HTC Smartphone

Free Windows Mobile applications, often quality can be hard to find. But today we compiled a list of five real gems. What they have to offer? Quality, usability and good looks, all in a free package for everyone on the Windows Mobile platform.

Opera Mobile
Let’s start with what is clearly the best browser available on Windows Mobile. Opera Mobile, weather it be version 9.5 that has been available for some time now, or the newest beta of 9.7 Opera Mobile will make browsing on your Touch screen device a breeze. The bookmark system, the speed and the looks and usability make it by far the best experience we ever had while browsing the net. If you have been using Opera Mobile 9.5 for some time now (it is included in many HTC ROMs) you should give 9.7 a try. Not everyone knows this but you can run the two versions side by side, so feel free to try out this beta, and if you don’t like it just uninstall it. Find it here.

Google Maps Mobile
Need we say anything about this application for your Windows phone? Google Maps works great on any Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Android, Nokia device. Google has put quite the effort in this little application to make the experience great. The only thing I would really like to see for this app is that you can predownload some maps from Google themselves, so you can view the maps a bit faster when on a slow connection. Thanks for this great app Google! You can download it here .

Facebook
Microsoft released their own Facebook for Windows Phones application recently, I guess they finally noticed how important social networks are becoming to the mobile phone community. What can I say? The application does work, but seems a bit sluggish compared with the iPhone or Android version. Let’s hope this application will improve with time and bring a good experience to the Windows Mobile 6.5 phones that are hitting the market this October. Download it here.

Stay tuned to see more posts regarding some great freeware Windows Mobile applications getting a short review. There are many more hidden gems that few people know about and are often just as good if not better then a lot of the payed counterparts.

Looking for some quality games for Windows Mobile? Check out this post.

Small bits and pieces of information have been dripping in on the HTC Leo that soon will be released by HTC as their new flagship Windows Mobile 6.5 device. So what makes the HTC Leo so special? So many Windows Mobile devices have been released and were announced recently. Here are the strong points of the upcoming device HTC leo:

Specs
CPU: Snapdragon MSM 8250 1GHz
Display: 4,3″ 480*800 capacitive touch-screen
Memory: 512 ROM and 320 RAM
Camera: 8 mega pixel with auto focus
Radio/GSM: Wi-Fi, A-GPS Blue tooth 2.1 + EDR, support GSM/EDGE, HSDPA
Audio: 3,5mm Jack
Expansion slot: Micro SD Slot
G-Sensor, motion sensor and light sensor.

4.3 inch Capacitive Touchscreen
Let’s start by explaining the difference between a capacitive and resistive touchscreen. Up until now all Windows Mobile devices have used resistive touchscreens, these screens work with pressure points that cover the lower layer of the touchscreen surface. When you press down on one of these pressure points the device knows where you placed your finger/stylus and will react accordingly.

Capacitive touchscreens use a glass insulator layer that has been coated with a transparent conductor. The human body (your finger) is the conductor when touching the surface. This technique requires a very light touch to control your device. The big plus point of this technology is that it supports multi touch (thing of the famous Apple pinch to zoom in). Many people are getting enthusiastic about this technology coming to Windows Mobile. The HTC Leo will be running Windows Mobile 6.5 and we have never seen a Windows Mobile device with a capacitive touchscreen so we have to wait and see what it brings to Windows Mobile. I believe HTC is counting on the sheer size of the touch screen to makeup for any menus or settings Windows Mobile still has that are harder to control with your fingers.

Snapdragon CPU
The past 2 years HTC has made countless Windows Mobile phones with the same Qualcomm 528MHz CPU. In comparison to the newest hardware this CPU really has sub par speed. Comparing it to the CPU in the iPhone or the Palm Pre is like comparing a Lamborghini to a Volkswagen beetle. Yes, the difference is that big.

Windows Mobile 6.5
The HTC Leo will be amongst the first Windows Mobile 6.5 devices. Recently I made a post about Windows Mobile 6.5 and HTC devices so i encourage you to read that if you want to be informed of what Windows Mobile 6.5 will bring to the world of Smartphones.

