Category: Windows Phone

All of us want our data to be secure. Have you ever been in a situation when you have lost all your data and do not know what to do? This wont happen again. Bought a new device? Want to make configure to just like your previous device quickly? Or do you want to flash a new ROM but you just don’t have the site to set-up it? Well you can do all that with the new SPB Backup v2.0. It’s better and it’s improved!

A FULL BACKUP lets you make a backup of all the data on your device.

A CUSTOM BACKUP lets you choose the data you wish to backup. You can even make a backup of your selected data from the various categories like PIM, Emails, My Documents, Program Files, System data, etc.

In SCHEDULED BACKUP you can fix the days and time in a week when you want the backup to be made. When scheduled backup is enabled, SPB Backup would automatically make a backup of all your data on the set day and time every week.

Now lets see some of the important settings of SPB Backup v2.0.

As you can see in the above screenshot, there is an option to stop all other processes before the backup process starts. Also, you can choose to create log files in case of any errors in the backup process.

If you keep the “create stand-alone restorer” ticked, then you need to have SPB Backup installed in your device, while restoring the data.

This option lets you make your backup password protected. Link to SPB Backup version 1.0 review.

It is clear from the above screenshot that you can select the files or the data of which you do not want the backup to be made.

SPB Backup v2.0 also runs on smartphones. Here is a screenshot of SPB Backup v2.0 running on a Windows mobile standard device(aka Smartphone)

It also supports ROM upgrade mode, i.e you can restore your old backup even after a ROM upgrade.

Another very useful feature of SPB Backup v2.0 is that it supports device upgrade mode, i.e you can restore the backup of one device in another.

Now, you can very easily sync your backup to your desktop. In that case, your backup file is automatically copied to your desktop when you sync your device to your PC. Also, now you can extract and explore the contents of the backup file in your desktop itself. Here are some screenshots of the desktop tool

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Pros

Cons

In my opinion, none :)

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Webpage: http://spb.com/
Price: $24.95 (upgrade from version 1 will cost $9.95)
Product version: 2.0
Installer size (cab): 1.42 MB
Supported languages: English, German, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Czech
Registration type: Shareware
Supported OS (device): Windows Mobile 2003, 5.0, 6.0, and 6.1
Supported OS (desktop): Windows 2000 SP3+, 2003, XP, and Vista
Size in ROM:1.42 MB
RAM consumption: 150 KB on configure stage; up to 6MB during backup process

There’s a hot new version of WorldMate Professional available for your mobile phone. Download it for Free, and start receiving automatic real-time alerts for delayed and canceled flights. Be the first one informed when your flight is delayed or cancelled, so you can act immediately, and avoid the lines and chaos at the airport.

Gain access to your itinerary details, global weather forecasts, world clocks, currency, clothing size and measurement converters, tip and tax calculator and more. With the NEW and FREE WorldMate for Windows Mobile you will save money, time and hassle when on the road. Download now from your PC or over-the-air directly to your device. For additional premium services – Go Pro and get the WorldMate Professional subscription.

Download free Worldmate here

FlexMail 4 is a full-featured award-winning (2004/2005/2006/2007) Email application that works with your device’s built-in Messaging client to provide the best Exchange and IMAP connectivity available on Windows Mobile! Use FlexMail to improve your ActiveSync or SMS messaging with our multiple signature support, multiple folder searches, and cross-account email copies and moves. Use FlexMail to connect with the best IMAP feature-set on Windows Mobile with easy to configure yet powerful folder settings. Set each folder to download differently, notify of new messages, and get email using PUSH use IMAP IDLE.

FlexMail 4 is a major upgrade from FlexMail 2007 and offers many huge changes including:

* Better IMAP features support (server search to filter messages, server-side messages parsing, more message operations done over IDLE, single attachment download etc.)
* Supports MMS on most devices
* IMAP server folders redesign (more settings, easier to use) Continue reading “WebIS Flexmail 4 released!”

The best file explorer for the windows mobile professional devices just got better. This new version focus on the touch navigation.

