Smartphone/PDA watch thread!

[Epicurus]

Warning about PDA’s

I have had an XDA11ifor a while and it is great, does all the things I want.

BUT, it would seem that the screen of your PDA is not covered by guarantee, I came down and found my PDA screen wouldn’t work after I had left it in the cradle over night; when the screen light up there was a dark burnt area at the bottom of the screen.

I took the phone in to O2 and I have just been told that if I want my phone back I have to pay £160.

Now my PDA was not dropped but O2 say it was, so I have had to pay the £160 just to get my phone back as I need it and then I am going to try and go to the Small Claims Court to get my £160 back.

Anyone with any advice or has had the same experiences could you let me know, I understand I can go to the small claims court for about £16 so I think it is worth it, these people have held me to ransom, they have my phone and will not return it without me paying them.

I have had to pay O2 £160 even though it isn’t them who is repairing the phone so it is O2 that I am taking to Court.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

any ideas what the 4th generation phones will have?

I read somewhere about 4G phones have download speeds of up 100mb! But it's all theoritical tests and stuff at the moment, how they will perform in the real world (mast coverage, intereference from buildings/electronic equipment etc) is another thing...

 

[Kid_Eternity]

You can run skype on windows mobile, but Editor has tested it and says it's pretty useless in terms of call quality.

He has!?

 

[WWWeed]

Skype works well on my Blue angle, Sounds maybe slightly worse than a phonecall but theres not much between it. Must work better on certan devices as I know quite a few people who've had fun and games with skype on there PDA.

 

[tom k&e]

I read somewhere about 4G phones have download speeds of up 100mb! But it's all theoritical tests and stuff at the moment, how they will perform in the real world (mast coverage, intereference from buildings/electronic equipment etc) is another thing...

Where in the name of all that is holy will they find the bandwidth for that! Unless we're going to start using mobiles running in the 10Ghz band.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Don't you just love leaks? HTC (the company that make the XDA/MDA range) have had an internal document showing all their phones accross the different networks to date leaked. Nothing major really other than its a very good at a glance guide of what each phone is called on each network: Link

We can also see the up-coming o2 XDA Phone (HTC Tornado Tempo) and o2 XDA Atom (HTC Athena) and Vodafone, T-Mobile, Qtek, Dopod, i-Mare, Sprint, Verizon brand-named handsets plus many more networks besides. If nothing else, this document is an excellent "confusion busting" sheet for the huge number of names for Smartphones and Pocket PC's around the globe.

 

[the B]

Still waiting for someone to release the XDA Exec/MDA Pro/SPV 5000... getting impatient!

 

[Kid_Eternity]

O2 have it on their site as coming soon (although i'm sure I read it was meant to be out on T Mobile on the 16th?!). I think i've mentioned it somewhere on here but from what i've read O2 are getting ready to do a big pre-christmas push of new phones (especially the XDA range) so maybe they're holding it off a little to launch it Oct/Nov instead?

 

[the B]

O2 have it on their site as coming soon (although i'm sure I read it was meant to be out on T Mobile on the 16th?!). I think i've mentioned it somewhere on here but from what i've read O2 are getting ready to do a big pre-christmas push of new phones (especially the XDA range) so maybe they're holding it off a little to launch it Oct/Nov instead?

I remember going into an o2 shop sometime back and seeing the catalogue saying it should be out by now. How lazy...

If T-Mobile are selling them, it's not clear at all from the website...

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Treo 700w revealed!

After many rumours, sightings and speculations Engadget has got their hands on the new Treo (dubbed the Treo 700w). It's the first Treo to run Windows mobile (and the one of the first to run the new Windows mobile 5 too). I've always liked the form factor of the Treo but no wifi and a big ariel (why in this day and age? ) means no deal for me.




The 700w side by sde with the 650



More info & pix

 

[the B]

A lot of people don't need wi-fi. But I want it for kicks.

As for the aerial, I wonder too. But I guess they're not keen on 'form' (more plastic for the sake of it) over being 'genuinely as compact as they can'

 

[Kid_Eternity]

A lot of people don't need wi-fi. But I want it for kicks.

As for the aerial, I wonder too. But I guess they're not keen on 'form' (more plastic for the sake of it) over being 'genuinely as compact as they can'

On the Engadet alot of people in the comments are complaing about the lack of wifi. For me it's a must, not only do I have a wifi net at home, work has one, mates have em and hotspots are everywhere these days (varying obviously in price but I reckon that'll change in the next year or so).

 

[the B]

On the Engadet alot of people in the comments are complaing about the lack of wifi. For me it's a must, not only do I have a wifi net at home, work has one, mates have em and hotspots are everywhere these days (varying obviously in price but I reckon that'll change in the next year or so).

