone, sell it, then get an HD2. the X1 has depreciated so much that it's only worth $200
I got my X1 earlier today. I haven't activated it with my sim yet, but I've been playing around with it all day. I really do love the look and feel of the unit overall, and the keyboard is great. It's a 09W44 batch and has a black plastic frame under battery cover instead of grey. It also has the "new design" frame; did I get a good unit?
I can see myself using the keyboard a lot for text, so I don't want it to fail. I really want to like this phone, but keyboard and flex cable failures sounds ridiculous for such an expensive phone. Are these occurrences uncommon, or are they inevitably going to happen to all units?
The iPhone's on screen keyboard works great, and I can't see of that ever failing. So what can I do with the X1 that makes it better than a jailbroken iPhone? The iphone has a lot of useful apps such as one for traffic in my city, and a public transit schedule; does windows mobile have good apps that can do this too? Also the ipod music player transitions between tracks a lot smoother than the X1. Battery life on the X1 has been great so far.
I really do want to keep the X1, and if I do, I might get a nice case to protect it. I've been using Sony Ericsson phones for years until my last one broke and was forced to use an old moto razr (which is VERY durable phone compared to my last SE). I might just go ahead and risk keeping the X1 and fix whatever happens down the road. Is this what most of you guys are doing as well? Is it worth doing this over getting and iPhone?
Rydock said:
I got my X1 earlier today. I haven't activated it with my sim yet, but I've been playing around with it all day. I really do love the look and feel of the unit overall, and the keyboard is great. It's a 09W44 batch and has a black plastic frame under battery cover instead of grey. It also has the "new design" frame; did I get a good unit?
I can see myself using the keyboard a lot for text, so I don't want it to fail. I really want to like this phone, but keyboard and flex cable failures sounds ridiculous for such an expensive phone. Are these occurrences uncommon, or are they inevitably going to happen to all units?
The iPhone's on screen keyboard works great, and I can't see of that ever failing. So what can I do with the X1 that makes it better than a jailbroken iPhone? The iphone has a lot of useful apps such as one for traffic in my city, and a public transit schedule; does windows mobile have good apps that can do this too? Also the ipod music player transitions between tracks a lot smoother than the X1. Battery life on the X1 has been great so far.
I really do want to keep the X1, and if I do, I might get a nice case to protect it. I've been using Sony Ericsson phones for years until my last one broke and was forced to use an old moto razr (which is VERY durable phone compared to my last SE). I might just go ahead and risk keeping the X1 and fix whatever happens down the road. Is this what most of you guys are doing as well? Is it worth doing this over getting and iPhone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
as much as i don't like the iphone - it would be the better choice. and harveydent's idea is good: get the iphone, sell it and buy a hd2!
apart from the hardware-issues already mentioned, with the x1 you get outdated specs and no more software-support by SE. (no firmware-update, no upgrade to winmo 6.5.x) they let this phone die end of march 2009 (last firmware) to protect and sell the x2. (you don't get the new x2-panels officially for example)
apart from officially running winmo 6.1 and the (in my opinion) useless panels the firmware is the major problem: it still has performance-problems. (meaning slow graphics drivers etc...) this is not really fixable with custom-roms. there's room for some tweaking (a lot, actually), but if the foundation isn't right...
sure, you can flash the newest winmo-leaks with the newest sense 2.5 (i know i do). but be prepared for a steep learning curve and lot of frustrating bug-fixing. (more often: wait for the cook to fix it with a new rom-version) there's always something not working, one bug get's fixed, another shows it's ugly head. and the endless flashing and hardreseting...
it's only for the past two weeks that for the very first time i have a rom where really everything works and which is running at great speed. but: i own this phone since march 3rd, 2009!
sure, i know a lot now about winmo 6.x, i can edit "light stuff" in manila-files, i have completely customized this phone to my likings. but apart from selling it i didn't really have a choice.
to think i'd have to start fresh now, with all these different winmo-branches and manila-builds out there - i wouldn't do it, knowing what i know now.
get the iphone and stay with it. or sell it for the hd2, it will get all 6.5.x-updates and maybe even an update to winmo 7.
