Smartphone Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

Product Category: Windows Phone running Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard

Manufacturer: HTC / T-Mobile

Where to Buy: T-Mobile

Price: $349 (No Contract) / $199 (2 year Contract)

Requirements: Need to speak to others, desire to be connected to information.

Specifications: QUALCOMM 528 MHz, Quadband GSM, Dualband UMTS (Supports T-Mobile USA 3G), WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, 2 MP Camera, GPS.

Pros:

• 3G Data Connection (In T-Mobile 3G Markets);
• GPS Capabilities;
• Speedier than the original!

Cons:

• Imprecise Trackball;
• Button arrangement will confuse Dash devotees;
• No real incentive to upgrade if you aren't in a 3G market or don't need GPS.

Summary: The original T-Mobile Dash was a great little device that only started to feel dated recently. With 3G rolling out farther, GPS being standard, and 1 MP being woefully bad for a camera phone, the Dash 3G sets out to update its older brother into 2009. But is it worth the price to upgrade?

Read more...

This is an unboxing and first impressions video of the AT&T Samsung Jack, a Windows Mobile Standard 6.1 smartphone that is an upgrade from the Samsung Blackjack II. Ignore the fact that this new phone has the same name as the Blackjack II in Canada - at least, that's what Samsung and AT&T are hoping you'll do. As of June 2009, the Samsung Jack can be bought from AT&T for $99 with a two-year contract.

The Samsung Jack is a 3G GSM phone - it's a quad-band phone, giving you EDGE data and voice anywhere in the world, and for 3G is has 850/1900/2100 frequencies. That's an extra 3G band than most phones have, so AT&T is claiming that you'll have 3G access in 65+ countries around the world. The Jack has a 528 Mhz CPU, 256 MB of RAM, 256 MB of ROM, GPS, Wi-Fi (802.11b/g), a QWERTY keyboard, and a microSDHC slot. Samsung has said this phone is upgrade-ready for Windows Mobile 6.5, but no real comittment has been made regarding offering the operating system. Check out the video, and if you have any questions, post 'em and I'll do my best to answer.

Jason Dunn owns and operates Thoughts Media Inc., a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys photography, mobile devices, blogging, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife, and his sometimes obedient dog.

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Our Pantech Matrix Pro giveaway contest is completed, and the randomly selected winner is arm. Here's what he wrote in response to my question of how the Matrix Pro is better than his current mobile phone:

"I am with At&T and have old Cingular 8125. My contract has expired but I do not want to sign up for new 2yr contract: cutting my expenses ever since i was laid off. My phone is barely breathing and my girlfriend threatened to dump me since she can barely hear me. The phone is really old and I NEED replacement. I need a phone that can have decent call quality, have syncing with my Outlook calendar and contacts, has a keyboard and can play music. That is all I need from a phone, nothing very fancy. This phone is just perfect."

He also wins a $100 AT&T gift card. Thanks to everyone that entered, and thanks to AT&T and Pantech for sponsoring this contest. There are still a bunch of sites giving away this same package, so be sure to enter their contests while you can!

Remember that Pantech Matrix Pro mega-giveaway that Rocco announced a bit over a week ago? We're it's now our turn: Smartphone Thoughts is giving away a brand new Pantech Matrix Pro, and a $100 AT&T Wireless gift card, to one lucky winner. Because this device is carrier-locked to AT&T, the $100 gift card is for AT&T, this contest will be limited residents of the USA.

Our contests starts today and runs until May the 2nd, midnight (GMT -7). All you have to do to enter is post a response to this post, telling me which mobile phone you're using now, and how the Pantech Matrix Pro would improve your daily smartphone experience. Does it have a feature that your current mobile phone lacks? If so, what is it? That's it! I'll selecft a winner the morning of May 4th, with entries counting as long as they were posted before midnight on the 2nd.

UPDATE: Please only post once. Multiple posts will disqualify you. If it's your first post in our forums, it will be held for moderation, so it may take up to 48 hours for you to see it.

"The Matrix Pro by Pantech has a new home online: pantechmatrixpro.com, the first place to go for all you need to know about this exciting new smartphone. See the Matrix Pro's unique dual-keyboard design in action; get the lowdown on all of the Matrix Pro's great features; read blog entries highlighting the latest Matrix Pro news and reviews; get information about the upcoming Tweetstakes featuring a grand prize of $25,000; and follow handy links to purchase your very own Matrix Pro online. Visit pantechmatrixpro.com to experience the site for yourself."

