IDOL. Another Compal-based MID

Posted on 31 October 2008, Last updated on 11 November 2019 by

Proving that the Italians just never stop communicating is the second MID to appear in their country. The IDOL.

idol

Baed on the Compal JAX-10 design and using the Redflag Midinux software build, the IDOL is selling through Itelco for 449 without contract or FREE if you sign up for a 24x40Euros data contract.  It calls into question the current 500 Euro + price for the Aigo MID which doesn’t have 3G included!

Details here (Italian)

Thanks Minuz.

26 Comments For This Post

  1. turn.self.off says:

    shiny black. still needs a different distro tho :(

  2. minuz says:

    hi, i’m write from italy and i want to signal the link for english information

    http://www.itelcospa.com/en/pages/02/01_product.asp?cartella=02&area=1&menu=0

  3. Chippy says:

    Thanks Minuz
    Somehow I always get an error so I drilled down from this page.

    http://www.itelcospa.com/en/

    Steve

  4. minuz says:

    the link don’t work correctly, if you want to see the reference you give go to http://www.itelcospa.com/ and then click on “mobile device” here you can read the reference in english

  5. ecsk2 says:

    First product on the list here:
    http://www.itelcospa.com/en/pages/02/01.asp?cartella=02&area=1&menu=0

  6. focus says:

    “the current 500 Euro + price for the Aigo MID which doesn’t have 3G included!”
    Did you say’d 600+ at mobilx?Outrageous!

  7. Chad says:

    I wonder if anyone will come out with a 3G version which will also do voice… It would make for a great cell phone if you used a BT headset, but I guess no one wants a cell phone with a 4hr battery life.

  8. Chippy says:

    CEllphones also only have 4hr battery life….if you use them like a MID!

    http://www.umpcportal.com/2008/02/how-big-is-an-all-day-mobile-internet-smartphone

    Steve

  9. ecsk2 says:

    First off I guess any phone that would be possible to use as an MID would be referred to as a Smartphone, no? :)

    Having have said that my Sidekick (developed by Danger, now bought by MicroSoft) and built by Sharp in Japan, lasts at least 12 hours without any problems, that is with: A) Push email B) Browser and C) AIM, YAHOO, MSN messengers ALL LIVE AT ALL TIMES, there’s no way to disable them even once the device is on these are all loaded and always runing. The battery is 3.7V 1540mAh.

    For those not familiar with the device here it is:
    http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/phones/Detail.aspx?device=25ec0d27-b602-4fdb-9c84-d8e9722d12de

    This is essentially the 5th model with the first update (first -> second) only being from B&W to color screen, so in that sense this is the 4th generation, they have all worked in the same way when it comes to “always on”.

    Ironic isn’t it that this Sharp built device is one of the best of its kind when it comes to battery time, but the D4 for instance without any question is one of the worst in it’s class (when it comes to battery time).

    Might just be though that one thing the Sidekick benefits greatly from is the NO 3G, for the battery time that is. This is why I have had the idea that someone could come out with the idea of using 3G **ONLY** when you actually need it, and EDGE for other normal “constant communications” or even GPRS as it would save battery significantly, and since EDGE is even sufficient for certain audio streams.

    I personally hope we will at some point see a WWAN connection solution that switches between GPRS-EDGE-3G-etc automatically, and not only due to what’s available but based on what you’re doing, approaching it this way I firmly believe a 2-3 hour device could be bumped to 8-12 hours, based on my own experience of my Sidekick (teenage smartphone :)). Yes an MID would need more battery power due to its OS, but then again it should be able to use a larger battery than 1540mAh also.

  10. ecsk2 says:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danger_Hiptop

    More info on the device.

    Now PLEASE DON’T get me wrong, this device is great for Emails, some type of browsing and typing on the web, and IMs, and anything else you might want to TYPE. Aside from that it is NOT any MID it really doesn’t do any video and the media player is VERY cumbersome to use, so for me it does what it does in a great way.

    The only reason I brought it up here is BATTERY TIME in conjunction with LIVE CONSTANT WWAN.

