Matt
More than 20 years in the IT industry. Blogging with a passion and thirst for new technology since 2005.
If you are looking for the M3100 review it’s HERE
We are seeing lots of reports from people that have purchased the HTC TyTN (HTC Hermes) having all sorts of problems with touchscreen alignment.
We know this isn’t a new issue as such, several other models of HTC devices have suffered from this issue. My own HTC Wizard device suffers from this and Tracy’s Prophet has had it a few times.
It has been suggested that only early batches of the TyTN are affected by the problem. We now know that the problem is caused, not by software but by a hardware problem. It would seem that the “rubber gasket” on the right side between the frame and touch screen is a little bit thicker and creates extra pressure on the screen which makes the touch screen read incorrectly.
We are all hoping that the SPV M3100, once released by Orange, will not be affected by this problem. The case design of the Orange M3100 is slightly different to that of the HTC TyTN so its possible that the gasket will not be the same anyway.
There have been rumours circulating the web and various chat rooms that the reason that SPV M3100 has not yet been released by Orange is that they wish to carry out additional product testing where the screen is concerned and this is what led to the delay in the launch of the Dutch M3100. I don’t think we’ll ever find out if this is true though!
Matt
[Technorati tag(s): smartphone, Pocket PC, MoDaCo, Orange, M3100, HTC Hermes, HTC TyTN, HTC Oxygen, C100, SPV, Orange SPV M3100]
If you are looking for the Orange SPV M3100 review it’s HERE
The price that Orange have listed the M3100 on their site at could be wrong.
Having seen the SPV M3100 appear on the Orange site last night I thought I would try and find out from Orange when the official release would be.
I made a couple of calls to Orange business customer services this morning and was told initially that the M3100 did not exist and was the SPV a Samsung phone?
Finally I got to talk to someone that knew all about the SPV M3100. They were able to look at for it on their new price list but told me that the price they had listed internally was differnt to the one on the website by nearly £100! This would put the actual price of the M3100 at £250 which to be honest does sound more realistic.
I will attempt to get confimation on this over the next day or so!
EDIT: I’ve had a number of people contact me to say that they too paid £250 for their new M3100 on pre-order!
Matt
[Technorati tag(s): smartphone, Pocket PC, MoDaCo, Orange, M3100, HTC Hermes, HTC TyTN, HTC Oxygen, C100, SPV, Orange SPV M3100]
Pleased as ever to bring you the latest news, we thought you might like to know that Orange have now updated their Pay Monthly offering on the SPV M3100 and have priced the device at £150.
Orange are not taking any upgrade orders for the phone, they say you have to wait a couple of days. The phone is currently only available to new customers. Grr!
For those of you that are interested , the manual for the phone is available here.
Many thanks to Ross for the heads up!
Matt
[Technorati tag(s): smartphone, Pocket PC, MoDaCo, Orange, M3100, HTC Hermes, HTC TyTN, HTC Oxygen, C100, SPV, Orange SPV M3100]
In an earlier post we reported that the Orange M3100 (HTC Hermes) and the Orange C100 (HTC Oxygen) had proprietary USB connectors
Having had the chance to play with an HTC TyTN, which is a Hermes variant, over the weekend I can confirm that although the USB connector is proprietary and looks rather bizarre, a standard mini USB cable/connector will work with these devices. In fact the usb sync/charge cables provided in the box is a standard mini USB one.
So why the unusual USB socket on these devices? Well what escaped my attention the first time I played with the SPV M3100 was the lack of headphone socket. As it turns out HTC have integrated the headphone connection onto their new USB socket. The result is that you have no choice but to use the headphones that come with the devices. Needless to say the bundled headphones are terrible!
Hopefully it wont be too long before someone starts manufacturing adapters so that we can use standard headphones with these devices.
Matt
[Technorati tag(s): smartphone, Pocket PC, Tracy & Matt, Orange, M3100, HTC Hermes, HTC TyTN, HTC Oxygen, C100, SPV, Orange SPV M3100]
Many of you will recall that I reported the release of the Orange M3100 in the Netherlands was due on the 4th August. Well, either someone is having a laugh with me or else really screwed up becasue it’s nowhere to be seen! :S
Could this be down to a delay with the launch? Certainly there have been a large number of people reporting issues with the HTC TyTn (HTC Hermes) screen alignment which has plagued a number of other HTC devices in the past (See Post on Wizard Screen Problem). Anything to do with the lack of SPV M3100 in NL?
Other sources have suggested that the M3100 will be officially announced in the UK within the coming week. Lets hope so, as I really want one of these toys!