Raise your hand if you like winning free stuff. Exactly! Everybody loves free stuff. Head on over to the official Pantech Matrix Pro Web site and have a look-see at their Tweetstakes page. All the info is there - once they start (they haven't yet - no date is announced) they'll be giving away a Matrix Pro smartphone every day, and at the end of it all, they'll do the $25,000 grand prize giveaway. Sweet!

Good news everyone! Yours truly has come into possession of two registration keys for Microsoft's My Phone Beta program! Since I'm such a nice guy I thought the best thing to do would be to give them away to our readers! For those of you that are unaware - "Microsoft My Phone syncs information between your mobile phone and the web..." - Basically it can best be described as a very simple and easy to use cloud syncing solution for Windows Mobile handsets. Exchange services for the rest of us!To qualify to win one of these two never before used registration codes, all you have to do is post a reply telling us about a time when data syncing has failed you miserably. It can be anything; like having your phone stolen and not backing up your contacts or getting the phone number of an attractive member of the opposite sex seconds before your waiter spills a cup of water on your Samsung Blackjack... Whatever you can think of!The contest will be going on now until Sunday April 12th, 2009 at 11:59PM PST, at which time I will go through and randomly select two entrants to be announced Monday April 13th, 2009. As I mentioned before the winners will be selected randomly so unfortunately bribing me with cookies will do you no good - but you are more than welcomed to try!

"A 'snap' in American footbal means the direction of attack in action. But we doubt that this is the meaning that has pushed the marketing guru for HTC to give the name Snap born at HTC, but from the first approach with the terminal shows the hypothesis is realistic. The device, based on Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard, actually seems to want to deliver as an effective director of the daily activities through the management and production of new contacts and messaging, especially email."

SoloPalmari.com has brought us a review of the new HTC Snap handset. The original review was in Italian but luckily it survived a bit of translating - thanks to Google - to give us this mouth savoring look at what we can expect when we can all get our hands on this new phone. I don't know about you guys but I am starting to really love this device! This handset will come equipped with Windows Mobile 6.1 but seeing as how it is going to have a Qualcomm MSM 7225 by 528 MHz there is a good chance that we might see Windows Mobile 6.5 released for the device in the future since it meets the hardware requirements set forth by Microsoft.

"High Tech Computer (HTC) is likely to unveil its new QWERTY handset, the HTC Maple, in the upcoming CTIA Wireless 2009 trade fair which will be held in Las Vegas from April 1-3, according to a Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN) report. HTC has been in talks with four service operators in the US for joint marketing of the BlackBerry-like HTC Maple, the paper quoted sources at HTC as indicating."

[Photo courtesy of MobileDevicesToday]

Looks like April will be a great month for us Windows Mobile Smartphone users. While an early Q2 release is speculated it is in no way written in stone at the moment. However if the HTC Maple does make its way onto the shelves of our favorite carriers stores, you can bet your lunch money that I will be in line to pick one up. While I like my Google Android phone, there are plenty of things that I miss about Windows Mobile and one of them is having a nice slim device similar to my old Samsung Blackjack. We will keep you updated with any new news that we hear on the release of this unique looking device.

"Today’s Wall Street Journal has an intriguing story about Dell’s apparent plans to enter the smart phone business. It’s not clear what platform Dell will use. Apparently Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile are on the table. Maybe they’ll use both. But here’s the detail that caught my attention: The phones are being designed in an office in the Chicago area. That to me says this Dell phone will essentially be designed by former Motorola people."

It would not surprise me to see Dell hire ex-Motorola employees to design and develop their new smartphones. However there are a few industrial design firms in the Chicago area that have worked with Motorola in the past and could be working with Dell in the future. I think the real interesting part of this story is how the Dell smartphone rumors, just like the Zune Phone rumors, will not die. There has been speculation for years that Dell would jump back into the smartphone realm but to be honest I really doubt we will see this happen. With Dell's announcement last week that their sales have dropped over 16% in the past year and they will be cutting down on costs, jumping into a new already crowded market doesn't seem like the best way to recoup their lost sales.

