July 2004 Archives

eSoft Interactive has just released a major update to their award winning simulation game, Tower Mogul 1.2 for Windows Mobile devices. I've had so much fun playing this game before I sleep that in the end, I really don't get any sleep at all, unless of course iPAQ battery dies. God I miss my iPAQ (for full details of what befell Jayvee's iPAQ check out the June issue of m|ph).

The latest version includes the following features: (1) Improved performance (2) Some minor graphic enhancements (3) Reward units which you can customize on your own (4) Real-time clock/date (5) Sandbox mode-play with all units available (6) Improved saving/loading (7) 'Delete' button on save/load slots (8) Numerous minor enhancements and bug fixes from v1.1.1. (9) New PDF manual available for download at the Tower Mogul product page.

You can check out the Tower Mogul page at the eSoft Interactive website.

I am not a fan of the Tablet PC format. In fact, I would go so far as to say that I am annoyed with it. Granted, its premise is inherently noble, which is to provide people with the ability to carry their PCs around like a clipboard. But let's face it, we're just not ready for clipboard computing. And I wonder if we ever will be. I recently tested Motion Computing's M1300 Tablet PC. While it was initially interesting having a device that allows you to draw freehand color pictures and which tries to guess your handwriting (always a fun challenge), the novelty quickly wears out and you're stuck with a heavy device that is neither mobile enough nor PC enough. Sure it's an award-winning unit, but it wasn't the unit that bothered me. It was the idea of Tablet PC computing in general. Here's the problem: sooner or later, you're bound to weigh the pros and cons between using a Tablet PC device and using a plain old clipboard. And when that happens, you'll start understanding the charms of good old Clippy (and we're not talking Windows Help character here). First of all, a clipboard is light as a feather and can easily be cradled in your arm as you go about taking notes. Cradling a Tablet PC unit, on the other hand, becomes taxing after just a couple of minutes. Add to that the discomfort of having hot air billow all over your arm from the unit's cooling system and you know that you won't be in the best of moods. Second, you can practically leave your clipboard anywhere and not worry about anybody swiping it. Heck, you can even use it to reserve your spot at your local food court. But you'd have to be pretty brave to even consider leaving your Tablet PC unguarded for even just a couple of minutes. Most important, a typical Tablet PC costs about 120,000 pesos. As for Clippy? Just 80 bucks at your friendly National Bookstore. The biggest attraction of the Tablet PC format was supposed to be its advanced handwriting recognition software, allowing you to scribble notes with the digitizer and watch as they magically turn into ASCII words that can easily be stored. This feature hopes to target groups such as students, field personnel and even doctors. But while Windows XP for Tablet PC's handwriting recognition software is impressive at times, more often than not it simply bogs me down. Handwriting recognition was supposed to allow me to just keep scribbling without looking at my PC. Instead, I spend way too much time looking down just to make sure that the translation comes out perfectly. Now imagine the Tablet PC computer struggling with a doctor’s handwriting. If I needed to take notes on the field, what I would rather do is to bring Clippy along, write my field notes, and then settle down at my PC at the end of the day and simply pop the papers into my scanner. It won’t be as high-tech, but at least I keep my sanity while out on the field. I’m not saying that the Tablet PC format is a lost cause. It may simply be a matter of fine tuning its intended market. I would think that these devices could be useful as data entry devices for forms that require a lot of visual real estate, such as survey forms or database input screens, allowing for mobile data entry. But please, Microsoft, don’t claim that the Tablet PC format is already a viable replacement for scribbling notes on a notepad or a clipboard. The sales figures alone for Tablet PCs should be hint enough for Microsoft. Will I ever consider a Tablet PC? Yes, if. And it's a big IF. Namely, I am waiting for "electronic paper" technology to reach maturity, allowing us to bend and fold our computer displays like pieces of paper. When and if that ever happens, then the Tablet PC format may finally become practical and handy. The Motion Computing M1300 Tablet PC is reviewed on the June 2004 issue of m|ph.