The iPhone has more functionality these days due to its app store and accessories. Whether its making work related databases, or doing offline reading of the NY Times or most big periodicals, the iPhone can or can do it better than WM.
Just to drill into the 2 examples I used: I developed database software for medical research, and did so exclusively using WM. The software side of WM is terrible thesedays! The most recent database applications for WinMo are seriosly old, and developed when WM5 was around. On the other hand, database applications are new, easy to use, and much cheaper.
Example 2. You want to read the NY Times on your airplane ride? Have fun with RSS, and only picking up 2-3 lines of articles before you need online access. The nice thing about the iPhone is the major support for it from every company, so you just download the NY Times app, and all content for the past few days or however long you specifiy is available for free.
Yes, these are specific examples, but they should shed light on the current situation. The flip arguement whcih I'm sure will be expanded upon is mainly agaisnt iPhone lack of customisation, lack of standards support for thigs like bluetooth stacks, microSD, homescreen widgets, and being locke down by Apple.
Its up to you to figure out what's most important. Altough, if I were on Rogers, I would wait for the X10, which should have the best of both worlds...
i just got an x1 from rogers as well, and i too was concerned with the flex cable and keyboard problem but i decided to keep it anyway. One thing i did notice was that the flex cable seems to be reinforced now, not 100% sure though. Ive seen many pictures of the flex cable and its supposed to be yellowy orange. I used a flashlight to peek under the screen and its exactly that, except 90% of it is covered with a grey vinyl looking tape. Dont feel like taking it apart to make sure though.
I am selling my X1a right now. I got the iPhone 3GS last weekend
What a sigh of relief... speaker sounds great, no chance for cable issues, no possibility of phantom cracks, lots of apps, don't have to make 5 clicks just to turn my Bluetooth on/off, fast and lots of storage space. Best of all, I won't have to deal with incompetent SE support reps!
dorkster007 said:
I am selling my X1a right now. I got the iPhone 3GS last weekend
What a sigh of relief... speaker sounds great, no chance for cable issues, no possibility of phantom cracks, lots of apps, don't have to make 5 clicks just to turn my Bluetooth on/off, fast and lots of storage space. Best of all, I won't have to deal with incompetent SE support reps!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Speakers are terrible on both devices, no cable issues, the Xperia X1 has lots of storage space too.
Rydock said:
I can see myself using the keyboard a lot for text, so I don't want it to fail. I really want to like this phone, but keyboard and flex cable failures sounds ridiculous for such an expensive phone. Are these occurrences uncommon, or are they inevitably going to happen to all units?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know about the flex cable but I'm facing problems with the keyboard (and so are a lot of people from other forums I've been to as well). Got it repaired before the warranty expired but once again it's giving problems, such that I have no confidence in getting a X2. As much as I like having a keyboard, I might just go for a phone without a keyboard next, and the X10 and iPhone are two possibilities. So personally, I wouldn't recommend keeping the X1.
Thanks for all the great replies guys. Everybody (on here and IRL) is pretty much telling me to get the iPhone. One friend told me to just swallow my pride and get the iPhone because of its huge support base. After playing with the X1 some more, I found I really love this unit. It feels solid in my hands, but there are WAY too many reports of it's durability for me to trust it. It would be the best device, IMO, if it weren't for these problems.
I almost decided that I was going to keep the X1 for strictly phone, text, email, GPS, and mobile web purposes. And since I already have an iPod touch, I could use it for music, movies, and apple apps. I'd just be missing out on the GPS and 'away-from-wifi' web browsing, but the X1 does these just as well, right? Again, this gives me more to carry, but what I gain is a better multimedia player on the iPod, and better hardware on the X1 (camera, 3.5G phone, keyboard). I also won't be wasting battery listening to music on my phone. Almost the best of both worlds.
BUT after reading more replies, I just find it hard to justify having two devices when I could get everything I need on one simple unit (the iPhone). And the fact that they are both the same price, but you get way less hardware specs on the 3G. I'm now completely on the fence about this.
