Not satisfied with letting Samsung steal the spotlight completely today, HTC had scheduled a number of media events around Europe where they revealed two brand new Windows Phone 7 devices, both of which will run the oft-previewed (and enjoyed) but yet to be released, Windows Phone 7.5 (aka Mango). HTC has a knack for making beautiful hardware and these devices don’t look like they’ll disappoint in that respect. The real question is whether or not WP7 Mango is enough to keep people interested.

HTC Titan

Just based on the name alone, you know I’m going to rip on this phone for its screen size; before that let’s at least look at what it brings to the table:

• WP7 Mango
• Single-core Snapdragon MSM8255 @ 1.5GHz
• 512MB of RAM
• 4.7” capacitive LCD touchscreen @ 800×480
• 8MP rear camera (BSI sensor, dual-LED flash), 1.3MP front camera
• 720p recording-capable
• Micro USB
• 16GB capacity
• HSPA+
• 1600 mAh battery
• 160 grams (5.6 ounces)
• 9.9mm thick aluminum body

So yeah, the phone looks great, it’s quite thin, and though I haven’t held it myself, I can tell from hands-on reports that it is going to have that classic HTC hardware build-quality to it.

And while WP7 doesn’t use the same interface paradigms as Android, there’s still a lot of issues with a 4.7” and near-16:9 screen which you can read about in detail here.

It seems like people are finally starting to catch on to what I’m saying about these huge phones. This Is My Next makes the following note:

…although the Windows Phone Metro UI keeps things relatively centered and easy for one-handed usage, it’s still not necessarily easy to reach the top of the screen with your thumb when holding the device in one hand, and accessing the power button required a bit of in-hand shuffling in order to climb a finger up to the button located along the top-right edge of the device.

That’s also a mighty big screen for the 800×480 resolution; it might not look as crisp as some of the other devices that have launched or are launching soon (ie: iPhone 4 [960×640], Atrix [960×540], Galaxy Note [1200×800]).

As seen in videos of the phone taken by Engadget and This Is My Next, the single-core CPU running at 1.5GHz runs Mango very smoothly and I that doesn’t surprise me as the 1GHz HTC Surround that I played with last March was able to run the WP7 UI with impressive fluidity.

This is My Next has a massive gallery and a hands-on video of the Titan, take a look.

HTC Radar

The Radar appears to be for people like me, who actually want to be able to use their phone effectively with one hand. Instead of the classically too-big 4.3” screen, they’ve actually brought this one down to 3.8” which I’m quite thankful for. The annoying part, however, is that this smaller phone offers lesser specs, so the idea of top end phones being required to have giant ergonomically crippling screens is still firmly in place. But hopefully we’ll see a lesser price than the Titan as well.

• WP7 Mango
• Single-core Snapdragon MSM8255 @ 1.0GHz
• 512MB of RAM
• 3.8” capacitive LCD touchsceen
• 5MP rear camera (BSI sensor), front facing camera (currently unspecified MP)
• 8GB capacity
• 720p recording-capable
• 1520 mAh battery
• 137 grams (4.83 ounces)

The Radar actually looks a lot like a mini HTC Flyer, and it doesn’t have a user-replaceable battery, which is a point of contention for some but not all.

Viewing angles on the phone look really good and even if the contrast ratio isn’t as ridiculously impressive as the Galaxy Note or Galaxy Tab 7.7’s AMOLED displays, I’ve found that the high-contrast visual design of WP7 negates that problem by a large degree (of course you’ll probably be quite upset if you try to watch any movie with a dark scene on the phone).

Like the Titan, the Radar’s rear camera uses backside illumination technology which helps capture more light for better low light performance (an area where smartphones are often extremely weak). This is great news because the HTC Surround’s camera took some pretty muddy shots in low light. The BSI technology is one of the reasons why the iPhone 4 still takes some of the best pictures in the smartphone category, so I welcome seeing it come to more phones.

This is My Next also has lots of great shots of the Radar as well as a hands-on video. If you’re interested, take a look.

HTC says that the Titan and Radar will become available beginning in October with initial releases in Europe and Asia. Pricing hasn’t been announced and it’s uncertain when/if they’ll see a US release, but we’ll keep you posted.

Thanks to Engadget and This is My Next for providing some of the information contained in this article.