During my early Pocket PC using days, I used to spend countless hours converting short video clips so I can view them on my PPC while on the go, after a few months, I got tired of it as it was really a chore to convert movies and I found out that watching movies with 20 frames per second on a small screen wasn't really that enjoyable. Convinced that portable movies was just a passing fancy, I removed every movie player on my Pocket PC, bought an iPod, and along with thousands of music fanatics, started prophesizing Steve Job's credo of digital music utopia. Now comes along the Archos AV400, and things just got a bit more interesting. There are a lot of things to like about the Archos AV400 it sports an uber cool industrial design, has a very nice TFT LCD screen, has the ability to record video from any analogue and digital source like TVs, Video cameras and VHS/Betamax players, and can double as an MP3/WMA music player. But the Archos AV400 is significantly bigger and heavier than an iPod which can be a major turn off to people who are peculiar about weight and portability. Is the Archos AV400 good enough to convince a portable video player skeptic like me that it's concept is viable? The jury is still out. Watch out for my review of the Archos AV400 in the upcoming issue of m|ph magazine.

I love the iPod. Who doesn't? We love it and Steve Jobs knows this so on Monday, he announces a new generation of hard drive based players. No, it isn't a higher capacity hard drive since it maxes out at 40GB (The 60GB units are still upcoming, rumor has it). It's really about continuing the line of Zen. I have been talking with friends over dinner about miscellaneous tech stuff, grassy pastures, and gender preferences and in the middle of it all I started to wonder why with so many hard drive based audio players out there from Archos, iRiver and soon to rise Sony, the iPod still kicks up the beat. The answer to that question is the Zen of the iPod ... "iPod therefore I am." Think about it -- the Archos Gmini 220 is basically the same hard drive player with 20GB of space but it can also double as a photo bank through a CF card slot. You can store hundreds of high quality images from your digital SLR into the player. The Gmini also acts as a voice recorder which can record directly to MP3 format -- especially useful for taping long interviews digitally. On the other side of the fence, iRiver's hard drive based players have built in FM tuners which have to be bought seperately by iPod users as seen with the iTrip and iTrip Mini. And yet people still prefer the iPod? The Zen of the iPod spells "music lover and nothing else" all over your stiff body. No matter how stiff you are, owning an iPod automatically brands you with a sign over your plugged ears which reads "I have an iPod because I love listening to music." No to voice recorder, no to smaller size, no to an amalgamation of features. I buy an iPod, pop it into my PC. It organizes my entire playlist by album and artist and I can even download new songs from the iTunes online store (over 100 million songs downloaded!). Music -- and nothing but music is all I need. Usually a business model such as this would fail, but people are capitalizing on how the iPod has been branded as dedicated music player to the point that it has become a Zen device -- just like other Apple products. Yapi of Philmug says that "Mac users are like people who buy BMW's and Benzes. They take and use them as advertised, no setup necessary. And you'd be ridiculous for lowering your Beamer and putting hydraulics in it, not to mention decals. Same with Macs." I do admit ... four generations of iPods with barely any changes. They must be doing something right. What do you think? Every issue of m|ph features a section on mobile audio where we usually pick on the iPod and their wannabees. Grab your copy now. It's easy to spot.