PsychoAssasin said:
One thing i did notice was that the flex cable seems to be reinforced now, not 100% sure though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can anybody confirm this? This would be great news!
Also, I found the speaker on the X1 sounded clearer, but the iPhone speaker was louder but lacked clarity.
X1 over iPhone
Well - that new design which is being delivered for a couple of month now does have a stronger keyboard-cable. We did order 4 devices for my employees a couple of weeks back and they all have the new design and the new cable. So if you have the new design, I would not worry about durability.
Since X2 has been announced the x1 has really dropped in price so it was a cheap pick up. Here in Germany the iPhone is much higher in price and only comes with ridigulous bundles.
I had my casing replaced (slight cracks) after almost two years of hard work every day and the keyboard-cable has been replaced also (warranty). I did not have any functunality issues up til now - the crack was just optical, but they replaced the casing anyway. Thanks SE.
Support personal from SE is not worth a call - but that is what XDA is for
Apple does have cool looking stuff (my wife got an iphone as a gift and is cursing because she misses the keyboard), but for my day to day work (Appointments, contacts, gathering data in Word or Excel...) I always would prefer WiMo up til now. Taking a look at the app-store does not make me jealous - most of it is unneccesary or just a waste of time.
So I stay with my X1 for now and wait for the next generation WiMo phones with WiMo7 or iPhone 4 - both should arrive end of 2010 or start of 2011.
Every step in between is covered by XDA
Rydock said:
3. how would you guys compare both devices' features, app availability, and just sheer lasting quality? (it seems like SE is cutting off support for the X1)
.
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Don't know if this will help but I wrote the following 10 months ago. At that time, I had both units, Iphone and X1A. Sorry for my english.
POST 1: some of the main X1 pro and cons
I have the american version (X1A) for 3 months now. This is my first WM phone and I am very picky with technology.
I wanted that phone so bad that I spent a lot of time and money to get it.
I really like that phone for all the reasons mentionned above and more. What I couldn’t find when browsing the reviews was a comprehensive list of the cons of this model. Here are my points:
1- Camera:
Not good enough: too slow to load, too slow to take a picture, requires favorable ambiant light condition to take a sharp picture.
Video acquisition is undersampled making your video files not very smooth.
2- Battery Life:
I usually disconnect the charge in the morning. I use the phone every day. I’d say average of 200 Mb of data per day, 30 minutes of voice per day, 15 minutes of gaming. At this rate, my battery drops dead at 6 PM. I should lower my data usage but this is why I’ve purchased the phone, I don’t want to minimize the data consumption accordingly to the specs of the phone.
Edit: same thing with the Iphone, actually same thing with any phone I know
3-WVGA screen:
By far the best screen ever, but too few applications supporting this resolution so far. This is actually frustrating because most of my apps runs VGA on 2 third of the screen, leaving one third blank. Ugly.
4- Speaker phone quality:
Mono… Sound quality is poor. I’ve compared side by side with the N95, it’s night and day. You'll also find an app to crank up the volume if you need it.
Everything else besides that is great. It is the best phone I have ever seen and I do not regret it. It is really fast, the keyboard is great, perfect for e-mails, internet browsing (Skyfire browser supports flash!!!), media handling and playing. Resistive touch screen is better than capacitive touch screen (you have to install a couple of apps first that give you feedback when you touch the screen and that minimize the pressure you have to put on the screen).
I have looked for this phone for months, I’ll be glad to share my experience to anyone who has questions about it.
POST 2: Iphone VS X1
It’s a difficult comparison. The two phones are very different because of the operating system. You can’t really compare them. The X1 is definitely orientated for business use and computer nerds that like tweaking their phones. The Iphone is orientated toward users that likes having a finished well working product
It is like comparing a PC and a gaming console. The gaming console will always have better game versions but you will be able to do more stuffs with the PC besides gaming.
To summarize:
Iphone apps and responsiveness is faster. Which makes it more comfortable
Iphone screen is larger, more convenient for movies and watching pictures.