And really, the rest of the specs speak for themselves. 8mp camera, all kinds of sensors, 3.5 jack for your convenience and plenty of memory available through SD cards. The only point that is kind of worrying is the camera, the camera of the Touch HD/Diamond/Touch Pro series have been sub-par in comparison to Nokia/Samsung and some other brands. Let’s hope HTC fixed this, and impresses us soon.

Unless you are into the habit of flashing your windows mobile phone with user-made ROMs there currently is no Windows Mobile 6.5 device out there yet. If you are interested in flashing your Windows Mobile device by the way, check out the following website (only the best website there is for custom ROMs (made by people other than phone companies): www.xda-developers.com. But Microsoft has announced that the first Windows Mobile Smartphone’s are just around the corner. 6 October is the date. So what is all the fuss about? What will they bring to the table that we haven’t already seen in Windows Mobile 6.1?

Windows Marketplace

Well for starters; Windows Marketplace (see screenshot below). Windows Mobile users will finally have proper way to get over the air applications and games, payed and free. Microsoft is quite the late bloomer in this department as both iPhone OS and android mobile phones have had applications shops for more than a year now. Let’s hope there will be a bit of a catch-up in windows mobile development soon. Handsets like the HTC Touch HD have had little attention from mobile game developers, of course there are exceptions.

New home screen

Windows Mobile 6.5 by default features a new home screen called Titanium. It’s very finger friendly and looks to be beautiful and smooth to the eye.

The home screen also allows for quite some customization. You can see a great video here that shows some of the possibilities.

New lock screen

The new lock screen offers a new slide left or right to unlock, wich is very finger friendly. Not only does the lock screen allow for a nice unlock mode, but also shows the current background you are using for your home screen. You can also see a battery, sound and reception indicator in the top right of the screen.

Next to these features the lock screen offers notifications for SMS, voicemail, missed calls and new e-mail. The great thing is that like how you unlock the phone with sliding to the left or right (as indicated by the arrows in the screenshot, you can also slide the missed calls, sms, voicemail and e-mail notifications to the left or right. This will take you directly to the notification you decided to drag. The phone will unlock and you will see your item directly.

Kinetic scrolling

Next to some other smaller UI tweaks Microsoft has made for Windows Mobile 6.5 one of the better ones is system wide kinetic scrolling. This means that when you scroll your contacts, a website, or just a file structure of any type it will not only look a lot better than before but also feel much more natural. What the kinetic scrolling really means is that when for example you give your phone a quick ‘flick’ and move your finger really fast, the list you are navigating will gain a much bigger acceleration, speed and longevity then for example a soft touch would.

For all us Windows Mobile 6.5 enthusiasts lets hope Windows Mobile 6.5 will not disappoint and brings some great hardware and software with it in the near future.

Surely I’m not the only one who has been having some problems finding fun games for a Windows Mobile device. While Android and iPhone OS both have had their app-stores up and running for some time now, there is no such thing for Windows Mobile as of yet. As I have been using the HTC Touch HD which runs on the WVGA (800×480) resolution for some time now, I thought I’d share my findings with you today in this article.

1. Tiki Towers

Tiki Towers is a game in the style of World Of Goo. If you don’t know this game check out this video on YouTube. The point of Tiki Towers is to guide monkeys over obstacles while retrieving bananas, which seems like something a monkey would want to be doing. So far for the realism in the game. The game works very smooth on a lot of different Windows Mobile smartphones I gave it a test drive on.  The best think about it is that it actually scales your viewing size depending on the resolution your phone is running on. In this case it would be 800×480(WVGA) as this is the size of the Touch HD. You have a great oversight of the monkeys playground. The game is fun and can be a challenge, the physics  engine used in the game appears to work pretty well and you can solve the levels in a lot of different ways.

2. Resco Brain Games

Reso Brain Games is a no-brainer(hilarious pun intended) on this Top 5 Windows Mobile WVGA game list. Not only are these type of game getting increasingly popular with the casual and mainstream gamers, but the game runs very smooth, is fun and addicting.

3. Xtract

Xtract racing was made for the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1, but the game also runs on the Touch HD in full WVGA resolution. The best thing about this game is that it actually is completely 3D accelerated by the Touch HD graphic chip. Something that has been lacking in a lot of games because of the lacking 3D drivers for the chipset used in this HTC device. You can find the game on FreewarePOcketPC.com.

4. PDA Poker Art – Texas Hold’em Poker for Windows Mobile

A brand new Poker game for Windows Mobile that runs on WVGA resolutions, what else can you wish for? PDA Poker Art is has rich bright graphics, works well, has fitting sound effects and is just general fun. That is if you enjoy a card game now and then. The game allows for different skill levels and seemingly dynamic AI acting/bluffing and blind-stealing.

5. Resco Bubbles

Resco bubbles, a game very suitable for the Touch HD big WVGA screen and uses the motion sensor to control a little ball. With the ball you break bubbles, dodge obstacles and pickup power-ups. It’s a great show stealer and a very easy entry level, when you gain access to the higher tier of levels they can be very frustrating (why must games always have an ice-level?). Overall it’s allot of fun and great value for your money. With 2 mentions in this top five Resco is doing quite well. Keep it up guys.

Ever since HTC released the first Android device, the HTC Dream also known as the T-Mobile G1 on 22 October 2008 they have come a long way in improving their devices. Android in general has improved quite allot since the now almost 1 year that the device has been out. The current devices are running on android 1.5 (all users can upgrade over the air). The goal of this article is to inform the reader of the different android devices available at the time. And hopefully help making a choice, in this soon to be crowded market.

HTC Dream

HTC Dream

As said earlier the Dream was the first android device released by HTC and available to the public. It features a 3.2 inch capacitive touchscreen, 3.2 mega pixel camera with auto focus and a sliding qwerty keyboard. The CPU a MSM7201A ARM11 that can run at 528mhz but has been under clocked by HTC (perhaps to increase battery life which was not a strong part of this phone).  The phone is still loved by many in the android community because of the qwerty keyboard and many hacks that allow you to overclock the CPU, lets you run applications from the SD card and install custom firmware. However the device is allot thicker then the other android smart-phones that HTC has released. The Dream is also the first “google experience” phone on the market. The google experience means that there are no shells installed on the device by the creators (like HTC did with the Hero, don’t worry we will come to that later on). The google experience stand for full google app integration like Gmail, google documents, and many more.

HTC Magic

HTC Magic

The HTC Magic also know as the T-Mobile myTouch 3G is the second android phone HTC released. The specs are almost identical to the HTC Dream, in fact the specs of nearly all the HTC android phones are close to identical. The same processor is the heart of this device but this time they did not under-clock it and runs at the same speed. The Magic like the Dream is a google experience phone. The Magic was released with google android 1.5 (the build that added the on-screen keyboard). The on-screen keyboard was of course necessary as the Magic does not have a qwerty keyboard nor a keypad; it’s a full touch screen device.

HTC Hero

The Hero, HTC’s first non-google experience android device. HTC has it running their Sense UI, proudly presented as the counterpart to windows mobiles devices that run TouchFlo 3D. The Sense UI will be running on many upcoming HTC Android devices including the recently announced HTC Tattoo.  They market the Hero as a real HTC-Smartphone experience. The interface includes a search function that searches your contacts, twitter, e-mails and more. Next to the 3,2-inch capacitive touchscreen the hero has a 5 mega-pixel camera, GPS, digital compess, motion sensor and a 3,5mm jack so you can hook-up any headphones to the device. The Hero is the top of the line android smartphone that HTC has to offer.

HTC Tattoo

The Tattoo als know as the HTC Click is a new upcoming android device from HTC. The device has lesser specs compared to the HTC Hero, Tattoo will feature a 320×240 resistive screen. In the touch friendly categorie this is usualy considered to be the lesser brother in comparison to capacitive touchscreens where the most well known device is the iPhone line-up. The selling points of the HTC Tattoo are the fact that it runs HTC’s Sense UI, has removeable fronts – hence the name Tattoo as in – you can change the look like tattooing your body. The pricing range of the Tattoo will be alot lower then the other Android phones. HTC is hoping to bring Android to the masses.