It seems like we cannot go a full calendar month without one of the tech companies holding some event to make a major announcement. Not that I am complaining one bit. This month we have not one, but two giants partnering to bring us some new juicy gadget promises. At least that is what we assume Microsoft and Nokia’s intentions are for the press conference they have just called for the 17th of this month.

The event is to take place in Cologne, Germany, just as the Gamescom convention kicks off. The truth is, we have no idea what M&N intend to announce at this event. But it is a safe bet that it will have something to do with the Nokia Sea Ray and Windows Phone 7. The announcement flyer, at least, indicates that they will be giving away 3 vouchers for a Nokia handset running Windows Phone “as soon as available”.  If the announcement is profound enough, it might just pull Windows Phone and Nokia out of the funk they have been for the last several months.

That is the optimistic view. Now for a little pessimism. What concerns me is that this announcement does not have the feel of a planned reveal. It feels rushed and reactionary. So it makes me wonder if this press event is being held in response to pressure. The pressure of Samsung and Apple’s quarterly earnings statements. The pressure of increasing rumors of an impending fall launch of potentially two new iPhone models. The pressure of Nokia continuing to hemorrhage money.

This is not to say that doing something to staunch the flow is not the right move. It is more a recommendation to temper expectations of what may come out of this announcement with a good dollop of skepticism. It is likely that this is just another announcement confirming M&N’s previously advertised timeline for the release of the first Nokia phone running Windows 7. Nothing new.

It will be great if I am wrong. Nokia’s handset arriving early would be an awesome way to bring in the final quarter of the year. I spent the better part of the first half of this year on a Windows Phone 7 handset, the HTC HD7. I am a big fan of the OS and rank it second on my personal ranking of mobile OS’ for phones, behind Android, but ahead of iOS. Still, it is hard to envision M&N pulling off a major reveal at this juncture given what we have seen of the pair in the mobile space so far this year. A big event that does not really reveal anything new or unexpected could be just as harmful to the Windows Phone movement as a delay in the Sea Ray. Let’s hope that whatever M&N have planned, they do it right. The launch of the Fujitsu Toshiba IS12T may be reason to hold on to hopes for something great.

Either way, you can rest assured that we will cover the story here on Carrypad. See you on the 17th (and hopefully every day in between).

Source: Engadget

I, like many others, believe that Windows 8 will re-enable the pocket productivity market and lift us out of this strange consumer-focused mobile mess we’re in at the moment and get us back to a place where we have ultra mobile PC choices for our mobile, flexible working practices and scenarios. Marketing, social networking, price wars and tablet fever are getting in the way of what many people want productivity in the pocket.

I love Android and IOS of course but I’m not letting that change my opinion that there is a requirement for a full desktop capability in a handheld form factor. The market is indeed fairly small but it’s in many different niches and sectors. [Raise your hands in the comments if you’re one of those ‘niche’ users.] Android and IOS have done a lot for mobility, sharing and mobile media and have quickened the pace of mobile processor developments so much that we’ll all benefit in the end but when you look at the software, the pace of development of productivity software is just embarrassing. On the whole, It’s a sector that focuses on quick-hit, fast turnaround, short-lifecycle software and it’s vastly different to the full-fat, long lifecycle, productive and flexible software you get on the desktop. Two years after this consumer mobile market started taking off there still isn’t a way to buy an off-the-shelf DVB-T module, extend the screen or even log in with multiple user IDs. There are literally hundreds of features that are missing and each one of them is a potential roadblock for the advanced mobile user.

That’s why Windows 8 is an exciting operating system to look forward to. It will retain probably all of the flexibility of Windows 7 but will introduce important features from the world of consumer mobile devices. Always-on, improved sensor support, touch user interface, quick-hit apps and sharing along with support for ARM-based platforms and new X86 platforms that remove some of the old legacy PC features and introduce new boot and power management subsystems. Between now and, lets say, mid 2012, I doubt we’ll see any of the existing mobile operating systems advance so far that they challenge Windows and none of the new operating systems have much of a chance either. Buying an ultra-mobile PC has never been so hard but 12-24 months is a long time to wait for Windows 8. If you’ve got a requirement, you need a device and it’s as simple as that.