  11. turn.self.off says:

    the big thing to note about the danger phones are that the browser works very much like the opera mini j2me browser.

    that is, everything is run thru a proxy server, and only the finished page is sent on to the user.

    i think one big issue is that a lot of internet protocols, like im, is built around pulling. that is, its the clients job of checking the server for updates, not the servers job to push notifications to the client.

    this results in a whole lot of wasted cpu and radio use as the client has to go “anything new?” just to have the server go “nope, check back later”.

    the reason for this? they are from a age where the only internet connection was a hardwired one. as such you could leave something running 24/7 as long as there was power.

    this is probably also why apple dont allow random outbound connections from third party software, but rather run it all via their generic push server. this way they can bundle the data into single large “pulses”, and then fire up whatever app that should respond, as needed.

    also, part of the energy efficiency of gsm/edge is the frequency bands used. in europe, its 900Mhz or 1800Mhz, umts/hspa works on 2100Mhz.

    higher frequencies have shorter range and lesser penetrative ability. therefor more power has to be put behind the signal in general.

    umts can work on gsm bands, but as the protocols behave differently, they cant share a channel.

    so for the operators there is a chicken and egg issue. they cant use the lower bands until most users are on phones that can use the higher bands/more recent protocols.

    and as many dont find that umts gives any benefit above gsm (video call flopped, on the go data is more geek then anything else) things are moving slowly…

  12. ecsk2 says:

    “everything is run thru a proxy server”

    True but how is this related to BATTERY TIME?

    “this results in a whole lot of wasted cpu and radio use as the client has to go “anything new?” just to have the server go “nope, check back later”.”

    Even though this might not be the most efficient use, it in essence only proves my argument on the TOPIC AT HAND just even more, that is full day battery time can go hand in hand with constant live data. Right?

    “the reason for this? they are from a age where the only internet connection was a hardwired one.”

    I am not sure who “they” are and what you exactly mean by “hardwired” but surely there was wireless internet in 2000 when Danger was founded not to mention in 2002 when the first Sidekick was released (it in itself was using wireless internet!? http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/09/30/BU202936.DTL&type=tech

    “also, part of the energy efficiency of gsm/edge is the frequency bands used. in europe, its 900Mhz or 1800Mhz, umts/hspa works on 2100Mhz.”

    In Europe yes but most Sidekicks are used in NA hence depending upon the model they will be 1900Mhz exclusively or with 850 or 900 it is only the latest generation that is actually 850/900/1800/1900 Mhz. but no umts/hsdpa

    “umts can work on gsm bands, but as the protocols behave differently, they cant share a channel.”

    Naturally but switching between various forms of wireless communications can be made very seamless just as it is done on the iPhone between WLAN and WWAN (I have yet to see a device with smoother switching between the two!)

  13. turn.self.off says:

    a proxy server makes the device itself able to have a smaller cpu as it does not need to do the heavy lifting there is of rendering the whole web page.

    as for “they”, im thinking about im protocols. most who are from the early 90’s, at least.

    and inefficient use is exactly what makes all day battery troublesome. as long as its the phone or other device that needs to be the active party, its wasting battery life.

    with the normal phone protocols, the phone itself is idle most of the time, except to answer when the base station ask.

    each thing the phone has to be the active party in, will cause added battery drain. not just from the radio, but from the cpu as well as it gets not chance to sleep.

    think of it as either having to be the hyperactive kid going “are we there yet” or the one just sleeping in back seat until a parent finds reason to wake him.

  14. ecsk2 says:

    I think you’re loosing me now…
    First you say this solution “results in a whole lot of wasted cpu and radio use ” but now you say ” the device itself able to have a smaller cpu as it does not need to do the heavy lifting there is of rendering the whole web page.” so is it wasting CPU generous upon the CPU needs/load? :)

    “as for “they”, im thinking about im protocols. most who are from the early 90’s, at least.”
    OK it’s bit hard to follow when you type out “I’m” (I am) and “IM” all as “im” not sure when you’re talking about what? Another thing the Sidekick by the way fixes automatically :) anyhow, regardless of what you were talking about, if you’re saying this is not the most efficient solution it only goes to prove my point that a device CAN TODAY survive all day with constant data running. The whole point that Steve was trying to point out isn’t happening. I say yes it’s NOT common but it is being done!

    “and inefficient use is exactly what makes all day battery troublesome. as long as its the phone or other device that needs to be the active party, its wasting battery life”

    Well that’s just my point the device I am talking about, is by your definition (I’m not disputing that) INefficient yet I use it successfully every day for AT LEAST 12 hour straight, as at this given moment the device is in front of me and I’ve had plenty of data communication and is showing ALL FIVE bars still after SEVEN HOURS of constantly being on, in fact the screen can’t be completely turned off as say on the iPhone even, it will only lock up and go a bit dimmer but never shut off completely.

    “with the normal phone protocols, the phone itself is idle most of the time, except to answer when the base station ask.”

