Weekly Windows Mobile Roundup On July 26th 2008

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All About The Samsung Omnia

This is one really great phone and there’s been a lot of news about it this past week. So much so that rather than doing a headline for each one, I decided to consolidate them all into this one post.

For starters, the::unwired has found out that the Samsung Omnia variants (i900, i900v and i908) and is now GCF (Global Certification Forum) approved. This means that they are network and GSM/3GPP standard compliant and support quadband GSM, UTRA FDDI (UMTS at 2100 MHz), MMS and CS (Circuit Switched) 3GPP/VT (Video Telephony). Looks like Samsung is getting this beast for a worldwide release and it’d couldn’t come soon enough if you ask me.

Up next: reviews. And a lot of it (which makes me wonder: where is my review unit Samsung?). Anyway, until I get my one, you’ll have to rely on the one from the::unwired. They’ve even got a video review up as well. Ain’t she a beauty? And if that’s not enough, you can always look up phoneArena’s review as well which is packed with loads of photos. Yummy!

HTC Diamond Adds A Band, Improves Performance

I was skeptical on the Diamond because it was not getting the kind of reviews the Omnia was generating but that might soon change.

With a newly released official ROM 1.93.831.1 from HTC, the Diamond adds on 850MHz band which makes it a truly world phone. Funny how when the Diamond was first launched, HTC claimed they could not make it quad-band because of space constraints but a after a homebrew project proved otherwise, HTC did a 180.

What’s even better is that, this new ROM seems to be optimized for the TouchFlo3D which means an even snappier device? I sure hope so considering a number of my friends are looking forward to this phone. Hopefully they will not be disappointed.

More Info About The HTC Raphael (aka Touch Pro)

So you like the Diamond but need something with a QWERTY keyboard. Well the Touch Pro will be the device for you. We had earlier mentioned that it should be reaching stores come September but it seems that eXpansys will have them in even earlier.

As early as August 4th that is. Which is like in 2 weeks. At the moment, it’s only available for pre-order for a, get this, $1000 price tag. That’s in USD folks. So expect the price to change as the due date approaches, hopefully heading southbound quickly.

In other news about the Touch Pro, TmoNews reports that it has finally enter the realms of the FCC and postulates that it’ll be heading to T-Mobile considering the lack of 3G testing. It’s still too early to say if that would be the case or if it’s just a case that the 3G testing is being delayed. You’ll have to stay tuned for this one.

The reason for the secrecy? Well HTC has asked the FCC to be quiet on this one until November 30th 2008 (but it sure looks like that’s not going to happen) so could it mean that the Touch Pro will be released then? Anybody wants to place their bets?

eXpansys Looks To Expand

I didn’t think eXpansys could get any bigger but apparently they have other ideas. They’ve just opened bidding for licenses to run 9 new territories primarily in Asia, South Africa, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Brazil. Looks like the largest wireless technology online is about to get even bigger.

Pocket Informant Now At v8.1

If you’ve been using Pocket Informant, you might have received notification that it recently was updated to v8.1. There are a lot of improvements to this new version, among them, the more major ones are:

• 12 Key Search for Pocket PC - this is like T9 for search
• Contacts rewritten so that it now is very fast
• Improved Events view with groupings and more options
• Improved Journal view with groupings and better view
• Improved Touch mode
• Major improvements to Smartphone all over the place
• SmartPhone now supports Linking
• Better one-handed usage
• Default Number (SmartNum) now editable in the editor
• A number of Template improvements

So go ahead and get your free upgrade if you’re a current 8.x user. If you’ve not given PI8 a go, you don’t know what you’re missing. Give their trial a go to see just what I mean.

FITALY Gets Colored

Fancy some colors on your SIP? You’ll want to check FITALY out. They’ve just released variants to meet those needs. Not only that, it’s also been updated and now includes a Slides and Glossary menu in the Editor among other improvements. This makes it a lot easier for you to create a new slide file or new glossary. So if you’ve yet to check them out, be sure to hit up the demo here.

Nokia And Qualcomm Finally Settle

It started out crazy enough, each company suing the other for breach of patents and it ended just as bizarre if  you ask me. I’d think that since they had spent so much time building this up, it was only fitting that they settle this in a long drawn-out court battle.

But it looks like they had other plans in mind because after just one day of arbitration, they’ve settled their differences. Nokia can now use Qualcomm’s patents and Qualcomm can do the same with Nokia’s. Well it’s good news to us consumers because that means we can now start seeing a lot more devices in the US which were docked due to this lawsuit. Bring ‘em on I say (the devices that is).

All The News We Saw Fit To Print

• HTC Touch Pro Now Has A Release Date
• Velocity Mobile’s 103 Coming To A Store Near You
• Join The MTS Team
• Windows…Now With More Mobile Than Ever Before

Products We’ve Considered

• The Arcade: A Monthly Roundup of Freeware Games (July 2008)
• Looking Around (And Inside) The i-mate Ultimate 8502
• So How Does The i-mate Ultimate 8502 Handle?

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