"Last month, some rumors floated around about a new and upcoming T-Mobile Dash (aka the HTC Excalibur) which turned out to be true. However, it's not a completely new T-Mobile Dash but just a color update to the 2006 released T-Mobile Dash. Still not 3G capable, this sleek Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard smartphone keeps you connected with all your E-Mail easily. View and share photos, videos, and attachments or browse the Web. Still available exclusively from T-Mobile, the black T-Mobile Dash, has a soft-touch exterior and full QWERTY keyboard. It still supports quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE, Bluetooth and WiFi and also features the now outdated 1.3 megapixel camera. "

It is surprising to see HTC and T-Mobile coming out with a different colored Dash so long after the initial device was released. Granted the Windows Mobile offerings on T-mobile are slim pickings right now, especially in the windows Mobile Standard realm, and anything is better than nothing. It is nice however to see the T-Mobile Dash getting a little bit of love in the news realm as of late.

The holidays are upon us and while I know a lot of Windows Mobile users out there will be picking up shiny new devices to play with on our respective gift giving holidays, there is always that one Windows Mobile gift that is overlooked – The gift of great Windows Mobile applications! From December 19th-23rd the company that manages our affiliate store, MobiHand, is having a huge 50% off sale on over 40 of the best-selling Windows Mobile applications. During this MobileHeist event you can expect to save anywhere from $10-$20USD on such applications such as Elecont Weather, Sprite Backup 6, Agenda One, Pocket Streamer and more!To pick up any of these best-selling applications you can just point your browser to our affiliate store(s) by using one of the links below!

• Smartphone Thoughts Affiliate Store
• Pocket PC Thoughts Affiliate Store

"Better Measure is the first application (to the best of our knowledge) that turns your Windows Mobile device into a Digital Ruler and allows you to use your device's display to accurately measure lengths in either Metric or Imperial measurements. The graphical caliper lines are controlled by the thumb pad on your device (and/or stylus on touch screen devices) and they can be adjusted to align with any of the four edges of your display. Your measurement results can also be pasted into the calculator or conversion screens."

For a limited time you can download Better Measure v2.0 from our affiliate store for only $9.99. That is $10USD off the regular selling price. As always you can also download a free trail of Better Measure from our affiliate store as well.

"What do you get if you take an iPhone, remove the clean UI, user friendliness, nice industrial design, battery life, cachet, functional OS, and in general everything else that makes it worthwhile? The new Microsoft phone, powered by Nvidia. Yeah, you heard it right, MS is going to make its own branded phone, after all, everyone kicking the company around the block has one, so it should too! If you were wondering why Nvidia never mentions the phrase Linux when talking Tegra, even though it is the most appropriate OS for the chip, now you know. NV appears to have sold Linux out to get the MS flagship deal, how nice of them"

This is easily the snarkiest, most acid-dripping hack job I've seen in months - and I was shocked until I saw that it's syndicated content from The Inquirer...then it all made sense to me. Putting aside the ridiculous excuse for journalism - it's really an editorial, not a news story - there are some interesting rumours. Is this the fabled Zune phone? Or some other phone-based project? I refuse to believe that Microsoft would sacrifice all their gains with Windows Mobile partners all over the world by releasing their own Windows Mobile phone - that's just not going to happen, despite some people believing that it's the only way we're going to get the "ultimate" Windows Mobile phone. Is this a Zune phone then? Possibly. When you consider that the third-generation Zune hardware is identical to the second-generation hardware other than a capacity bump, the Zune team has had to be working on something. If Microsoft did release a Zune phone, they'd cause major rifts with their Windows Mobile partners, and those partnerships are worth a lot more to Microsoft than the MP3 player partners they alienated when they released the Zune.

2009 is going to be a very interesting year, that's for sure!

UPDATE: CNBC says this phone is code-named "Pink", but doesn't have much else to say about it.

"Here's something that is sort of under the radar: evidently a company called Mobileyes has teamed up with various local news networks to release customized live Traffic cam apps. Available for for WM Pro and Standard devices, you can download the app for your region and then select via various sub-menus locality and specific highways."

Now this is a handy application. I remember when I was a kid we use to watch this mythical box called the TV that would show us pictures from various "eyes in the sky" so my parents could see how traffic was looking on our always backed up highways. Now you can pretty much do the exact same thing from your phone and a few traffic cams making the days of helicopters recording traffic a thing of the past.

"Last month I posted in this topic about Colorware's process for customising the Samsung Blackjack II. Colorware graciously offered to repaint a truly battered Blackjack II that team member 'encece' hooked me up with, and i've been using the resulting device for a few weeks now. So what's the finished result like? Gorgeous!"