Your first strategy would be to sit tight and do nothing.  That assumes you don’t have a new requirement or your current device(s) can be stretched out until then. If you have a new requirement though, be it speed or scenario, and you don’t have a device you can cover it with you could believe the rumors that Windows 8 will arrive early or you could do one of the following things:

1 Go netbook

It’s a low-cost solution but requires a table or a lap. That’s not quite ultra mobile computing is it! Having said that, if you want to save money until Windows 8 comes along, searching for a surface or using your lap might not be too much of a problem to put up with. My advise would be to look at some of the Atom N550 or N570-based devices with a focus on Samsung who still seem to lead with better build quality and more efficient electronic engineering and screens than others. The NF310 continues to get good reports. Asus are also worth considering and the Eee PC 1015 with N570, 2GB RAM and Windows 7 Home Premium is a real bargain at under 400 Euro in my opinion. There’s even the updated T101MT with N570 and 2GB, Windows Home Premium and capacitive touchscreen at around 500 Euro in Europe. Drop a fast SSD into that and it should make quite a nice Windows convertible.

2 Buy a Menlow UMPC

Given the age of Menlow and the lack of choices around it’s not something I would recommend to everyone but if the pocket is the destination and Windows is the requirement, what option do you have than to buy a Viliv N5 or a UMID Mbook SE? Both companies appear to have disappeared from the radar though so be very aware that major failures may not be fixable.

3 Wait for an Oaktrail UMPC

ECS and Viliv have both talked about building a 7 inch Oaktrail-based Windows tablet but unless a major customer or market is found, neither of those solutions are going to hit the market. By all means, wait and see but I personally think it could be a very long wait.

4 Buy an Oaktrail-based tablet

Early review of Oaktrail-based devices aren’t singing the praises about performance and with the CPU inside being basically the same as before, it’s no surprise. The RAM will need to be 2GB, the SSD will need to be fast, Aero will need to be turned off and I dare say there’s some GPU driver improvements to be made but despite the claims of speed issues, you’ll still be able to render full flash and javascript-enabled web pages with 100% accuracy and faster than any ARM-based tablet out there. Battery life reports are showing marked improvements too so if running a PC in a 5W power envelope is your aim, take a close look at Oaktrail. The Samsung PC7 (TX100, Gloria) slider is one to watch out for and although my recent queries to Samsung don’t return any new information, they certainly don’t indicate that the project has been scrapped. I’ll keep you updated on that one.

5 Go IOS or Android, adapt your requirements and track the developments

You may want to plug in your DSLR and run the remote capture software but there are alternatives. In this case, check out the Eye-Fi card. For those wanting full Microsoft Office support, look at the Asus Transformer and think about a remote desktop solution. For full-internet-experience browsing, look at whether IOS or Honeycomb will satisfy your needs. On smaller Android tablets, the Dolphin HD and Opera Mobile browsers are coming along nicely. Firefox is progressing too.  Think about a Dell Streak (only 299 Euros here in Germany right now) or a Galaxy Tab (350 Euros) along with a low-cost netbook. Look at PC keyboard sharing solutions for Android. Think about the Google suite too. Android also offers a lot that you can’t get in a PC yet. Location, Sharing, always-on and a large amount of fun!

If you’ve read this far, you’re into ultra mobile computing which is a good thing. It’s fun, flexible and productive but you will also have very individual requirements. The private pilot. The dentist. The courtroom assistant. The musician. The world-tourer. Take a close look at your requirements and see what would want and compare it with what you, realistically, will need. If possible, take a risk or two and ignore that extreme scenario that you’ve got on your list. One thing I would advise all of you to do though is to check out the Samsung Galaxy Tab. I’m not joking when I say it changed my mobile computing world. I no longer have a netbook. I no longer have a high-end smartphone and there are very few scenarios that I can’t cover with it now. I’ve heard people say the same about the Dell Streak (5 inch) too. If you really can’t swallow that, the iPhone 4 has to be high on the list, the netbooks I mentioned above and even some older devices like the Samsung Q1 Ultra Premium.

Oh, and don’t forget to look at the Toshiba Libretto W100/W105!