X1 has a better resolution allowing it much sharper screen details.
But the Iphone OS is limited. As always with Apple, the product is a black box. Even if you jailbreak it, there is too many frustrating issues. The copy paste was one of these frustrating examples (fixed in 3.0).
I think all Iphones users experienced this frustration at least one time. There is something we’d like the Iphone to do but it can not because of limitation on the OS. Like GPS navigating, Skype, copy paste, TV streaming, custom ring tones, customs background etc etc… We have to wait Apple to fix them and that’s the big difference with Windows Mobile. Windows Mobile users will have these frustrations sorted out by themselves. There will be always a way to fix this and that , thanks to XDA-developper .Users will download the right patch or the right application. Finding it and installing it might be a nightmare for some users. Can be fun for others. But it will never be as easy as the Iphone app store.
Finally, I prefer my X1 because I am using it for business. I couldn’t do that with the Iphone.I like the X1 behaving like my PC. I have all my sales products/ customer databases / pricelist and Presentations on my X1.
Because it is Windows Mobile, I am browsing the files as I do on my PC and I like that. I instantly answer customers and attach brochures or documents along with my e-mails. I don’t use my laptop as I used to.
These are things I couldn’t do with the Iphone.
I would go back with the Iphone if Iphone would have a keyboard and Windows Mobile on it. But that will not happen so I am staying with my X1. It freezes sometimes, I have to reinstall some apps, I have to constantly monitor what goes in and where to optimize its speed. That sounds microsoft ****? Well it is, and I am so used to it that I feel good with it. Because it offers me endless possibilities to tweak it.
Cheers
Yann
I ♥ my X1.
It's so flexible to my needs i just can't live without it.
no idea about if its reinforced
but after i sent mine in for warrenty repair, i decided to put a bit of tape on mine to reinforce it anyway! i only did this because i was changing my housing as well. (nothing wrong with it, not a single crack after a year, i just scratched it up when i dropped it on the floor xD
I love my X1, and XDA keeps it updated, who cares about Sony Ericsson Updates.
I say keep the X1, and use your iPod too!
@RacloOne I agree a 100% what you say, Although Alot of your problems you mentioned with the X1 have easy software [email protected] I've had my X1i(My first WM phone ever) sense October 2009 and have never regretted the decision . This is my personnel opinion of the Iphone, I respect the gaming of the I-phone and how smooth the UI is but other than that it's a over hyped fashion statement. Majority the apps are useless and another way Apple can drain money out of you something they do best, The way they lock down/ Limit their OS is restarted. I find it silly to buy an I-phone when your Ipod touch is the same thing except it doesn't make calls. I'm was coming from the Rokr E6(A linux based phone/my first touchscreen phone ever) and people warned me about how bad WM is Bla Bla Bla, But I went ahead and bought it anyway because once I learned the ins and outs of WM like I did with Linux I would be able to have the phone live up to it's potential and it has. I'm not going to lie when I first got my phone it froze alot but that was because of the the sh!tty 6.1 after I got rid of 6.1 all that has stopped, As for the scratches I have dropped my phone a couple of times so I obviously expect scratches lol. Reading this thread is the First I heard of this Flex cable issue but looking at it seems mine is reinforced so idk but no problems at all up to now. Honestly bro I say keep your X1 because it's worth it and if you do I would personally help you with any issue because most likely a new user like yourself would have similar questions/ issues like me when I first started off.
Here is my summary of my major problems with the X1 and the fixes. You can see that for me, the only big problems that can not be fixed are the sluggishness and the camera.
1. Finger unfriendliness --> SPB Mobile Shell 3.5 + WM 6.5.5 (great combo)
2. Screen sensitivity --> X1 SoftTouch tweak
3. Small messed up screen area and messed up LED --> Repaired by SE
4. Keyboard letter repeat problem --> Repaired by SE
5. Sluggishness --> Tried all tweaks (slightly helpful), tried overclocking (great, but unstable), but still takes too long to accomplish certain tasks
5. Blurry indoor photos --> Set to sports mode + LED on but pictures too dim
Overall I'm very happy with the X1, but wish the X2 could have nailed all those problems. Oh well, waiting a year or two...