Matt
[Technorati tag(s): smartphone, Pocket PC, MoDaCo, Orange, M3100, HTC Hermes, HTC TyTn]
Progress! Had a look at Orange’s UK website this morning and found the SPV M3100 has appeared in their ‘coming soon’ section.
No official release date or prices yet but it is a step in the right direction. Lets hope that the actual release date is ‘soon’!
QUOTE:[color=#f1670b] The ORANGE SPV M3100 is more than a state of the art 3G phone. It is really an indispensable pocket computer. Once you have lived with it for a while, you will wonder how you ever did without it.[/color]
Matt
[Technorati tag(s): smartphone, Pocket PC, Tracy & Matt, Orange, M3100, HTC Hermes]
Want to turn your PocketPC device in to a walkie talkie? Well now you can with 4Talk.
4Talk is the easy way to turn your Pocket PC into a two way communication device suitable for short range transmissions. Pair two or more Pocket PC’s to create a mini walkie talkie network, or use it in conjunction with your PC to create a continuous surveillance or baby monitoring device.
4Talk can be used on any local area network using direct cable, Wi-Fi or even Bluetooth, although the later is obviously very short range. As long as your network is configured and your device has an IP address you can use 4Talk.
Not sure whether or not it’s worth the £4.95 price tag, especially as you’ll have to buy two copies to use it. Also there is no Smartphone version listed.
Matt
[Technorati tag(s): smartphone, Pocket PC, Tracy & Matt, Orange, walkie talkie]
After its overnight rollout from the Vehicle Assembly Building, Space Shuttle Atlantis rests on the hard stand on Launch Pad 39B. The shuttle sits on top of the mobile launcher platform. The crawler, which transported it, is still underneath.
Matt
[Technorati tag(s): shuttle, nasa, Space Shuttle, ISS, Space, Science, STS-115, Space Shuttle Atlantis]
Review Part 3 – Power management/battery life.
Go To Part 1 of the review.
Go To Part 2 of the review.
As a commuter, power management and battery life are important features on any laptop. On other laptops that I’ve used I ended up installing various third party applications in order to help extend the battery life. Smart Switch XP was one tool that I found particularly useful in the past.
Like other Acer models the 3012 comes with a a power management tool called Acer ePower Management. This is accessed via an icon in the task bar or via a function key on the keyboard. This brings up a window with a variety of controls.
There are basic controls for things like LCD Brightness and CPU speed as well as being able to change the hard drive and screen turn off time. You can also turn off the Wireless LAN, Bluetooth, Firewire, Cardbus and LAN interfaces in order to save more power.
The ePower application also allows you to switch power profiles. There are a number of default profiles but you can also create your own. This is quite useful if you never use bluetooth for example you can disable this in profiles that you use. You can have profiles for battery and AC use too.
One problem that I came across during every day use is that the profiles often do not switch between battery and AC automatically when you plug in or unplug the power. This caught me out a few times when I was using the laptop on the Train and it was still set to the AC profile which had all of the interfaces turned on and the CPU speed set to MAX. This configuration really eats battery!
Fortunately the 3012WMTi ships with two batteries in the standard package. This is a really nice idea, I always end up buying additional batteries for laptops as a backup but there is no need here. One battery is a small 3 cell unit which fits perfectly on the back of the Acer. The other is a larger 6 cell battery which sticks out the back of the laptop. (See below)
I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of the 6 cell battery sticking out the back of the laptop but in practice it really doesn’t seem to matter and doesn’t look that bad.
I actual use I found that with the CPU set to its lowest speed and with all but the cardbus interface switched off, the battery life is a bit lower than Acer claim. The 3 Cell battery gives me around 90 minutes of use and the 6 cell about 210 minutes. This obviously varies according to what you are actually doing on the laptop but fortunately is long enough for my use.
Still more to come…
Go To Part 1 of the review.
Go To Part 2 of the review.
Matt
[Technorati tag(s): Acer, laptop, TavelMate, Computing, technology, Dell]
If you are looking for the M3100 review it’s HERE
Everyone wants to know when they will be able to get their hands on the Orange M3100. Orange UK are being pretty tight lipped about it. Even those of us with friends within Orange are struggling to get the low-down. However, I have just heard from a reliable source that Orange NL will begin shipping the SPV M3100 (HTC Hermes) from Friday (4th August).
Keep an eye one the Orange NL website SPV section for updates.
If the release date is correct then hopefully we won’t have to wait very much longer for them here in the UK!
There are a few websites (Direct Mobile Phones, Scancom) offering pre-order on the M3100. Interestingly though, none of the sites I have seen have got images of the actual device but are showing other HTC Hermes variants!
EDIT: See the follow up HERE
Matt
[Technorati tag(s): smartphone, Pocket PC, Tracy & Matt, Orange, M3100, HTC Hermes]
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