With the imminent launch of the iPhone 3G and it’s App Store, Google Android peeping around the corner and now Symbian about to be owned by Nokia and made open source, Windows Mobile is in big trouble if it fails to deliver something really special with Windows Mobile 7.
I just picked up a copy or Orange’s July catalog and discovered the HTC Touch Diamond now appears in the main section of phones available on contract. What’s more, the catalog says that the Diamond will be free on all contract worth £40+ per month. However, what it doesn’t say is whether this requires a 12, 18 or even a 24 month (do people sign up for 24 months?) contract in order to get it free. Assuming it’s 12 months then that really is an excellent deal when you consider the SIM-free price of the Diamond.
The other thing you’ll notice on the page scan above is that it states that the Diamond is ‘Mobile Instant Messenger Compatible’ – this clearly means that Orange have hobbled Windows Mobile again and removed Windows Live Messenger from the ROM.
You may recall, we discovered that Orange are planning to charge to use ‘Orange Messenger’. Costing we’ve hear will be: Unlimited use for £4 a month or £1 a day with Unlimited bundles. Or, if you’re not a regular user you can sign up to use it for 5p per message. At 5p per message that will soon become expensive!!
You may also notice in the scan below of the Diamond spec as listed in the catalog there is an error on the listed internal/external memory. Just in case you are buying from Orange – the Diamond doesn’t have a MicroSD card slot but has 4GB rather than the listed 256MB of internal storage. I also think that the listed 16.5 days of standby time is rather optimistic – I get about 2 days from my Diamond!
Posted by: Matt
[Post tag(s): smartphone news, Pocket PC news, Tracy & Matt, orange, HTC, HTC Touch Diamond]
Solsie.com have published an article showing how to play NES video games on your Windows Mobile Smartphone. All you need is Pocket Nester Plus to install on your device and then grab some NES games. The site shows you where to get them from too. Check out the video after the break.
With the launch of the 3G iPhone and the firmware 2.0 update, one of the major new features will be the ability to get push email, push contacts and agenda over the air. As a Windows Mobile and iPhone user for me this is great news as I have been using Exchange 2007 with Windows Mobile for a long time now and it is a brilliant way to manage your PIM data.
The guys over at GSM Arena have managed to get hold of a pre-release Samsung Omnia. They have done a detailed head to head against the HTC Diamond with loads of great pictures and a fantastic write up. The Samsung i900 Omnia is still a beta version, while the HTC Touch Diamond is a retail unit. However, dozens of bugs are being reported for the Diamond recently, so it isn’t actually as stable as it should be. In fact, HTC are struggling to polish the Diamond performance, which – even though utterly impressive – is rather unfinished at its launch. Looks like HTC made haste to beat the iPhone 3G announcement.
There is an interesting video over at Pocketnow with a Diamond running Vista, through the Remote Desktop Client. This looks to be a real winner! Check out the video after the break.
Youtubeplay is a superb piece of software created by the community over at XDA Developers. The software has been around for a small amount of time but has not received the attention it so easily deserves.
O2 have just sent out an email which basically tells us nothing really new, but we said we would keep you up to date so here goes. As promised, we are writing to you to keep you updated on the next steps to getting iPhone 3G.
iPhone 3G goes on sale on the high street on 11 July 2008.
We will be writing to you again before the 11th with details about how you could place your order. However, we do expect demand for iPhone 3G to be very high so orders will be processed on a first come, first served basis so that we can be fair to all customers. Orders will be limited to one iPhone 3G per customer.
T-Mobile has ramped up its mobile broadband platform, claiming to be the first operator to offer nationwide High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA). HSUPA will enable users to upload data at speeds of to 1.4Mbps, around five times that of current mobile upload speeds.
Here’s a fun, free title from Astraware to help you celebrate 4th July!
Astraware is pleased to announce their fun application Astraware Fireworks is available again for a limited time.
Astraware Fireworks is a simple FREE application, showing sequences of fireworks flying and exploding into the air. As 4th July is traditionally a time for fireworks and celebrations in the USA, the features have been created to help our American friends highlight one of their major holidays – Independence Day! Astraware Fireworks features a selection of patriotic backgrounds including the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore and the Stars and Stripes, and offers a choice of stirring tunes including the Star Spangled Banner and Stars and Stripes Forever!
Astraware Fireworks is available for devices running Palm OS(R) 5 and later and Windows Mobile(R) 2003 and later, and this year a new BlackBerry(R) version is available which includes the backgrounds and firework effects but doesn’t include music, so sorry BlackBerry-owners – this time round you’ll have to hum your own marches!
What better way to celebrate 4th July than with some Fireworks? Download your copy today at http://www.astraware.com/fireworks – it’s available for a limited time only! Oh, and did we mention, it’s FREE?!
Posted by: Iain
[Post tag(s): smartphone blog, Pocket PC blog, Tracy & Matt, Astraware, fireworks, Windows Mobile Blog]
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