Thanks to you guys, I've decided on keeping the X1. The fact that I can come to XDA for support, potentially stronger unit, and that I have the iPod touch to feed my apple needs. I'm just glad to hear that some of you have owned the X1s for a long time and still working.
Viper139 said:
I had my casing replaced (slight cracks) after almost two years of hard work every day and the keyboard-cable has been replaced also (warranty). I did not have any functunality issues up til now - the crack was just optical, but they replaced the casing anyway. Thanks SE.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How did you get a warantee repair after two years? Or was that only for the keyboard cable?
Thanks to everybody who replied and help me make my decision and also for the iPhone comparison and the list of fixes.
Viper89 said:
Honestly bro I say keep your X1 because it's worth it and if you do I would personally help you with any issue because most likely a new user like yourself would have similar questions/ issues like me when I first started off.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll keep that in mind, thanks! I think I'm going to enjoy my stay here.
@Rydock I'm glad to hear your decision, Ya just Pm any time I'm always glad to help.
Same here. Enjoy!
Welcome to WinMo, and have fun obsessively tweaking and flashing your phone!
Hi All
This isn't rocket science, but thought I would pass on something I've been working on.
My Ultra has more ram, more storage and a better processor than my laptop along with 5x the battery life. So... I wanted to use it to work on the train and needed to print labels and stuff envelopes.
I bought a Zebra ZQ310 which is a very nice battery powered Bluetooth receipt/label printer. The printer is brill, but the Zebra Android software on Play is very old, but works.
I bought AndropenOffice Pro for £7.99 which I really like, it's got a mouse icon at the bottom and pressing it offers an area of the screen at the bottom as a touchpad, but for me,I bought a Jelly Comb Bluetooth trackball which is easier for me and won't take up too much area on the table. And, significantly it's much lighter than my old clunky laptop with a spare battery.
I bought the pro version of andropen Office as you can't print with the free version. My original idea was to use Google Print but that was jettisoned in December last year.
The only irritation with this is I bought it from the Amazon appstore and it requires you are running appstore and be signed into it to use andropenoffice. This is irritating as I'm guessing they are harvesting my personal data at the same time.
Any road up, Noroot firewall sorted that out. The appstore app is now blocked and andropenoffice seems to work just fine.
The combination of AndropenOffice and the Zebra printer work very well. I can print text, fonts and graphics and it's all fine.
For the keyboard, I've bought one of those PU leather wallets with an integral Bluetooth keyboard (see pic) so it ends up quite like a laptop.
This morning I processed half a dozen orders and printed address labels and it works well. It takes a little getting used to, with the small screen and occasional large windows that need dragging around but I'll stick with it and see how I get on.
Although our local trains often have Internet and mains power, you can't guarantee it so I've got an 18650 power bank which will charge the phone and the printer which, conveniently, is USB-C.
Although there are many more apps for Windows, I'm going to push ahead and see how far I can go. I use paint.net quite a bit on the laptop, so if anyone knows an equivalent for Android, please let me know.
Oops uploaded an Amazon joke too,so enjoy....
Cheers
Steve
You bought a 1500$ cellphone and can't afford a decent laptop to get your job done?
Get your priorities straight.
I disagree.This phone is powerful enough to comply with all his needs, what's the point to spend money on a laptop? The only reason he should buy one is the use of Windows
Hi @vagelis199 are you having a bad day or are you this rude all the time? I explained my reasons so try reading the post again lol. I Paid $1000.00 for my phone so I think you may have been stung lol.
I already have a laptop, but it's heavy to lug around and my phone is always with me.
I program PIC chips from time to time. I don't think there is anything for Android but that would be a real bonus for me.
Anyone know of a decent paint program for Android?
Cheers
Steve
Well, the keyboard/case arrrived and it works well (see pic).
The keyboardi s removable and very thin. It atttaches to the case with integral magnets. The only gotcha is it's a US keybaord so shift-3 is # and not £.