Not everyone lives in London

I mean that kind of seriously though.

 

[newbie]

Skype works well on my Blue angle, Sounds maybe slightly worse than a phonecall but theres not much between it. Must work better on certan devices as I know quite a few people who've had fun and games with skype on there PDA.

It's very poor quality on my ipaq

 

[pinkmonkey]

On the Engadet alot of people in the comments are complaing about the lack of wifi. For me it's a must, not only do I have a wifi net at home, work has one, mates have em and hotspots are everywhere these days (varying obviously in price but I reckon that'll change in the next year or so).

There are deffo more hotspots than there used to be - but my pet hate is ones that charge you to use them. Ok they are not as expensive as using a data card, but £8 for 2 hours (what I had to pay yesterday to pick up my email) is taking the piss.
I do think we'll see the price come down alot though - look at the cost of mobile phone calls - I can remember phoning someones' mobile in the early nineties and paying £3 for just five minutes.

 

[pinkmonkey]

It's very poor quality on my ipaq

I think Skype depends on the speed of your connection, not on the quality of your handset. It needs broadband to work properly.

My mate uses Skype on his iPaq but they have wifi broadband in his place of work and it works just fine.

 

[WWWeed]

I think Skype depends on the speed of your connection, not on the quality of your handset. It needs broadband to work properly.

My mate uses Skype on his iPaq but they have wifi broadband in his place of work and it works just fine.

Thats what I mean, Signal strength seems to be a big issue (this is assumeing you have a decent speed connection to the web). If you dont have at least 50% signal, Its gonna sound crap. Skype for pocketpc has got a Long way to go but its getting there

 

[pinkmonkey]

Thats what I mean, Signal strength seems to be a big issue (this is assumeing you have a decent speed connection to the web). If you dont have at least 50% signal, Its gonna sound crap. Skype for pocketpc has got a Long way to go but its getting there

Not forgetting the signal strength at t'other end. It has to be strong at both ends.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Not everyone lives in London

I mean that kind of seriously though.

No but they should.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

I think Skype depends on the speed of your connection, not on the quality of your handset. It needs broadband to work properly.

My mate uses Skype on his iPaq but they have wifi broadband in his place of work and it works just fine.

It does? I thought it was also due to CPU speed (i'm sure i've read somewhere that it needs about 3/400 mhz to run properly)?

 

[WWWeed]

Yup it is quite CPU intensive, I think it would still run a bit sluggish on 400Mhz!

400Mh!z I rember when Supercomputers could only do those kind of speeds!

 

[newbie]

sadly I can remember when 1% of that was fast.

but yes, my IPAQ is 400MHz, how fast is your pprocessor?

 

[pinkmonkey]

It does? I thought it was also due to CPU speed (i'm sure i've read somewhere that it needs about 3/400 mhz to run properly)?

I don't know - I'm a wannabee geek, not a real one.

 

[WWWeed]

sadly I can remember when 1% of that was fast.

but yes, my IPAQ is 400MHz, how fast is your pprocessor?

Mines only 400Mhz but it is overclocked to 530Mhz (thanks to mamaich over at xda-developers.com) You could try that thing he did on your device http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=10292.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

I don't know - I'm a wannabee geek, not a real one.

LOL! Me too...

 

[scott_forester]

It needs broadband to work properly..

It's worth noting that DSL in the UK rarely supports QoS so voice quality is going to be a bit ropy but perfectly usable. I was in France last week and one of my colleges has a 20Mb connection which seems to be the norm and it supported QoS.

20Mb - and thought the UK market was suppose to be a hotbed of competition?

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Wayhey, XDA mini looking closer and closer!

The smartphone that has virtually everything I want is looking closer and closer to launch it seems:

A quick news item about the T-Mobile MDA IV, pictured here on the right. Well, it seems that it won't be called the MDA IV but rather the "T-Mobile MDA Vario" according to this Newmobile.nl story.

The handset, built by HTC under the name "Wizard" will be launched soon as the SPV M3000 (or M600 as we've also reported!) on Orange, the iMate KJAM and the O2 XDA Mini S.

No exact release dates on this as yet, but we are expecting this Autumn to be very busy in the Windows Mobile phone release stakes.

Link

And just incase you've forgotten which of the many XDA phones it is, here's another pic!

 

[liberty]

He has!?

Yes he has...


I like my M500 it does what it says on the box

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Yes he has...


I like my M500 it does what it says on the box

LOL! Any links to were he said that?

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Wow the XDA mini is looking mighty pricey at $750 (roughly £420 in straight conversion):

Link 1

Link 2

Although hopefully with contract that may come down a bit...