[General Topics] Menneisyys:
And a shot of an ongoing Live Search presentation:

Verdict

Unfortunately, the devices I like /wait for the most (S-E XPERIA X1, E-Ten V900, Gigabyte MS808) will only be released in the second half of the year and none of the current Windows Mobile devices are particularly appealing.

Of course, this, as was the case with i-mate’s devices (see my price-related remark in there), is hugely price-dependant. That is, I can put up with, say, an i-mate 9502 or a Toshi G910 if and only if it's sold at, say, $200...$300. However, I barely think I'd ditch my Universal then - the latter has still much better keyboard and much larger screen, which pretty much negates its being slightly outdated and heavy.

That is, as a high-end geek ONLY interested in 640*480 VGA (or Wide VGA – 800*480) devices, I’m pretty sure I’ll wait with retiring my at least the Windows Mobile models from my current HTC Universal + Nokia N95 + BlackBerry 8800 + HTC s310 setup and switch to the new one. For example, if the i-mate 9502 will be sold here in Europe (which is, currently, pretty much unlikely) and its price will be sufficiently low (say, 300 bucks at most), I may go for it. The same stands for the iPAQ 210, which is, for me, a little bit of a disappointment: I wouldn’t have thought it would be considerably worse than its 3.5-year-old predecessor in several respects. I don’t think I’d purchase it at its (not THAT high) price – the hx4700 just feels better in the hand and looks far more professional. The new Toshi G910 (G920) is just a joke with its clamshell-only, small screen estate design. As almost nothing is known of the T-Mo Compact IV, I can’t say anything for sure. As I have a post-paid T-Mo (BlackBerry) subscription, I may go for it without having to fear of being locked to them, so if and only if it has a decent spec and design (MUCH better than that of the Toshi G910/G920 or the i-mate 9502), I may go for it.

This, however, doesn’t mean YOU should be waiting any more. If you don’t necessarily want a VGA device (that is, a QVGA will suffice) and/or don’t have problems with the incompatibilities with a lot of games (not that you would want to play ANY action games on its touchpad) and other graphical apps, take a look at the Samsung SGH-i780. It looks really sexy and is very powerful – it’d be my personal pick if and only if it wasn’t “just” a 320*320 device. Some of HTC's later devices are also worth checking out (unless you're afraid of the graphics driver problem, which, at last, may be officially fixed - at least to a certain degree); also the iPAQ 110 (used together with an external phone if you need Internet access, that is).

What next?

Depending on my free time, I’ll try to publish a write-up on digital TV issues and how the Nokia N96, the various Gigabyte models and the E-Ten V900 (the most important digital TV receivers announced) are able to receive them. I’ll explain the differences between different digital TV standards; I also explain what you lose with, say, the lacking DVB-T compatibility (as opposed to DVB-H) of the N96 and so on.

Related Articles

Misc news: MWC, GREAT rebates, new devices, new games/emulators/CorePlayer version – some (additional) reports on, for example, the O2 XDA Flame

MWC: Chipset Vendors & New Chipsets - Part II – more info on the chipsets I’ve been referring to

MWC: i-mate’s new devices – my thorough report on i-mate’s new models

And, generally, all the other, MWC-related articles on my blog.