[Photo courtesy of MoDaCo]

Over at MoDaCo, Paul was brave enough to send in his Smartphone for the ol' paint job finish. I have to say that I am highly impressed. While the Samsung Blackjack II is a powerful device, I was always put off at how cheap and shiny the outer body looked. It was as if Samsung had learned nothing from the mistakes of other manufactures and ignored the fact that shiny finishes on and tiny gadget turns the device into a fingerprint magnet. Even if you do not suffer from my hatred for smudges and fingerprints, there is no denying that after spending 5 minutes with a super shiny device like the Blackjack II that it just looks trashy and cheap because it is all smudged up and gross looking. From the look of the images that Paul has posted of this new paint job, while the device still looks shiny, it looks a whole lot more refreshing than the standard black paint job. Hopefully these lighter and brighter colors will do more to hide all of the smudges this device picks up.

"Those two HP iPAQ handsets we served up a few weeks back have now touched down on the Vodafone website. You can't buy them just yet, but you can at least have a snoop around the handsets and check out the specs. The HP Voice Messenger and the HP Data Messenger are now online and you can get your name down to be informed when they're ready to buy."

If any of our readers out there happen to be on the Vodafone network in the UK, we have some great news for you. Sometime soon you will be able to pick up HP's latest Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard handset, the HP Voice Messenger. This Smartphone features a BlackBerry like 20-key keyboard, 3.1MP camera, voice activated dialing, microSD expansion slot (up to 8GB) as well as quad-band GSM, HSDPA, and Bluetooth connectivity.

We have a large variety of devices out there now. With Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Palm, Nokia, the Iphone, and Google's G1, many would call these smartphones. But as I look around the web I've read that some say devices like the G1 or iphone are not smartphones. Some say they are multimedia phones. When I compare my Dash and my Iphone, there are definitely some differences but there are also many similarities. They both play music, videos, handle all my appointments, contacts, ebooks, bible, internet, email, camera, and so on. So what do you all think? Are all the devices mentioned smartphones? Are some smartphones and some not? Does it matter if the device has a touch screen or not? And of course the real question: What makes a smartphone a smartphone? 

Microsoft has just launched a new developer portal for Windows Mobile to help advertise upcoming events, showcase applications, and introduce you to a number of team members and MVPs. And, of course, there's no shortage of guides showing you how to turn that idea in your head into a working Windows Mobile application.

"After teasing the market multiple times, Microsoft Corp. plans to finally confirm today that it's bringing its most money-making desktop software franchise online and to smart phones. Microsoft will release lightweight versions of four components of its Microsoft Office suite for the Web and Windows Mobile smart phones, said Chris Capossela, senior vice president of Microsoft's business division, in an interview on Monday."

I was incredibly excited by this news until I stopped and started wondering - Is Microsoft going to build this to be compatible with all smartphones or are they going to go the usual Microsoft route and only make it compatible to Microsoft's horribly deficient mobile web browser? Either way, as a Windows Mobile user, this means we should have access to basic Microsoft Office elements online. Unfortunately it could mean that once again the rest of the Internet population would have to go without. Hopefully the latter is not the case. We'll keep you updated as we hear more news on this subject!

Remember a few weeks ago when I reported that my Samsung Blackjack had an unfortunate run-in with a clumsy waiter and a glass of water? If so you will probably remember that I was taking suggestions for new phones to purchase. Being the undecided gadget enthusiast that I am, even after I decided to pick up the HTC Touch Diamond from Sprint, a company which I loathe, I decided to pick up a T-Mobile G1 as well. I figure if I am going to be stuck with one of these devices for the foreseeable future, I better put them to the test and see which one comes out on top and in the process expand my mobile gadget horizon.

Summary:
After playing with the T-Mobile G1 since I first picked it up bright and early at 8:00am and playing with the HTC Touch Diamond all day yesterday and today I can easily say hands down the T-Mobile G1 is so much more usable than the HTC Touch Diamond. There are some things I really like about the Touch Diamond and the TouchFLO 3D interface truly is beautiful. Unfortunately I have found the TouchFLO 3D interface to not be very practical and the device itself to be fairly unusable for my needs. After using a Windows Mobile Standard device for years on end and being accustomed to the streamlined layout which allowed me to get to whatever I needed with one hand quickly - jumping over to the cluttered and highly frustrating old school Windows 95 tap based interface of Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional just filled me with pure rage. Why in the world does everything that triggers a reaction in the operating system have to be so darn small and hard to press?! Can someone PLEASE explain that to me!? Even with a stylus I spent a large majority of time thinking to myself "Really? Someone thought this was a good design idea…Really?" Read more...