Looking at getting a new phone-pda combo, any suggestions on the following?

[sui.generis]

Still kind of miss a full-size screen sometimes. The ipaq 210 is out now, and if I have surplus cash in a few months I may yet weaken. Or maybe even a larger phone like the Flame, but treat it as a PDA. But before that, I want a tablet PC. And a pony.

Great thread guys.

I've been avoiding smartphones for a long time, but I'm finally ready to start procrastinating buying one instead of refusing to buy one. If the Nokia N810 were a phone, I'd probably already have one, though I don't know if the garnet vm has been updated so it can scale or not.

Otherwise I want to wait long enough so I can get a Kohjinsha with a phone mode. I don't think UMPC phones are even on the drawing board yet, but I bet they will be before you have a pony. =)

[peter7]

hi there

maybe I can help you

I am the online saleman of longhai company,beijing

we have many famous brand pda and smartphone

such as the one you wanted and dopod,palm,blackberry...

you can contact with me

my MSN :zhangxueqian84@126.com(9:00--18:30)

E-mail:peterisok@126.com

You can send me the details,I will find the best one for u

you can visit our website first:www.bjpda.com

[roddy]

Letting the ad through as the MSN might come in handy for anyone who might want to consult in English before making a purchase.

[peter7]

sorry

my MSN :zhangxueqian84@hotmail.com

anyone need pda or smartphone can contact with me

[sui.generis]

I don't think UMPC phones are even on the drawing board yet

I was wrong.

mis 500 hdpc

First spotted as a prototype back in 2006, the 163 x 67 x 24.5-mm / 387-gram brick is now expected to go retail in July for up to ₩500,000 or a US-equivalent pricing of just $500. That's dirt cheap for what they seem to promise:

* 4-inch, 800 x 480 pixel touchscreen display which slides out and flips over for the cellphone interface

* Up to a 1GHz VIA C7M ULV processor and 4GB of DDR2 memory

* Dual, Windows XP / Linux Qplus embedded OS

* Unspecified cellphone radio

* Maximum 1.3-inch 60GB hard disk (or 4GB SSD) and miniSD/microSD expansion

* 7-hour battery (or 90-hours at low power)

* 802.11b/g WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0

* 2x USB, docking port, stereo speakers, QWERTY thumbpad and mouse

* What looks like a 5 megapixel camera

* DMB mobile television and external GPS add-on

Ugly, yes. Big, yeah. But I like it.

[Xiao Kui]

Wow, I'll be really impressed if they can keep the price on that AVING down to $500. I was gonna save up for an OQO model 2 but if this thing is as magical as at looks maybe it's a cheaper alternative.

[ipsi()]

I'm not keen on something like that - it just seems too big and unweildy. I suspect a better option would be the EeePC plus a PDA or regular cellphone, as at least you can keep whatever you're using for phone-calls in your pocket, and the more powerful laptop in your bag.

Hell, I'm tempted to pick up an EeePC just so I can have something nice and portable, but at the same time with a bigger screen and more procesing power (etc) than my Treo. I will wait for the 8GB version though, 4GB just seems a little small...

[sui.generis]

It (and others like it hopefully) won't be for everybody, but it really isn't much bigger than some smartphones. The sidekick II had very similar dimensions. It's longer than the Kaiser mentioned here (if you chopped off the portions on either side of the screen, it's probably identical), but otherwise not much bigger. I'm not saying the size isn't an issue, but given the functionality, it's a very tempting package.

To me, it's more tempting than lugging around 2 or 3 devices when I want them all with me most of the time anyway.

[cStyle]

Does anyone have any recommendations on a dealer/store in Harbin where I can get a Grey Market HTC Touch from?

[roddy]

Has anyone seen the HTC Diamond on sale on China yet? My local place (dlppc.com.cn) is listing it at RMB5000 / 5300 for the EU / Taiwan version, Zol.com.cn is just under the RMB5000 mark. VGA screen, HSDPA/WCDMA, GPS, 4GB internal memory, and (I think) a radio. I'm not so keen on the angular design, but the specs are making my mouth water . . .

[ipsi()]

Specs look good. The design is fine. Would have like a hard keyboard though.

Well, most of the specs are good.

Battery: 900mAH! I have no idea how they expect that to last more than a few hours... Hell, my 680 (with massive 2400mAh battery) will probably run out after a couple of days. Admittedly, I have Chatter running all the time, which doesn't help, but even so...

Anyone out there who can tell me if a 900mAh battery would actually provide you with something that has a shot at lasting even half a working day?

EDIT: Yep, RDS FM Radio. Nice. For those of you who still listen to the radio

[roddy]

900mAh is not that far off what I have in my Touch just now, 1100mAh. That'll manage a day of fairly heavy use - basically if i have a spare five minutes anywhere I'm likely to be using it for something or other, not much phoning but quite a bit of wifi / data. However if you're using it as a PDA then you can expect to be charging every night. If it's just functioning as a phone - well, I don't know. Then it'll last longer. So 900mAh with better power management should be fine, but 900mAh with full 3G and a VGA screen? Not sure.