Need to find a good key re-mapper or save the £ symbol in a text file.....
Cheers
Steve
picitup said:
Well, the keyboard/case arrrived and it works well (see pic).
The keyboardi s removable and very thin. It atttaches to the case with integral magnets. The only gotcha is it's a US keybaord so shift-3 is # and not £.
Need to find a good key re-mapper or save the £ symbol in a text file.....
Cheers
Steve
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
great setup man, you gave me idea that i can do some parts of my job with phone too
picitup said:
Well, the keyboard/case arrrived and it works well (see pic).
The keyboardi s removable and very thin. It atttaches to the case with integral magnets. The only gotcha is it's a US keybaord so shift-3 is # and not £.
Need to find a good key re-mapper or save the £ symbol in a text file.....
Cheers
Steve
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What mouse is that?
Hi @lortwarCECH
Glad you like it. With the latest generation of phones, I'm finding myself moving more towards the phone than the laptop. It's a bit of a learning curve, but processed a dozen orders today in no time.
Hi @22naresn it's Jelly Comb track ball Model MT50:
MT50 Trackball Mouse
Trackball Mouse: an amazing alternative to traditional mice, allows you to navigate the cursor through your thumb Ergonomic Design: minimize arm & wrist movements, reduce muscle strain, and relieves RSI (repetitive strain injury)Bluetooth4.0 & 2.4G Wireless: connect up to 3 devices...
www.jellycomb.uk
It's a piece of cake to use. It just fell off the arm of a chair and bust a plate on the floor and the ball popped out. Hope I didn''t break it sod the plate!
Cheers
Steve
Update: No tracker balls were harmed in this post. The ball popped back in just fine so life is good. The plate bits are in the bin.
It has a USB-C charging port so that's convenient. I forgot to turn it off (that's the issue with BT devices) and left it on all night. In the morning it worked just fine. Dunno what the battery life is, but it seems pretty good.
Cheers
Steve
Just a little more background on this as it's been quite a long journey then I'll stop droning on
The first printer I bought for this project was a Milestone MHT-L5801 here:
Milestone MHT-L5801 Portable Bluetooth Thermal Printer 58mm Pos Barcode Printer | eBay
Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Milestone MHT-L5801 Portable Bluetooth Thermal Printer 58mm Pos Barcode Printer at the best online prices at eBay! Free delivery for many products.
www.ebay.co.uk
And it really is a piece of junk. The plastic clip that holds the platen roller in place broke very quickly and sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. One issue was the blutooth range which was about 3 inches lol. I almost had it working,then it started printing very light, with parts of the text missing, Cleaning the head with an IPA wipe made no difference.
I contacted Milestone initially by email and got no reply to my first email or chasers then facebook and they said they would send me new firmware by email. Nothing arrived and when I chased them, they just said 'sorry'. Chased them again and they jsut said sorry again, but no firmware.
So, poor mechanical design, crap firmware with zero support.
Next up was a Zebra LP2824 printer here:
LP 2824 Desktop Printer Support & Downloads | Zebra
Find information on the Zebra LP 2824 Desktop Printer drivers, software, support, downloads, warranty information and more.
www.zebra.com
I bought it for 30 quid on eBay and Zebra printers are good quality. They are designed for use in warehouses etc. It's a desktop printer which makes it a bt heavy to lug around, but it *just works* and there are plenty of spares for it on Aliexpress so it can be maintained.
The power supply is 19v, like most laptops and I bought a USB/19v power bank from aliexpress which works using 18650 batteries here:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32619062806.html
The power bank powered the printer just fine and next up was to connect the RS232 port to a bluetooth dongle so the it would be transformed form a desktop printer which was battery powered with bluetooth.
I bought a couple of Bluetooth modules, but coudn't get them to work, then I saw an eBay ad with a guy selling the ZQ310 printers cheap (£100.00) which are designed to be portable (battery powered and Bluetooth) so bought one.
Now the desktop LP2824 is on my desk.
As mentioned earlier the Android software is very old and a bit scrappy, but it seems to work.
