remo-knops.com » Mobile

THOUGHTS: Opera Mobile 9.5 browsing experience

Remo Knops — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:00:12 +0000

After a short delay Opera made this morning the first public beta available of their Opera Mobile 9.5 browser, which we already have seen on the HTC Touch Diamond device. However it now becomes available, in beta ofcourse, for the wide public.

I first saw this browser working on the HTC Touch Diamond launch event, since it is in my opinion one of the unique selling points of the device. My description of the Oper Mobile 9.5 browser can be read below:

I will focus on Opera 9.5 and some additional (multimedia) features. In a live demon with HSDPA coverage the “Top Gear” page is used as an example. With a tab-and-hold on the page one can simple drag the page to the right position (compared to the pan view in some graphical applications). A double tap on the picture of an article immediately forces the zoom in on the article, including text wrap of the content. No left right scrolling anymore.

On the HTC Touch Diamond, the Opera browser was closely tied to the TouchFLO 3D interface, and we see in this general version a new button with finger friendly shortcuts to the most important options of the browser. These shortcuts open pop-up menu’s which make navigation through the software extremely fast. As described above, the major browsing-, manipulate- and zoom-functions are very intuitive, which in crease the usability of the software.

Arne Hess from the::unwired has shot a real nice video review [ref03], which provides a nice overview of the different options of this great browser. He tested it on both a Sony Xperia and his HTC Shift !! Matthew Miller from ZDNet has also a very nice image gallery [ref02], which are worth checking out !! Have a look, and download yourself to enjoy the browsing experience. This comes very very close to the iPhone browsing experience, and is really clever designed, so well done Opera !!

Reference list:

ROM UPGRADE: Windows Mobile 6.1 upgrade for HTC TyTN II

Remo Knops — Mon, 26 May 2008 08:00:24 +0000

HTC has officially released a Windows Mobile 6.1 upgrade for the HTC TyTN II, as listed in the Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 press release on 1st April 2008. [ref05]

But the upgrade doesn’t consist only of the Windows Mobile 6.1 upgrade, but should also address some video- and other performance problems. [ref08] It’s clever of HTC to combine these facts and bundle them in one upgrade, so end-users or large companies don’t have to roll out twice an upgrade.

Arne Hess of the::unwired provides us with a good overview of the new Windows Mobile 6.1 improvements.

Windows Mobile 6.1 comes with a host of new and enhanced features including threaded SMS, recipient auto-complete, Direct Push improvements, and enhanced Internet Explorer Mobile, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connection setup simplification, etc and more (incl. support for Microsoft’s System Center Mobile Device Manager). [ref02]

In addition Jason Langridge addresses the battery-life improvement due to the ROM upgrade.

One thing I have noticed is that the battery life on my TyTn 2 seems to be considerably improved. [ref03]

Increased power savings in Windows Mobile 6.1 have also been addressed at the launch of the HTC Diamond. At the event they told me that in case of the HTC Touch Diamond, Windows Mobile 6.1 should contribute between 8 and 21 % to increase of the battery life.

The performance issues are also improved as Modaco states:

Performance IS improved, however with no real video acceleration, don’t get your hopes up TOO much! Thanks to tweaks in 6.1 in general plus HTC’s optimisations, the device DOES feel a lot slicker in use … [ref06]

Overall some nice conclusions can be drawn. At first the TyTN II is a very popular device in both an end user as well as a business user setting. This might be one of the reasons for HTC to roll out the first Windows Mobile 6.1 upgrade. The upgrade provides many improvements, and improved performance. However the video accelleration issue is probably far more complex, and will embed different technical, legal and economic problems and reasons.

Summarizing HTC did a great job, and I think the upgrade really enhances the TyTN II. So, if you still haven’t downloaded the upgrade, head over to the HTC e-club and download this ROM upgrade.

Reference List:

UPDATE: Microsoft Live Search released with customer-driven features

Remo Knops — Mon, 19 May 2008 20:04:49 +0000

Microsoft released a new version of the Microsoft Live Search software. Although the coverage of the application is mainly US and UK based, the software has some real cool options / features.Features of this latest version are based on customer feedback, as can be read on the Weblog of Jason Langridge.

Personally I think Microsoft does a real good job if they listen to the market and can translate the customer feedback into real nice features (normally it’s either feature release or just listening to customers and doing nothing). However this is a real nice product of Microsoft, which I saw in a live demonstration to look up a Mexican restaurant.

Although this was an earlier version than the Friday release, it’s a really handy application of you are highly mobile and your mobile device is the only connection to the outside world. However Microsoft is already beyond the step of just looking up places, and added the following features:

Weather forecast (4 days) for the set / searched location;
Extension of traffic information to more cities;
Enhanced bluetooth headset support, in case of voice search or contact mapping;
Search for community generated information. [ref01, 02, 03]

I hope that Microsoft plans to extend the coverage for other European countries, since I think it’s a great tool. One literally can search everything from the tip of your finger !! The new Microsoft Live Search update is freeware and also available for the Blackberry platform. Download the client from here, especially if you are living in the US or UK I wouldn’t leave without it.