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ASUS P835 now official [Windows Mobile]

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.

ASUS P835 specs review price

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.

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HTC TOUCH DIAMOND and HTC TOUCH DIAMOND 2 comparison photos [Windows Mobile]

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

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OQO customer support sucks in Asia? [UMPC]

OQO customers are facing a lot of problems in providing services to the OQO owners located in Asia. Look at this reply to the customer’s repair query:

Unfortunately we are unable to ship outside of the US. If you could provide a US address that you could use then we would be able to set up an Out of Warranty RMA, but you would also need to have a credit card issued through a US bank in order to pay for the repairs. If this is not able to be done than you can go through Dynamism where the original purchase was made and they will send it to us and they will bill you. Thank You, OQO Customer Care

So, you need to have a US address + Credit Card issued via US bank.

The horror stories do not end there. It took one customer nearly 2 ½ months (living in Asia) to get his power adapter replaced. And to get the replacement, he had to specify a US address even though he had bought the device in the US itself.

Due to the poor customer support, there is no doubt that OQO has lost many of its potential customers. Those have now shifted their minds towards other netbooks/UMPCs. However, we must understand that OQO is not a big company. Most of its resources are outsourced for parts and repairs. And it is quite natural that the customers who buy these $1500+ devices are going to be angry when they will not be provided  with the service they expect. Although, it may sounds a little unfair that the US and EU/EFTA countries enjoy direct OQO support while the rest of the countries have to undergo grueling and time-consuming process to get their OQO repaired.

[related OQOtalk thread]

visit OQO official webpage

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ASUS Eee Shell ultra-thin netbook to launch in April 2009

After the nice success of their ASUS EEE S101 netbook (review), ASUS is planning to launch another ultra-thin netbook in the month of April, EEE SHELL. It will be more powerful than the ASUS EEE S101 and will have even better battery life. The price is going to be around US$486-571, which is the same price at which the ASUS EEE S101 was launched.

ASUS Eee Shell ultra-thin netbook to launch in April 2009

Folks, April is not too far away. Right? [via engadget]

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Resco Contact Manager for Windows Mobile released

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.

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Mayakama DVD to Pocket PC 6.0 released

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

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Gigabyte M1022, S1024, T1028 unveiled at CeBIT

Gigabyte is showing a slew of netbooks at CeBIT. The TouchNote T1028 and S1024 are regular tablet style UMPCs. On the other hand, the M0122 is a traditional netbook and does not come with a touchscreen unlike T1028 and S1024. We also appreciate the option of higher resolution (1388 x 768) on the 10.1-inch screen. It would the web-experience much better.

Touch Note T1028 specifications:

  • 10.1” LED Display 1024×600 or 1366 x 768
  • Intel Atom N270 (1.6GHz) or N280 (1.66GHz)
  • 1GB RAM (2GB Max)
  • 160GB HDD (2.5”)
  • 802.11a/b/g, 3.5G, WiMAX
  • Windows XP Home
  • 3x USB, 1x ExpressCard, Multi-card reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS Pro)
  • 4 Cell (4500mAh) or 6 Cell (7650 mAh) Battery

Thin Note S1024 (M/G/P)

  • Intel Atom N270 (1.6GHz)
  • 10.1” 1024 x 576 LED Display
  • 1GB RAM
  • 1.8” PATA 80-120GB HDD
  • 802.11 b/g, 3.5G
  • Windows XP Home
  • Multi-card reader (MMC/SD/mSD)
  • 2x USB, 1x VGA
  • 6 Cell (3400 mAh)
  • 890g (with battery)

BookTop M1022

  • Intel Atom N270 (1.6GHz)
  • 10.1” 1024 x 600 LED Display (or 1366 x 768)
  • 1GB RAM (2GB Max)
  • 2.5” 160GB HDD
  • 802.11 b/g/n, 2.1 and 3.5G, WiMAX
  • 1.3MP Webcam
  • Bluetooth
  • Windows XP Home

More pictures here

[via engadget]

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Nokia to enter Netbook market?

Nokia is in talks with the various Taiwan notebook manufactures for its possible entry to the netbook market. Compal Electronics and Foxconn are top-two potential partners, which are likely to get the order from Nokia for its netbook production. According to Digitimes, Nokia is still yet to choose between the Intel Atom platform and Qualcomm Snapdragon platform for its first netbook.

We would certainly like the Nokia to go for the Intel Atom platform as the it will let them to come out with Windows-based netbooks. Qualcomm Snapdragran is being used on the Toshiba TG01 smartphone and we would like to be a smartphone-only processor. Intel Atom or the VIA Nano are much more suitable for making powerful netbooks. Nokia MIDs (N810 and N800) could never make a big splash in either MID market or netbook market. The core reason was the use of proprietary linux distro and slow processor.

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OLPC Netbook price drop – now costs only $180

The one-laptop-per-child (OLPC)’s price has been lowered to $180. Although, not exactly $100 as it was originally rumored to, any price reduction is highly appreciated (from $204 to $180). Negroponte is going to roll out its next version of the OLPC netbook, which will sport a dualscreen with virtual keyboard on which it would be interesting to see how easy it is to type on the virtual keyboard.

[Netbookboards]

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Asus EEE PC S101H dressed in Pink released in Australia

ASUS Australia has released the pink version of the EEE PC S101. The already stunning S101 looks even more stunning in pink. One would think that the pink color is released for the women. Yes, you are right about that. But, it is actually means more than that. It also meant to support the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

Hardware-wise it would be exactly same as the S101H. It can be find Myers store in Australia for AU$1,099. Yesterday, we posted the review of ASUS EEE S101, which is basically a S101H but with 2 differences:

  • different battery: 2cell vs 4cell
  • S101 uses SSD instead of HDD.

[via eeepc]