New Features:

Full touch optimization
Letter bar navigation
Virtual Folders for all documents
Quick-search bar
The Quick Search Function
Advanced Network Settings

Key Features:

Recycle Bin
FTP add-in
ZIP compression
Network browser
Registry editor (import / export / search)
Multi-language user interface
Navigation without stylus
Press’n’hold context menu
System info
Drag’n’Drop feature
search file/text in file
Folder Properties recursive file attribute setting
File Types Highlighting
Status bar
File decryption in memory
quick “send to folder”
favorites quick folder access
built-in viewer (text, jpg, png, bmp, gif…)
file association
format storage card(s)
send more files via IrDA (OBEX)
square screen devices supported
strong file encryption
encryption add-in for desktop PC
“Send To” add-in for desktop PC
Today Plugin with Task Manager

Do I recommend the upgrade? Yes! I straight away bought it and have been amazed to see how well the touch navigation works. Review is in the tunnel

No, it is not Christmas yet ;) HTC has rolled out HTC Touch Pro today which has everything the Touch Diamond posses plus better battery and a keyboard! It has everything you expect from a modern device. It is little thicker than Touch Diamond, but, hey, this has a 5-row QWERTY keyboard 8)

Here is the actual press release

The HTC Touch Pro brings together elegant touch screen response with the direct precision of keyboard entry leaving out nothing to deliver a powerhouse communication tool in a beautiful, compact design.

The 2.8-inch VGA touch screen provides four times the resolution of most smart devices, making email, documents and web pages sharper and easier to work with than ever before. Continue reading “Want HTC Touch Diamond with keyboard?”

I just heard from Access, makers of the Netfront browser for Windows Mobile, that a new concept version is now available for their browser.  Netfront was the most full-function browser for a long time on the Windows Mobile platform but we saw a very long period of inactivity until recently.  The new version of Netfront has the following features:

• Speed improvements
• Better navigation
• Animated zoom
• Page map
• Column rendering

This pre-release version carries the following restrictions:

• The trial period for this software expires on August 31, 2008
• Plug-ins are not supported
• No technical support is available for this concept version
• If NetFront Browser is installed on external storage, the application’s behavior becomes unstable when the device is turned on or off
• Integrated Windows Authentication for IIS is not supported

You can find more information (including a video) and download the trial at the Netfront web site.

The XDA range of O2 have been successful till now. The XDA range has always been powerful and full-featured. Then, what does the Atom Life has to offer to make itself stand in the very competitive PDA-phone market? What makes Atom Life so special and different from other windows mobile devices? Lets find out.

Review of O2 Atom Life by MWG

O2 Atom Life is made by quanta. The last HTC device which was branded by O2 was HTC universal. After that, O2(asia) teamed up with quanta and released Atom followed by Atom Exec. Atom Life is the latest quanta device from O2(asia). Both Atom and atom exec have been very popularAtom was, infact, the first windows mobile device to offer FM radio built-in. Its successor Atom Exec used 192MB ROM. Atom Life offers 1GB ROM and runs the fastest processor avaliable for windows mobile devices! Very few devices running windows mobile offer this much amount of memory and speed.

Design of O2 Atom Life

The device is very compact. I’ve fairly large hands and device feels comfortable to hold in my hands. Width wise, it is same as Atom. Height-wise, just 4mm bigger than Atom.

It is quite light at 145g. I’ve come to Atom Life from O2 Executive(don’t confuse it with Atom Exec), which was quite large for a phone device. The built quality is excellent. The body does not make any sort of sounds upon squeezing, which is a good sign for quality.

Sadly, like Atom, the body is glossy(again) and therefore, a fingerprint magnet. So, make sure you have some sort of cotton/nylon cloth handy ;)

Power button and mini SD slot are on the top of unit. At the bottom of the unit, you’ll find the usual 2.5mm headphone jack, mini-USB, microphone and reset button.

On the right side, you’ll find two application buttons(both remappable). On the left side, you’ll find two buttons to adjust the volume. Note that latter cannot be remmaped. Also, there is no jog dial.