Hey folks. Here’s an excerpt of of my recent HTC Surround review that I wanted to highlight. It’s way more broad than the HTC Surround alone; it applies to every Windows Phone 7 device thus released. I think it deserves its own place for discussion so I’m offering it up for viewing here in this article. If you’ve spent some time with Windows Phone 7, please join us in the comments after reading. Even if you haven’t yet played with WP7, I’d be interested to hear what people think about the platform after realizing what it has become. Here it is:

I really like the Windows Phone 7 interface. I’ve been really impressed with it ever since I got my hands on the Surround. The Surround doesn’t have the top-of-the-line CPU, nor does it have the most RAM of any smartphone out there. Still, it powers the WP7 GUI with ease. You’ll find slick and smooth animations throughout the core parts of the OS. Particular apps vary in their performance and are sometimes sluggish on the interface side of things.

Though I’m very impressed with the unique interface of WP7, there’s one thing that’s really bugging me. To explain, you’ll have to watch this:

This was the video used to announce Windows Phone 7 a little while back. The analogy of apps being rooms that you can only be in one at a time was a great way to poke fun at Apple’s iOS which, at the time, only ran one application at a time with no apparent backgrounding/multitasking. Microsoft promised that they were going to avoid this and let applications work together and provide glance-able information rather than asking you to jump between different apps.

Now here’s the sad part: While iOS went on to provide a great multi-tasking experience by freezing applications in the background and providing the ability to quick-switch between them, Windows Phone 7 actually became exactly what it was mocking in the WP7 announcement video.

Apps in WP7 function exactly like they showed in the video; as individual rooms. Apps cannot run in the background (beyond your typical email/sms/music). Many don’t even run while the phone is locked! For instance, if I lock my phone while viewing the official Twitter app, then come back to the phone a few seconds later and unlock it, I’ll be greeted with a several second pause and a “resuming inch message as I wait for the app to get going again. If I see something online that I want to share on Facebook, I have to exit the browser and wait for the Facebook app to get started.

The video also mentions that apps on other platforms “rarely work together inch. In WP7 they never work together. Because of the individual “room inch nature of each app, and the lack of cut/copy/paste, WP7 doesn’t feel like it’s geared toward productivity.

“I need to get this address from the web browser into the Maps application… well with no way to copy text, or even switch quickly between the apps, I guess I can’t do that. inch

“Wow this is a great webpage, I’d love to share this link with my twitter friends. Wait a minute, can’t do that! inch

“I’ll just record this meeting while I reference some notes from my email. Oh no, that’s impossible on WP7! inch

Ok, I think you catch my drift. All of the above is quite possible on iOS or Android, but impossible on Windows Phone 7. Clearly, they haven’t delivered on their promise to prevent the app “room inch analogy.

Considering that Windows Phone 7 is a total restart of Microsoft’s mobile OS offering, and that’s it’s just out of the gate, it’s impressive. But in a world full of several mature and maturing mobile operating systems, WP7 needs a serious 2.0 update if it hopes to make a dent in the space. If Microsoft doesn’t deploy such an update soon, they might get knocked out of the race all together.

Microsoft wants to get in on the modern mobile OS action, and after the inevitable fall of their previous version of Windows Mobile, Microsoft has sought to restart their mobile offering, thus Windows Phone 7 was born. The HTC Surround pairs WP7 with well-built hardware and an interesting approach to phone audio, but will Windows Phone 7 be able to catch on, or is it too little too late from Microsoft?

Hardware

Here’s a quick rundown of the HTC Surround’s specs, follow by a hardware tour of the phone:

• Windows Phone 7 OS (as reviewed, version 7.0.7004.0)
• Qualcomm QSD 8250 CPU @ 1GHz
• 576MB of RAM
• 8GB of built-in memory (no expansion)
• 3.8 inch capacitive touchscreen @ 800×480
• WiFi b/g/n & BT 2.1
• 5MP camera with single-LED flash (records up to 720p video)
• Slide out speaker with Dolby Mobile and SRS audio technology
• 165 grams (5.82 ounces)

Hardware Tour

Design

Let me start by saying that the HTC Surround feels great in the hand. It’s been too long since I tested a phone that had some real heft to it (in a good way). Recent phones (cough*Samsung*cough) have left me with a feeling of cheapness. The Surround however feels like a premium device right out of the box.

Metallic accents are found all around the phone . The front is a combination of brushed and polished metal and has a wide ear-piece that fits the look of the phone well. The back is rubberized much like the Droid X [review], and it has just a hint of metallic sparkles in it that you’ll see if you hold it in just the right light. The back is also home to a polished HTC logo, and above that is the 5MP camera and single-LED flash, both of which are encased in a metal accent piece with small radial ridges that emanate from the lens.