    Very true but NOT the case with the Sidekicks, which makes them very unique (afaik). I have yet to see a phone that is able to run this amount of hours and keep IMs and other data OPEN constantly.

    “each thing the phone has to be the active party in, will cause added battery drain. not just from the radio, but from the cpu as well as it gets not chance to sleep.”

    I know I spent around a decade in the production of GSM devices in the dawn of the GSM devices :) got trained on the subject by both the “Big N” and the “Big E” of the time :)

    “think of it as either having to be the hyperactive kid going “are we there yet” or the one just sleeping in back seat until a parent finds reason to wake him.”

    That is how ONE AND THE SAME smartphones work 99.9% of the time, take any WM phone or Symbian with either Skype or 3rd party IM SW installed or/and a GPS receiver and that’s what you will get “ALL OR NOTHING” meaning all the action and after a while it’s dead. Or its in some type of standby like a WM phone when you have a browser and you stop surfing, it typically will cut off radio thereby taking its fair amount of time to get back ONLINE. Not the case with the Sidekicks.

    Either way this topic should be for MIDs not smartphones :) I steered it in the battery time direction as I strongly disagree that technology isn’t out there to enable FULL DAY DATA communication!

  15. turn.self.off says:

    bah, sorry about my bad typing. i didnt even notice it myself…

    anyways, i suspect that sidekick is doing is running everything via a server at t-mobile or danger.

    as in, rather then going like this:

    sidekick -> umpcportal.com

    its goes:

    sidekick -> server at t-mobile -> umpcportal.com

    where the server keeps track of the page, chews it before passing it on to sidekick and so on.

    same thing with IM:

    sidekick -> t-mobile server -> MSN/AIM/YM

    that way, the front end on the phone can sleep, while the server watches for changes, and can instantly relay the status back to the phone when the user wakes it up, or something happens that needed the users attention.

    its the same thing that apple wants third party apps to do.

    on the other hand, a mid do not have said server to track the data. it has to do so itself. and this makes it use both more cpu and more radio. both resulting in more battery drain.

  16. ecsk2 says:

    AFAIK the emails go through Danger’s server but the browser stuff through Tmo that’s why one might be down but the other not. I really have no way of knowing (without reading online like anyone else can too :)) how the IMs are channeled.

    Either way in my perspective I could care less HOW/WHAT the tech solution is as long as it works, and in this case it does! So if that would mean for me as a consumer that I’d need to install a 3rd party sw in my main computer for it to serve as such a proxy for a MID or other type of devices that’s fine with me..although I see this topic very quickly going back to my idea of future mobile computing, that is “in the cloud” and your mobile device is nothing more than a “dummy terminal” of the 80’s only a lot smarter with basic functions/readers etc in the bios.

  17. turn.self.off says:

    i should probably say that i dont think on the go web will bring many people to use hspa. what could bring people to use it tho is a combo of gps and a net connection that will allow for a continually updated POI system.

    that is, something where one can grab the terminal, open up a list of point types, and have the gps and net connection work with each other to find the closest ones.

    not going to google maps on the web, but bringing the same data as google maps can provide, to the phone, in a format that makes it easy to use, with the phone interface. i dont find designed for desktop web pages easy to use on the go, even with a touch screen. and no, the famous zoom of the iphone would not help here, as a map is not organized in columns…

  18. kyuss says:

    ´http://www.tim.it/consumer/c365/i3329/o76452/prodotto.do

    449 is not bad…the m528 is currently listed for 725 euros, not to mention the Aigo MID without 3G…

  19. Marc G says:

    So how do I get one sent to the UK?!

  20. ecsk2 says:

    One of the Italian ones?

  21. Marc G says:

    Having translated some of the page, it appears the button I thought was ‘add to shopping cart’ is in fact a ‘notify’ button.

    Suggesting this isn’t out yet.

  22. smurf says:

    Non disponibile should be understandable even without italian background ^^

    just surprising if the MID will come with an OS that is not only limited to italian language and if some german kiddies travelling to italia to get one – like they did to catch an unlocked iphone *giggles*

  23. nomax says:

    @smurf
    Im from germany, but Im no kid – as like 99% of users here.
    So please tell me whats wrong with getting an unlocked iphone (something thats not possible in germany)? What would be wrong with saving a couple of hundred euros for a MID?
    Also: No need to travel to italy – we also have postal services (and tap water, and electricity, and enough food in europe thank you).

  24. admin says:

    it would be interesting to see if they would deliver outside Italy

    Steve

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