There is a hard-keyboard version, the Touch Pro. Looking at it, I think I might prefer this one. Hard keyboard is a plus, lacks internal storage but has a card slot, which to be honest suits me as I tend to take the card out and put it directly in my laptop when needed, TV-out (useless gimmick? What useless gimmick?). Also comes with a higher capacity battery, 1340mAh.

To be honest I'd need to get hold of a smartphone with a full keyboard for a while to figure out if I'd actually use it or not. My portable bluetooth keyboard should be here tomorrow though

EDIT: Yep, RDS FM Radio. Nice. For those of you who still listen to the radio

Don't knock the radio - it's like podcasts, but reliable.

[cdn_in_bj]

Has anyone seen the HTC Diamond on sale on China yet? My local place (dlppc.com.cn) is listing it at RMB5000 / 5300 for the EU / Taiwan version, Zol.com.cn is just under the RMB5000 mark. VGA screen, HSDPA/WCDMA, GPS, 4GB internal memory, and (I think) a radio. I'm not so keen on the angular design, but the specs are making my mouth water . . .

Roddy, that phone looks pretty slick. I'm due for a new phone and I've just added this one to the top of my list! I still use my Dell Axim PDA which I've had for years for simple web browsing when I don't feel like lugging out the laptop, but it's showing it's age (it runs Windows Mobile 2003). And while my Dell Axim also has a VGA screen, it's not properly supported by WM 2003. It looks like I can replace both my PDA and phone with the HTC Diamond. The key for me is how good the UI is - I know that Microsoft has made some big improvements since WM 2003. And it looks like HTC has also added their own customizations to the standard WM interface. Off to Youtube to find some videos!

By the way, I found a place in Beijing (near BeiDa) that has it for Y4880:

http://www.yymobile.com.cn/index.php?gOo=goods_details.dwt&goodsid=546&productname=

[roddy]

Oh good, a guinea pig.

Worth bearing in mind that WCDMA coverage is not yet a given in China - nor is EDGE even. Also, somewhere on the Internet - saw it yesterday - is a review site with a load of videos they made over a week of playing with a review copy.

Go buy one, let us know how it works out . . .

[cdn_in_bj]

Worth bearing in mind that WCDMA coverage is not yet a given in China - nor is EDGE even. Also, somewhere on the Internet - saw it yesterday - is a review site with a load of videos they made over a week of playing with a review copy.

I just finished reading the Mobileburn review, as well as watching their 3 videos on Youtube. My first impressions, based on the review, are that they copied Apple in a lot of places. Mind you, this isn't a bad thing, and if they can get away with it then I say good for them and their customers! Secondly, internet browsing with Opera looks exceptional. Again, it looks very similar to the iPhone experience and I'm happy to see that. My main concern is that the UI seems sluggish at times. If this sluggishness is consistent with the commmonly used phone apps (dialing, contacts and messaging), then it'll be a deal breaker for me. I'll have to look around for some more videos. Also, the reviewer mentioned that he encountered some flaky behaviour. Hopefully HTC will be able to address these with future software updates. Roddy, in your experience how good is HTC when it comes to software updates for their phones?

Go buy one, let us know how it works out . . .

I will, if I do end up getting one!

[ipsi()]

No Firefox, I don't want to save newreply.php as a text file...

Anyway, I imagine the sluggishness is common with most things. Having seen another review of it, it does seem to be present (occasionally) even when just incrementing the time...

For all that, it still looks like a cool phone, though I'd probably go for the Pro, were I so inclined. Would have to import it though, and I don't have much money right now (Damn Wisdom Teeth!).

I'll wait for a while, I'm sure there's going to be some cool stuff coming out soon.

[atitarev]

I like Dopods (and similar gadgets), although I don't have one. I like it because it has an external keyboard - speed of typing is important, besides you don't have to touch the screen. I hope next time I upgrade my phone I could get 2 in one - a pocket PC and a phone.

[cdn_in_bj]

Well here's another interesting candidate, the Samsung Omnia:

http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i900_omnia_announced_live_pics_inside-news-519.php

It's not available yet but should be available later this month.

I forgot to mention that the reason that I'm looking at getting a Windows Mobile phone is that I'll be able to run Pleco, amongst other useful applications.

[roddy]

Seems like as good a place as any to report that I'm fairly pleased with my new Bluetooth keyboard, which you can see here. Wasn't sure what to expect as last time I looked I hadn't seen a portable Bluetooth keyboard for less than RMB 800, and this was under RMB 300.

It's fairly chunky folded up and while it will fit in a big pocket, you're going to know it's there. Bit fiddly to use, but I'm getting faster typing speeds than with any of the phone's input methods and once my fingers get used to the key size that should speed up a bit. Has a lot of hot key combinations which are handy (to bring up email, etc) and there are definable. I can see this being useful.

Build quality isn't great, it feels somewhat fragile and even when 'locked' there's quite a lot of give in the hinge. Battery life I can't comment on, but the manufacturer (MSI) figure of 90 minute on a set of two AA batteries isn't great.

[adrianlondon]

I have a Palm TX which has a 320x480 screen. The Samsung thing only has 240 x 400 according to the URL you gave. Is that right? The HTC touch diamond has 480 x 640.