I didn't want to use some random labelling software, all I wanted was to be able to print from Open Office and I could then print anything. With Andopenoffice, this all works well and I can print text, fonts and graphics so job's a good 'un.
It's been a labour of love (and hate!) but now everything works fine.
I'm going to email Microchip and see if they are considering producing an Android compiler for their PIC chips. I guess they will think I'm nuts, but if I could program PICs on the train my life would be complete lol.
Ok I'll stop banging on now
Cheers
Steve
And finally (Ithink) here it is cast to a PC monitor using an Amazon Firestick
With the phone running andropenoffice
The firestick plugs into the HDMI port on the monitor and you go to:
Home/Settings/Display/Enable mirroring and it works like a dream
See attached pic.
Cheers
Steve
vagelis199 said:
You bought a 1500$ cellphone and can't afford a decent laptop to get your job done?
Get your priorities straight.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why do you care what others do?
It looks a bit bizarre tbh but if it works for you and you have good eyesight go for it
I would guess a 14" laptop would be miles more productive but the phone is surely powerful enough to be a workhorse if necessary
Hehe I just got on abit of a roll and wanted to see what could be done. My eyesight is crap but I have good glasses and you can always zoom a web page.
I must admit, I like the laptop better, but for long battery life on a train with no Internet, USB or mains power, the phone is a good substitute. It takes a bit of getting used to, but my speed is improving daily.
You're right - it's a flippin' powerful computer and so small
Cheers
Steve
I have tried using large phones with Bluetooth mouse and keyboard cases for a long time. Every time I realized Android cannot replace desktop OS. Multi-tasking in Android is painfully slow, whatever you use, split-screen or free size windows, and whichever OS version, I have tried from android 6 to 10. Nevertheless, if you are keen on trying here is some setup I have used
Tablet autofit cases: http://amazon.com/ZAGG-Bluetooth-Keyboard-Android-Tablets/dp/B00IBW5XWY, it has a spring holder, tablet just fits snugly in the top shell. it becomes a foldable laptop-like device.
This used to come in 7 inches, 8 inch, and 10-inch compatible sizes. I used this with Huawei mediapad X1/X2, Mediapad M3 8.4
I then got this mouse Logitech t630. It's a very small slim mouse with a touch surface.
When I moved to a little less wider phone, due to unnecessary skewing of display aspect ratios (16:10 -> 18:9 -> 19:9 -> 20:9), the Zagg autofit keyboards no longer fit the phones even of 7+ inch diagonal.
I have Huawei mate 20x most recently. For this phone, I use this keyboard and Logitech T630 mouse as mentioned above.
Another trick to try is to add custom keyboard shortcuts from accessibility -> switch access.
Hi @bark1234
Thanks for all the useful info. Although my speed with the setup described isn't yet as fast as a laptop, I'll be doing 5 hour train journies, so any time I can use fruitully is good. Some eBay pages don't seem to scroll or zoom so that's an irritation, particularly when giving feeback.
I guess time will tell. I will either eat if for breakfast or pull my hair out lol. Fun project though
Cheers
Steve
Just a quick update on this. I've been using Andropenoffice to print labels to a Zebra battery label printer for some time. My speed has improved and now prefer my mi 11 ultra to a laptop. I got caught out with the A12 update as I bought andropenoffice from the Amazon Appstore which doesn't support A12 yet. The options were Update or Quit, but update didn't work so it broke Andropenoffice. Good 'ole Amazon. On the ball (asleep at the keyboard) as usual.
Anyway, rather than grab a pen, I bought Andropenoffice again, but this time from the Play Store. Works great lol.
So in summary, nice small phone to process my orders, but problems with software compatibilty just like a PC.
Some days I really like being an early adopter and other days....
Cheers
Steve
I bought a mi pad 5 pro
It actually feels faster than the mi 11 ultra somehow
Maybe because it has more space for cooling down the chip etc
The battery life is great and it's super smooth
Might be a better productivity device because it is designed for a keyboard and mouse and pen etc but I just wanted to use some apps on a bigger screen and it's great