On the back you’ll find the 2.0M camera. The quality of camera was acceptable

On the front, you’ll find a VGA camera for video calls, a little grill which encapsulates the speakerphone and LED lights for notifications(reception, wifi, bluetooth and alarms). The display is 2.7″ TFT QVGA LCD display, which supports 262K colours (but, only 65,536 effective due to OS limitations). As you move down, you’ll find two soft-keys(finally O2 has listened to the complaints of atom/atom exec users which didn’t have any soft keys), D-pad, call/end keys and Windows application key and media key, which opens O2 Media Plus(but, it can be remmaped). I recommed users to remmap it to ‘Ok’ action as it would improve one hand useability of the device

Comparison with other devices(and things)

O2 neo(htc prophet) and atom life

ipaq 2215 and atom life

my wallet, atom life and my watch

Its all about power, speed and memory

Atom Life is equipped with state-of-art Intel PXA270 processor running at 624MHz, which the fastest avaliable for any mobile phone. Its performance was great and was able to run everything with ease and great speed.

To add to the icing, it has 1GB ROM! Finally, I can store every program I want to install in main memory. This is a big advantage when compared to launching applications from storage card as it speeds up loading time. Also, you no longer need to worry about your storage card going nuts and thus driving you nuts! Please note that not full 1GB is avaliable to the user. (as some space is used by OS and O2 specific applications)

The RAM is 64MB out of which we get ~23MB after fresh hard reset. O2 should have made it 128MB like HTC Tytn II, but, 64MB ram looks fine to me for running every sort of application that comes to my mind. Sure, there are some games that require 28-30mb of free RAM. I don’t think so that you can achieve that in Atom Life :(

Software

When the Atom Life was launched, it came with windows mobile 5. Soon after few months, O2 endowed Atom Life owners with newer, sleeker and ‘better’ windows mobile 6(for free). The new units with windows mobile 6 are already into the market.

Continuing the tradition of including O2 specific applications, Atom Life too came with these applications

• O2 Connect
• O2 MediaPlus
• O2 Menu
• O2 SMS Plus
• O2 Themes

The story does not ends there, O2 further bundled following applications which can opitonally be installed by user anytime.

• CodeWallet® Pro
• GPRS Monitor
• Jeyo Mobile Extender 2.0
• Jeyo SMS Backup
• Jblend(for running java applications)
• PDF Viewer
• Self Diagnostics
• Sudoku Revolution
• WorldMate

Connectivity options

Atom Life supports all sort of modern connectivity that today stream of high end devices offer. Atom Life has it all. It is a Tri-band(900/1800/1900) UMTS, HSDPA device which also has wifi and bluetooth.

It also has FM radio.

Camera

On the paper, Atom Life’s 2MP camera sounds good. But, in real life, it is just enough good for taking pictures in times when you’re not carrying a camera. Its nice but picture quality is adequate for blogging. Here is a picture of a girl I took this afternoon(actual resolution of the picture was 640 x 480)

The camera offers 8x zoom at 176 x 144, 4x at 320 x 240, 2x zoom at 640 x 480 resolution. In other resolutions, that is, 1280 x 1024 and 1600 x 1200, zoom is not possible. The strobe light is pretty much useless too. Don’t expect it to match the flash of Nokia N95.

Pros:

*WM6
*Fast
*Lots of storage memory
*UMTS and HSDPA support
*non-telescopic stylus
*FM radio
*nice set of bundled applications

Cons:

*body is a fingerprint magnet
*no GPS
*Camera quality still leaves lot to be desired
*Speaker sound still shabby

Final thoughts about the O2 Atom Life

Atom Life is a great device with lots of features and connectivity built in. The storage space is mammoth. The device looks sexy and very elegant too. Screen is great to look at. Not to forget the fastest processor in its class it posseses!

“SPB Mobile shell brings forward a new, exciting, user-friendly and easy-to-use way to interact with the device. The windows mobile device never felt so easy to use. All the core functions and applications can be launched without taking your stylus out!”
Continue reading “SPB Mobile shell v2”

Managing and interacting with the files have always been a difficult task on a mobile device. Microsoft does include a file manager with each windows mobile device, then, why do we need another file manager? Well, the answer is simple, the default file manager is slow; lacks a lot of features when comepared to its desktop brother. That is why, many software houses have come up with thier own file manager
to fill the weakness. Continue reading “PocketFileManager”