I've always paid the best respects to Sony Ericsson with regards to their products. They always released a wonder phone that catered to different market segments at the right time of the year. Take for instance the Z series of phones ... the Z200 and the Z600 fit the respective customer brackets like an old shoe. And mind you, these were for clamshell lovers. SE had the same phone with a candybar design in the T610, T630 and the all new K700. Then of course you got the Symbian 7 power PDA-phones found in the P800 and the P900 The P900 was a great move, having been announced in the rumor mill early on to wet consumer lips. The upgrade from the old wasn't incremental in features but it got an outer shell facelift. The P800 had an ugly blue toy plastic case design, an ugly guitar pick stylus and basically everything else that made the design "panget" (ugly). In other words, the P800 was like your good friend whom you had a good time with, hung out together, helped you meet other friends, kept you entertained, and basically helped you get along with your life ... except that he was aesthetically challenged! The P900 however is the same friend who underwent plastic surgery. Basically the same great features but with looks that could kill. Then SE decides to release the P910. This is where it gets iffy and fishy. Of course, anybody who hears the SE is releasing a new phone will go gaga over the news. Where Nokia is to MS Windows - releasing new products all year round to cater to every single niche and nook market all over the world, SE is to Apple which only comes up with a new product once in a blue moon. So it makes me wonder why the P910 is to be released in September with no big upgrades, save the ugly thumboard, when the P900 hype is still very much at its peak. The P910 is a P900. A P900. With a thumboard when you flip open the keypad. Can you imagine how much tactile feedback you're gonna get? Just look at the physics man. It's going to be very uncomfortable to text or write your long emails. I thought they shot the design of the stupid thumboard a long time ago, when engineers realized that the phone's center of gravity will take a big shift if you try texting on the thin side. Oh and it's supposed to retail at around the same price the P900 sells now. So you do get additional software bundled ... but really, who cares? Of course I am biased, but so that I cannot be accused of jumping the SE ship, I do have to say that integrated client services such as Blackberry's Push Email are a big help. Point is, I just wish SE would have kept the P910 in the rumor mill a lot longer and make it debut in 2005, sporting a megapixel camera and a bunch of other neat stuff, aside from a better screen and more memory. m|ph magazine has an article on the best corporate phones for 2004 in the July/ August issue. The P900 along with other great phones are featured here. For a detailed comparison of the P800 and P900, check out Jim's article in our third issue (Issue 3 Vol 1).

In the mean time, I'll be sticking with my Windows XP Pro powered laptop. Tablet PCs are just soooooo not there yet.

Microsoft has recently announced that the fee OEMs pay for a license of Windows XP Tablet PC Edition will be reduced by as much as $15, which will put its price on par with that of Windows XP Professional. Whether this means we'll soon be seeing a price drop on Tablet PCs is anybody's guess as I don't think that the "expensive" software license fee of the Tablet PC edition was really much of a factor but rather the greed, errrrr... I mean the eagerness of the various notebook PC manufacturers to profit. In the mean time, I'll be sticking with my Windows XP Pro powered laptop. Tablet PCs are just soooooo not there yet

So they finally did it - Samsung's SPH-2300 3 megapixel camera phone is finally announced in Korea. Shown in the photo is some Korean model chick holding the cameraphone front and backside. Similar in style to the Sony Ericsson S700, the front face resembles a camera while the back end sports a familar phone design. This is also the very first phone in the market to have optical zoom integrated into the lens. Built-in flash as well as mini SD slot for storing images and other phone junk are some of its other features. The big question therefore is "will megapixel camera phones kill the low end digicam market?"I hear some news about a 6 megapixel cameraphone chip being manufactured as we speak. It's sort of like how the piracy industry in this country killed the video rental stores. Your comments are valuable to us.

I've never been such a big fan of the SMART Amazing Phone. Don't get me wrong: it's got nothing to do with the looks or the features. I just really don't have the knack for the Microsoft Smartphone OS. Coming from several Symbian devices and having tried Windows Mobile Phone Edition (O2 XDA II), the MS Smartphone platform is classified as "hilaw." Though statistics will prove me wrong since SMART recently released the Voyager (an updated Amazing Phone unit from HTC known as the E200 everywhere else in the world), the fanbase is steadily growing. But as a mobile lifestyle critic, I believe that there should be a limit as to how "feature-packed" a phone should be. In which case, why not get a Phone Edition handheld device instead like the XDA? But from a tech point of view, the Voyager is indeed something for the tech-savvy. Integrated Bluetooth and a 640x480 VGA camera are the two items we were looking for in version one of the SAP. HTC did a good job with the integration. And yep, Smartphone 2003 is a big improvement over the previous version -- it doesn't hang, it is loads faster, and mpeg / avi files play smoothly over Windows Media Player. As you can see from the picture, the 5-way joypad has also been improved for a better feel. Thanks to Carlo Guerrero for the pics.

As a supplement to the magazine, the editors of m|ph have decided to put up this little online niche to give our readers a daily dose of our local digital technology and mobile lifestyle. Here we throw our little quips and show off our personal quirks, raves and rants about anything mobile. Enjoy!