Archive for: phone
The road to exciting Windows Phone 7 has been a long, long road less traveled, but that may change with the Verizon-bound HTC Trophy and now the HTC Mazaa (pictured above). This claimed next-gen Windows Phone 7 device is said to hitting Sprint’s CDMA airwaves “within th next six months” and based on initial images, looks a lot like Verizon’s Trophy. Screen size looks to be about 3.7″ in size and features the standard camera + LED flash on the back. Other notable rumors include the use of DDR2 memory which should help with overall system responsiveness and speed.
Regardless if the Mazaa is the Trophy’s cousin or not, any new hardware is certainly wanted/needed. Our only question: Is it unique enough?
In recent days we’ve seen a lot of back and forth commentary as to whether the Windows Phone 7 NoDo update utilities are actually harmful to future updates. Developer of ChevronWP7.Updater, Chris Walsh has maintained that his utility isn’t flawed. Naysayers have said that it has the potential to prevent future updates from happening. And today, Microsoft weighed in on the issue with their own official commentary. As one would assume, Microsoft’s stance is that NoDo utilities that forcefully and unofficially update phones can cause issues down the road up to and including updated devices from receiving future, official updates from Microsoft and carriers.
Of course, the debate could go on for days on end with people both for and against such tools. Taking a trip through various Windows Phone 7 forums will find plenty of users that have updated without any hassle whatsoever and then even received official upgrade notifications afterwards.
In short: if you’re paranoid or not the most technologically literate, wait. The way we see it is that if a future issue does crop up, the active dev/hacker community will find a way to fix it. They already “fix” phones unnecessarily gimped by manufacturers and carriers for monetary purposes. Why not this?
We’ve heard a couple times now that the Windows Phone 7 “NoDo” update was facing an imminent release only to be let down. But alas, we have a bit more proof this time in the way of actual documentation from T-Mobile themselves with “March 29th” plastered all over the place. As a quick refresher — faster app loading, marketplace and WiFi enhancements, bug fixes, and most importantly copy & paste. The only thing missing from this happy ending is a firm date as to when the NoDo update rollout will hit 100% completion. Nevertheless, tomorrow is “the day”, so be sure to let us know how it goes (or doesn’t) for you!
- February 28, 2011 6:55 am
CDMA users in the U.S. may not have much longer to wait if it is Windows Phone 7 that they seek. An image of a Verizon-branded HTC Trophy was leaked to Engadget, showing what is believed to be the carrier’s first Windows Phone 7 device. Strictly speaking, the Trophy isn’t anything too exciting in the hardware department (1GHz Snapdragon QSD8250 processor, 576MB of RAM/512MB of ROM, 8GB of internal storage) especially considering the recently announced HTC Arrive heading to Sprint. But for customers of Big Red, we’re sure any news is good news none the less. Right?
- February 15, 2011 5:46 pm
Following today’s festivities which had Facebook and HTC unveiling the first of many upcoming Facebook-specific smartphones, Twitter CEO Dick Costello as come forward to state that the same story won’t play true for Twitter. The company is not working on any special “Twitter Phones”. Of course, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerburg also adamantly made that same statement countless times over the last few months — and we all saw how that turned out…
Though truth be told, an entire phone designed around one service is kind of a waste. Think of how many thousands if not tens of thousands of services there are available on the web that would benefit from a special phone. Too many to count, we know. To us, Facebook did it right. Drum up some hype with some “Facebook Phones” that feature deeper-than-usual Facebook integration and then begin integrating those same features into all phones. Profit.
Now if only someone could develop a unique and useful Twitter phone. Oh, wait a minute….
- February 15, 2011 5:25 pm
I may get some flack from CrackBerry enthusiasts saying this, but, news that RIM turned down Nokia’s advances for a handy dandy partnership have me saying “Thank God” — though not in the way that you would think. I’m saying Thank God for Nokia. Unless RIM magically reveals some QNX-powered phones at MWC, they’ve got nothing in the smartphone arena that comes anywhere close to unseating any of the mid to high-end Android handsets and upcoming iPhone 5. Pairing Nokia (a company that needs a new and innovative OS) and RIM (also another company desperately in need of a new smartphone OS) together would have been a disaster of epic proportions. Hell, even Symbian can handle Nokia’s high-end hardware rather well compared to the meager hardware the BlackBerry OS has to deal with. Sad to say it (as I used to be a huge CrackBerry user myself), but RIM has fallen mighty far from where they once were.
Before Nokia went with Microsoft’s WIndows Phone 7, it is said that RIM first denied any potential partnership. It was followed not too long after by Google whom apparently didn’t want Nokia replacing parts of the OS with their own services. On that note, Nokia still could have done whatever they wanted with Android as carriers do it all the time (and thereby destroy the experience).
As we see it, RIM denying Nokia was a blessing in disguise. Nokia choose a new and innovative that really has potential to help them out. Meanwhile, Microsoft just increased their potential userbase by a huge margin. Seems win-win to us, even if money wasn’t exchanged.
Windows Phone 7 users have no doubt witnessed the mysterious “phantom data” that is plaguing their beloved handsets. After some hard digging, Microsoft found the culprit — Yahoo! Mail. Yahoo! meanwhile, argues that their service isn’t flawed, and instead claims it is Microsoft’s implementation of IMAP for the erroneous phantom data. They further bolster their claim by saying that every other mobile platform doesn’t have any problem with Yahoo! Mail. On the flipside, no other email service on Windows Phone 7 has any problems with Microsoft’s so called “troubled” IMAP API.
The blame game is in full swing.
- January 25, 2011 11:17 am
With all the commotion that usually revolves around blazing fast processors, pixel-stuffed displays, and new powerful GPUs, it’s kind of ironic that we still get so worked up over copy & paste functionality at the OS level. And yet here we are, writing this post which details copy & paste and it’s late entrance into Windows Phone 7. So, how is it? From ChevronWP7′s Chris Walsh, we get the impression it is good, though not perfect. The biggest problem Chris highlights is that copy & paste functionality will only be possible in text that is rendered in “textbox control” parts of the OS. This is a problem because not all apps render text in said way. The WP7 Twitter app for example, does not make use of the textbox control, and therefore won’t support copy & paste (at least for now). The same goes for other 3rd party apps that don’t render text in the same manner — the developer(s) will have to make the necessary changes.
The news isn’t earth shattering initially. Though we’ll have to wait and see just how many apps on the WP7 platform support the requirements for proper copy & paste and whether or not the developers will update them.
On a slightly happier note than Sony Ericsson needlessly abandoning their X10/Mini/Mini Pro Android phones comes the revealing of some very official looking Xperia Playstation Phone images. Chinese tech blog it168 went through meticulously previewed the phone giving us the images you’ll see inside after the jump as well as a slew of specs: 1GHz Snapdragon processor, Qualcomm Adreno 205 graphics processor, 512 MB of RAM and ROM (each), 4″ 854 x 480 display, 8-megapixel rear-facing camera w/ LED flash, and microSD card support. The Playstation Phone/Xperia managed a 1,733 in Quadrant — though we all know Quadrant isn’t exactly the most reliable benchmarking suite out there. Nevertheless, these new images showcase a very compelling device. Hit the link below to check them out…
