Category: Windows Phone

SKTools is a ‘all-in-one’ maintenance tool for Windows Mobile. It has been updated to the version 4.4.7.

So, what has been updated?

• The addition of a Network Tools option (Ping, Trace Route, Port Scanner, Lookup, Whois (smart), HTTP GET, Network information tools)
• An optional feature which shows executable files not registered in system as “installed” for WM5/WM6 devices.
• Ability to save image in PNG format (if system support it, otherwise – BMP)
• Fixed alternative registry backup path feature (registry cleaner)

[SK-TOOLS official webpage]

HTC has again released another ROM update for the HTC DIAMOND. Although, the last ROM update is just a month old, but they have rolled out another update. The new update does not promise any ground breaking improvements or adds any new features, but does some bug-fixes. Here is the description of the new ROM:

1. When you launch the Camera while the system is working on other programs, the preview screen may become black.
2. When playing a video, sometimes a portion of the video will be cut off a little bit.
3. Fixes Audio playback problem with the speaker. Specific issues: sometimes the music will turn off and on after 10 minutes, or there is a buzzing sound or no sound at all.
4. Fixes the problem of not being able to receive MMS when in standby mode.
5. When launching music via the Music tab on TouchFLO 3D, the sound may intermittently turn off for a second and come back on.

Usual warning: This is a generic update and will commit hard reset. So, you are requested to back up your precious data before performing the update

DOWNLOAD the update

ASUS has unleashed its WVGA beauty, P835. Sporting a huge 3.5-inch WVGA (800 x 480), this new Windows Mobile device promises to give HTC some strong competition.

It looks like past mistakes have taught ASUS a bitter lesson. The previous flagship model, ASUS P565 (REVIEW), which although had the zippy 800Mhz CPU lacked on the software front. It did not even include Opera Mobile. The built-in IE mobile does a sloppy job of rendering web pages. But, in the ASUS P835, the ASUS has included Opera Mobile which is absolutely great to use on the WVGA screen.

Here are its specifications:

Windows Mobile 6.1
Quad-Band GSM
new and improved Glide user interface
528MHz Qualcomm 7201A processor
288MB RAM
256MB ROM
4GB internal storage
USB 2.0 connectivity
microSDHC card slot (yay!)
Bluetooth 2.0
aGPS
5 MP AutoFocus camera

Also, the ASUS has finally upgraded to the USB 2.0 standard. ALL the earlier models came with only USB 1.1 support, which made the transfer painfully slow.  Another noticeable improvement is the inclusion of the 5MP camera, which makes it the first ASUS mobile phone to sport a 5MP camera and that too with autofocus capability.

ASUS has also included their own SIP (soft input panel). This is nice addition as all previous ASUS windows mobile devices lacked a finger friendly SIP. Even their now old flagship model P565 lacked a finger friendly SIP. All these additions were completely absent. We are definitely looking forward the ASUS P835.

Compared to the earlier ASUS devices, there a huge increase in RAM as-well-as ROM. Now, the user won’t have mere 50MB RAM free at startup. With the increased RAM, I see at least 120+MB RAM free at startup with Glide interface on.

CNet has posted several comparison photos of the HTC TOUCH DIAMOND and the upcoming TOUCH DIAMOND 2.  Let’s take a look at some of the photos:

First is the obvious increase in overall size of the device. The Diamond 2 has a bigger display (3.2-inch) as compared to Diamond-1 (2.8-inch). With the bigger display, the Diamond 2 also brings WVGA resolution compared to the VGA resolution found in Diamond-1.

The Diamond-2 looses the Diamond back.

The Diamond-2 is bit thicker than the Diamond-1. But, not terribly thick. It is still going to be one of the most slick looking devices around. Although, it is quite sad to see that there is sill NO dedicated 3.5mm jack for headphones.

Go to cnet.com to see more pics

Resco Contact Manager which was in BETA from the past few months has finally been released. Here is the description,

This newest addition to the Windows Mobile application family at Resco is a very promising application, which shows great potential. Resco Contact Manager is a fully touch-optimized program offering superior tools in order to manage your contacts, calls and text messages.

The application allows users to easily navigate, search quickly using letter navigation, view text message conversations in a chat-like view and much more to make phone calls and sending text messages a fun and easy activity.

Folks at Mayakama have released version 6 of their most popular software, DVD to Pocket PC. DVD-to-Pocket PC allows you to watch not only DVDs, but also home movies, downloaded content and other video files on your Windows Mobile phone. Turn your phone into a Pocket Movie Player. DVD conversions are up to 4 times faster in the new version. In less than 45 minutes, you can put a full movie on your phone. Now supports the new hi-res devices such as the HTC Touch Pro2, Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 and Toshiba TG01.

– Rip any DVD, including copy-protected movies
– Conversion of AVI, MPEG, and DivX source files
– Fit-to-Card option (auto-adjust quality to the size of the memorycard)
– Variable quality video slider, with 5 levels of user control
– Variable quality audio slider, up to stereo CD quality sound
– Convert chapters or whole movie
– Assign any drive as the temporary disk
– 400% faster on most PCs
– New, easier wizard style user interface
– Move video back and forth between memory card and PC

Go and grab the new version from this link

Unfortunately, the HTC SHIFT does not allow you to access the HDD under Snapvue (Windows Mobile side). But, xda-devs is (always) there to rescue. Here is an easy way of using the HDD in Snapvue.

