Reviewing Three's 2nd generation MiFi unit, which comes with many new improvements and features including hardware, software and performance improvements
News is filtering through that the HTCSenseUI on the recently announced Hero won't be coming to current handsets on the market, mainly due to licensing issues with handsets branded as "Google" handsets. Those with "Google" branding will not get the SenseUI via HTC and those handsets without "Google" branding may not get the SenseUI either, so there's only one possible alley left - hack!
Video below shows the hacked SenseUI running on a G1, it's noticeably buggy, slow to respond and obviously will crash. But there is hope for those that are willing to take the risk and try the hacked ROM, as can be seen with the Hyakuro ROM hack, it's possible.
HTC announced their latest Android powered handset the "Hero", now don't expect it to perform miracles or save lives on demand, but do expect to be wowed and intrigued and maybe a little lustful. Like the HTC Magic it's a fully touch screen handset without a physical keyboard running on Android, but this is where most of the comparisons stop. The design is more reminiscent of it's older brother the T-Mobile G1, and in keeping with the branding T-Mobile is aptly calling this the G1 Touch, whilst Orange will be calling it the Hero (probably).
The handset is very slim, has an angled bottom and bevelled edges and includes a Teflon coated screen to stop fingerprints sticking to it, as the main input method will be touch this is a very good addition. The screen itself is a 3.2 inch HVGA (320x480) display which also supports multi-touch. Also included is a 3.5mm proper stereo headset audio jack and a bumped up auto focus 5 Mega Pixel camera (but still no flash) and MicroSDHC support of 16GB expandable memory. HSPA is also included which will support 2 Mbps up-link and 7.2 Mbps down-link speeds.
The main feature is the actual OS tweaks made by HTC, which includes their
TouchFlo UI
TouchSENSE which is an updated version of their TouchFlo UI which they have included in various Windows Mobile handsets which looks stunning and intuitive (see the video below) and also a trackball for those familiar with the G1 and Blackberry handsets. Other features such as G-sensor, Digital Compass, GPS and 1350mAh battery is included and oh, it comes with 512MB ROM and 288MB of RAM and a 528 MHz processor. Happy? No? It also supports Flash now for a fully rich internet browsing experience.
Full Specifications:
Processor: Qualcomm® MSM7200A™, 528 MHz
Platform: Android™
ROM: 512 MB
RAM: 288 MB
Dimensions (LxWxT) 112 x 56.2 x 14.35 mm
Weight 135 grams ( 4.76 ounces) with battery
Display 3.2-inch TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen with 320x480 HVGA resolution
Network HSPA/WCDMA: - 900/2100 MHz - Up to 2 Mbps up-link and 7.2 Mbps down-link speeds
Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE: - 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
Trackball with Enter button
Internal GPS antenna
Connectivity: Bluetooth® 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate and A2DP for wireless
Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g
3.5 mm audio jack
Camera 5.0 megapixel color camera with auto focus
Audio Supported Formats MP3, AAC(AAC, AAC+, AAC-LC), AMR-NB, WAV, MIDI and Windows Media® Audio 9
Video Supported Formats MPEG-4, H.263, H.264 and Windows Media® Video 9
Battery Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery
Capacity: 1350 mAh
Talk time:- Up to 420 minutes for WCDMA - Up to 470 minutes for GSM
Standby time:- Up to 750 hours for WCDMA - Up to 440 hours for GSM
MicroSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
Special Features G-sensor
Digital Compass
Availability
The HTC Hero will be available to people across Europe in July and in Asia later in the summer. A distinct North American version will be available later in 2009.
3 have launched what is in my eyes a win PayAsYouGo tariff which is literally Free to use. It comes with Free Skype-to-Skype calls and Instant Messages. it's a low priced tariff which will cater to all as once topped up you can get additional allowances which include free calls, internet and SMS.
3 claim they are leading a mobile revolution, with offers like these and the many other innovative tariffs they have recently released, they could be just right. Breakdown of what you get for topping up below.
I'll be honest, T-Mobile are pretty decent when it comes to signal (well most of the times) and tariffs, I've been a customer since I was in school - that is a long time ago! But one thing that hasn't always been good is their customer service, but this new article by @munkimatt leaves me in utter disbelief. Worst Customer Service ever!
Head on over to his blog post on what is a shocker from T-Mobile Customer Service - it's epic in proportion. I'd urge anyone in T-Mobile CS or PR departments to get in touch with him, you'd better try Twitter as his number has obviously been cut off.
A leaked Nokia video of the successor to the successful and sexy E71 has been put up by Symbian-Freak on Youtube.
The design of the handset looks pretty sleek IMO, it's slim, has nice curves and the keyboard looks very similar to that of the E71 except more spacious. From the video we can gather a few things:
Front facing camera - expect 3G video calling
3.5mm jack
5MP camera - the text on the back confirms this!
MicroSD support
Most likely running Symbian S60 3rd Edition FP2
Will be coming 3 different flavours - black, silver/grey, brown-ish
So far it looks pretty enticing, expecting to see more of this soon. Check out the video below:
Gerrymoth from NokiaAddict brought to my attention that the BBC were finally offering an iPlayer client for the N95. Heading over to http://www.bbc.co.uk/mobile/iplayer on my handset I found the following screen, where I downloaded and installed the app (widget really).
Upon downloading the client I quickly launched to see what it was on offer and if it could live up to expectations. The optimized client brings a few new things which the app the N96's hacked version did not - the most impressive being able to watch Live TV - just like the normal web iPlayer. So far it's limited to using only WiFi connection to stream, but this can be hacked work with 3G and also any other S60 3rd edition handset (this is not tested to try at your own risk) see below for the details:
To do the changes, download the .wgz file to a desktop PC, extract it using winzip, find the .js file, look for N96. You will see a | separated list. Add your model number and save the file, repackage as a .zip and rename to .wgz and send to your phone over cable or bluetooth.
The main thing of concern is the quality of the content streamed, which uses Realplayer - and for something that requires a WiFi connection the quality is pretty poor, there is too much buffering prompts and the video is joggy, pixelated and pretty low. Google's Youtube application streams better quality over 3G. All in all it's a good attempt, but I think I'll stick to the hacked N96 version for now.
Nokia's first 8 Mega Pixel capable handset is now shipping according to Nokia's Press Bulletin Board - although it's still yet to appear in their Online Shop inventory (not even in the pre-release sections). The N86 is the first Nokia handset to support 8 Mega Pixel of photo capture, I previously had a hands on with a pre production version at MGoL. I was impressed to say the least.
The is the first handset Nokia has released which I can say I'm impressed with, the N97 is still quite not my cup of tea, mainly because I don't trust Nokia can yet deliver a touch handset which will work as well as the iPhone or Android handset devices, this is mainly because they all run on the old S60 OS, which was not designed for operation via Touch. The N86 8MP therefore is a natural choice for those N95 fans who would prefer the familiarity of their old handset albeit with bumped up features to keep them up to date within the current market.
N86 8MP Notable Features:
8 Mega Pixel Carl Zeiss Tessar lens
VGA video capture (640 x 480) at up to 30 fps
F2.4/3.2/4.8 (automatic aperture control)
3rd generation dual LED camera flash
AM OLED 2.6 inch QVGA (240 x 320 pixels) 16 million colours
BL-5K, 1200 mAh
8 GB internal flash memory
Supports up to 16 GB microSD card
Up to 74 MB internal dynamic memory - (highly disappointing)
WLAN IEEE 802.11b/g with UPnP support
MicroUSB connector, Hi-Speed USB 2.0
3.5 mm stereo headphone plug
TV-out support
GPS receiver with support for assisted GPS (A-GPS)
One of the many reasons I still have a Nokia is the simple fact it can multi-task. Doing many things at once is very useful in a fast paced environment and for those suffering from ADD (attention deficit disorder) - we get bored very easily, so being able to switch to doing something else and returning back to what I was doing is very handy indeed.
The Nokia N95 does all this and coasts whilst doing it - albeit with the exception of bloat ware and high resource applications (such as OviStore) - if it had more RAM I'm sure it would cope much better - but this is a 3+ year old handset and still the original one, not replaced even once - which means it's pretty reliable too! Although my OCD might have to say something about that!
I'm glad I can Tweet, Check e-mails, browse the web, listen to music (whilst scrobbling to last.fm) and share my location via Google Maps and Latitude all at the same time. I'm going to miss this handset once I move on.
The Plam Pre has been released just a few days ago and whilst many users and reviewers have been busy playing around with their devices, the guys at Rapid Repair have disassembled it and have put together a guide to repairing it - just in case you happened to be one of the clumsy people who drop their brand new handset.
Not sure what Palm would make of this, not that they could do anything about it either.