But this is all before sliding the device open which reveals a speaker bar that comes about 1/3 of the way out of the side of the phone. I’ll talk more about the speaker bar below, but on the design side of things I wanted to mention that the sliding mechanism could be better. I’ve definitely seen/felt worse, but the Surround’s sliding mechanism could use a bit of work to make it slide more evenly and have less wiggle.

Despite the premium feel of the phone (considering the materials used and the weight of it), the buttons didn’t seem to receive too much attention. All physical buttons on the phone, except for the camera button, don’t provide very good feedback. It’s hard to tell when you’ve pressed the power/lock button. The volume rocker is a bit better with slightly more feedback, but the camera button is the only one that has enough “click inch for my taste.

The bottom of the phone has a pry-slot to pull the back cover off, but it generally feels like you’re on the brink of ripping the phone into it’s two sliding halves. I haven’t found a good way to get the back cover off without stressing the sliding mechanism in a way that it wasn’t design to move. If you are a road warrior who relies on swapping batteries during road trips, be weary of this fact on the Surround as repeated removals could lead to breakage.

On general aesthetics of the device: I think it’s a good looking phone. When you make the investment to purchase a phone that will be with you for, perhaps several years, people should expect more than a piece of plastic. The Surround would feel even more solid if they rid it of the sliding segment, but despite this extra hardware, the Surround isn’t much thicker than many of it’s contemporaries.

Meet:Mobility Podcast 64 is now available.

Sashca, JKK and Chippy discuss the Nokia news from Fridays announcement and how that impacts MeeGo. We cover new netbook news and discuss MWC 2011

Listen, subscribe and download at MeetMobility here.

At Computex, Microsoft announced Windows Embedded Compact 7, the latest version of their Windows CE operating system. While Windows CE was generally used for less consumer friendly things in the past (ATMs, cars, automation systems, etcetera) it looks like Microsoft is trying to grab a little piece of the mobile operating system market which is currently being dominated by Android.

Windows Embedded Compact 7 (that’s a mouthful, let’s just call it WEC7) is not an out-of-the-box OS like Android. Instead, it’s more of a foundation for an OS that allows companies to create custom branded software experiences on a given device. Joanna Stern of Engadget has a video demonstrating what sort of interfaces that an OEM could build:

It’ll be interesting to see if any companies decide to create their own OS experience using WEC7 rather than just going with Android.

If you’ve been paying attention to Mobile World Congress at all today, you’ll find that the big news is Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 Series (as they are now calling it). This is the latest version of Microsoft’s phone operating system and it is a pretty big change from the previous version. A lot of people are hoping that this will raise the bar for what people expect from a Windows Mobile phone, and update the OS to be competitive with the rest of the players (iPhone OS, Android, Palm WebOS, etc.) Microsoft has thrown away just about everything from the previous version and started anew which a highly animated and stylistic interface (it’s about time.) If you’ve used the Zune HD, you might recognize many of the interface concepts. Check out a video below:

I could tell you guys and gals all about Windows Phone 7 Series here (annoying name, isn’t it?) but the folks over at Engadget are already all over WP7S with plenty of great pictures and videos, so I’ll let them take over in that regard.

What this post is here for, however, is to theorize what this may mean for the MID/MIDPhone segment. What’s interesting about Windows Mobile is that the OS has never really been featured on any modern media-centric devices that aren’t phones. Considering that the word “phone inch is actually in the name of Microsoft’s latest version of Windows Mobile, it’s unlikely that we’ll see it pop up in non-phone devices. Is Microsoft creating a silly artificial limit by dedicating this OS to phones? Possibly.

I can’t imagine that they don’t want as much consumer mobile device market share as possible. Take Android for instance — it is the OS of choice on just about any MID (and plenty of phones as well) these days. As smartphones and MIDs continue to meld together, WP7S might just get edged out if they don’t open it up to other devices. Perhaps MS wants to protect the image of Windows Mobile this time around by only letting it run on approved devices to ensure a great user experience? We’ll have to wait to see exactly what happens, but I think MS will be running into a wall of questions such as, “What exactly constitutes a phone? inch, as we head into the future. Will a device that relies exclusively on 3G for VoIP calling be considered a phone in Microsoft’s eyes, and thus be allowed to run WP7S?