1 – Download Network Browser
2 – Set hdd/sdcard on Vista as a share
3 – Attach Vista to snapvue using usb tool
4 – Install Network Browser
5 – Start Network Browser
6 – File – Network – Rescan network – yes
7 – Workgroup – Computer – drive – enter username and password
8 – Done

HTC has released a ROM update for the HTC TOUCH PRO. Although, not a lot of improvements, but surely some useful ones.

Improved Functions and Fixes
1. The display of TouchFLO 3D sometimes may appear cracked.
2. When taking a picture, the auto focus function may malfunction in some circumstances.
3. In some circumstances, the preview screen will become black after taking picture.
4. In some circumstances, the device may hang while loading TouchFLO 3D.
5. When hanging up a phone call, there may be a delay in the display response.

Note: this is for the unlocked version.

Note2: Since this is a proper ROM upgrade, all of your data stored in the main storage memory will be lost. Make sure to do the back up

Get the update from HTC SITE

—

Read our HTC TOUCH PRO review

Although you are not going to see the first Windows Mobile 6.5 devices from HP any soon, but HP has made it clear that it has always supported Windows Mobile and will continue to support it in the future too.

“HP continues to work toward developing smartphones that simplify the mobile experience and meet evolving customer needs,” said Susan Macke, vice president, Marketing, Handheld Global Business Unit, Personal Systems Group, HP. “Working closely with key partners such as Microsoft allows for smooth integration of new technologies for the best possible customer experience.”

Lately, the HP’s Windows Mobile devices have failed to create any noticeable splash. On one hand, where we have been hearing about HTC releasing new devices one after another, this has not been the case with HP. Let’s hope, they come up with something more exciting in the future.

[via Brighthand]

The HTC TOUCH PRO was launched by the HTC last year. Following the immense success of the HTC TYTN II, HTC came out with another groundbreaking device. This time, the scene was little different. The HTC TOUCH PRO is built on the design of the sweet and sexy HTC DIAMOND. The DIAMOND was without the keyboard and to make the proper successor of the HTC TYTN II, it needed to have a keyboard built-in. So, here we have, the HTC TOUCH PRO

Design

As mentioned above, the HTC TOUCH PRO is built along the design of the HTC TOUCH DIAMOND. No doubt, they both look very similar from the front side.

From the front, the TOUCH PRO looks exactly like the TOUCH DIAMOND except for the fact that it has curves along the sides.

On the left side of the device, you will find the familiar volume buttons.

The right side of the device is completely naked. As it must have been clear by now, the HTC wanted to keep the device as minimalistic as possible. However, a camera button the right side of the device would have been appreciated.

On the bottom of the device, you will find the HTC’s mini-USB hub which is used for both charging the device and for plugging in the headphones. Another nice improvement over the HTC DIAMOND is the placement of the soft reset button which is placed on the bottom of the device rather than the putting it beneath the cover, which was quite annoying as you had to remove the cover everytime you had to do soft reset the device.

Thickness of the device is considerably larger than the very slim HTC DIAMOND. The reason behind this is the incorporation of the keyboard, which we will covered in the next part.

Keyboard

The HTC TOUCH PRO comes with a very usable keyboard. The placement of the buttons is very well defined and they give the user good tactile feedback. Although, you need to make sure that your nails have been properly cut. Otherwise, you will have a hard time pressing the right key

Camera

The HTC TOUCH PRO features an auto-focus 3.2MP camera. The camera is exactly the same as the TOUCH DIAMOND except for the fact that it has a small flash light too. We found it to be pretty weak.

Here is how the auto-focus works. As-soon-as you gently place you finger over the round-DPAD, it start doing auto-focus. When the auto-focus is done, simply press the D-PAD button to capture the picture. Please note that the TOUCH PRO’s camera also captures video at QVGA resolution.

Storage

The TOUCH PRO comes with a generous 288MB of RAM and 512MNB of ROM. Out of that you get 110MB free RAM and 232MB of free storage  memory. This means that you will probably never run out of RAM. To expand the storage, it comes with a micro-SD slot that has full support for SDHC cards. This means that you can easily pop-in a micro-SD card upto 32GB in theory. The 16GB micro-SD card have already started to hit the market and can be found  for pretty reasonable prices on some online stores.

The micro-SD card is located behind the back panel. So, every time you need to change it, you will have to remove the back panel. So, make sure that you get the biggest one that you can find (and afford).

Phone

The phone picked up strong signals and we faced no problems in using the device even in low signal areas too.

Battery Life

The Touch Pro comes with a 1350mAh battery. Fortunately, the HTC did not go for the 900mAh battery which they used in Diamond. Even then, let’s keep in mind that the TOUCH PRO comes with a VGA display; a zippy processor and tons of connectivity options. If you use the WiFi, it would drain the device within 2-3 hours. So, it is recommended to keep it off when not in use. Overall, with moderate use, you should be able to get a full day of battery life.

Software

The TOUCH PRO uses Windows Mobile 6.1. But, that is not the highlight. HTC introduced the TOUCH FLO 3D, which makes interacting with the device much simpler than before. Now, even if you’ve never used Windows Mobile, you will face (almost) no problems in using the device.

To learn more about the TOUCH FLO 3D, see the software part of review of HTC FUZE.

Conclusion

I’m glad that HTC understood that there are people who require a hardware keyboard to type upon rather than completely relaying on soft keyboard completely. Couple that with powerful processor, VGA display and TV-capability, HTC has got a winner in their hands.

VISIT HTC TOUCH PRO official webpage

Specifications: