Author: Tarandeep Kaur

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