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

[badr]

Hey Roddy,

let us know how it goes once you load pleco on there... I'd be curious to hear more about it

[roddy]

Will be sure to do that, I've got both demo versions installed now and have dropped Mr Pleco a line about switching my license to Windows Mobile.

First impressions of the device are very good. I've now spent quite a bit of time tweaking, installing software (going to get a shock in 30 days when all these free trials run out) and generally getting things the way I want it. One of my major gripes, the not-so-attractive text, has been solved since I found out that for some reason Cleartype is disabled. Quick registry edit and things are looking much more attractive.

Chinese text is still somewhat problematic - it displays fine and I've had absolutely no encoding hassles bar the odd webpage needing to be manually told what to display. But the lower resolution means that it just doesn't look as good so on my old TX. We'll see how much that niggles. It's still perfectly readable, just a bit jaggy. Cleartype seemed to help a bit.

The one thing that I just keep on noticing about the device is just how damned small it is. I picked up my TX to check a favorites address this morning and was suddenly struck by how bulky and clumsy it seemed - despite the fact that I've been happily touting it around for years.

I think I've now got it doing pretty much everything I want it to. Happy with Opera as a browser (gave up on Pocket IE very quickly), am using Flexmail as a mail client and set up for that was fine. Newsbreak has happily imported an opml podcasts list and has just downloaded a couple of podcasts over wifi, which makes me think I could maybe use this as my main music / podcasts device and stop carrying my ipod around. Mobipocket is working fine and unlike on the Palm handles Chinese text, meaning that it is probably now my Chinese ebook reader of choice. Am easily able to save Chinese .docs from email attachments and work with them, then send out again via attachment. Photo > MMS > Blog is working fine, so you may see more postings from me on signese.com than you have over the last few months. Input for both English and Chinese is slower than with a keypad, but I'm still getting used to it and handwriting input is better than I expected for both. With a bit of practice you can write a complete short word across the screen and have it recognized. There's a soft keypad option which is pretty good, but it's 联想 rather than T9 and makes some odd choices. Quickly tried out video and music, both are fine.

Niggles: You can't access the memory card slot without removing the battery cover, which is a bit of a hassle. However ActiveSync lets you just browse and use your device memory and the card, which HotSync doesn't. No earphone socket, the supplied headset uses the mini-USB port, so you're stuck with them. They're not bad for in-the-box earphones, but I'm fond of my own earphones. Haven't yet been able to get it to sync wirelessly, which is something I'll need to sort out.

The Touch has EDGE, and here in Dalian it connects to '大连移动GPRS（EDGE）'. I haven't yet figured out if I'm actually getting EDGE speeds or not but at some point soon I'm going to need to set it up as a bluetooth modem for my laptop so will figure it out then. Incidentally, saw EDGE data cards for sale yesterday.

Overall - excellent device. Couple of minor hardware issues, and the jury is still out on whether it's going to be suitable for extended reading sessions, particularly in Chinese, but generally I'm very pleased with it. Only problem is that anything bigger than this is now going to feel like an early-days-of-mobile brickphone.

[cdn_in_bj]

Good report, Roddy. Can you let us know about the battery life, once you've used it enough to do so?

[roddy]

Works very nicely as a bluetooth modem too

Definitely EDGE speeds there if I'm not mistaken. Not sure what this is doing to my puny GPRS 套餐 though.

[Shadowdh]

wow the touch is looking good then... but I still like the looks of the tytn II as it has gps... something that while not essential makes a nice toy a great toy... darn it I mean an important piece of useful kit...

[roddy]

In it's favor the TYTN 2 has the hard keyboard - I'm getting on ok with the soft input methods on the Touch, but there's no doubt that'll be faster -, the GPS and full WCDMA 3G. The 3G won't do you much good in China, but if you're taking it back to the UK then it might come in handy there. Might be worth checking that though. 3 meg camera over 2 meg on the touch. Basically it's got it all, including, on the site I'm just looking at, an extra RMB2000 on the price tag.

Got a mini-USB to 3.5mm headphone adapter today, so I can use my own earphones with the Touch. That'll make podcasts and music a much nicer experience. I'm no audiophile, but I am fond of my in-ear earphones. The supplied ones aren't very good at blocking out oncoming traffic and so on.

I'm also trying to get a VPN set up so I don't need to worry about blocked sites - podcasts mainly - but can't get it working. However, it is possible to connect your PC to a VPN, connect smartphone to the PC and then the smartphone will access the Internet via the PC and you get the same effect - just not on the go.

Battery life - at the moment it looks like I'll need to be recharging overnight, but I've been making heavy use of PDA stuff like surfing, reading, Pleco, etc, not to mention the above-mentioned stint as a Bluetooth EDGE modem.

[cdn_in_bj]

Sounds like you are making good use of your new toy!

It just occurred to me that I've actually played around with the Touch, in the form of the Dopod S1. I personally found the hard screen to be a bit unresponsive to pen inputs - I had to press harder than I was used to with my Dell PDA. Do you find this to be a problem with yours?

[roddy]

You mean Touch, not TYTN? The TYTNs have slide-out Qwerty keyboards.

I have had times when I've thought that it was being unresponsive, but I was putting it down to WM6 being sluggish. Could just be that I'm not pressing hard enough now I think about it.

[Shadowdh]

Roddy... yeah I know... both of the features and the extra maos it will cost... sigh but I think it will be worth it... and I will be taking it back to the UK so the 3G thing will be good too...

[roddy]

Are you planning to buy a grey import or a legit local version? Mine's grey import, and you need to watch what ROM they're putting on it - they'll overwrite the original one with an OS of whatever language you want (might be worth checking they have an English one before you commit). They guy I bought from has put his own version on which is fine, but has a couple of annoyances like his own shops logo appearing as the background in a couple of places, etc. Can probably fix that by messing about in the registry.

I've also just deleted a few hundred megs worth of free ringtones from the memory card, and discovered a folder full of Chinese ebooks. Also got a ton of games, most of which I can delete, but there's also some decent stuff like Age of Empires on there.

[cdn_in_bj]

Roddy, yes I did mean Touch. I got confused by all the different HTC models!

BTW, what do you think of the Touch Dual?

[Shadowdh]

I wouldnt mind looking into a grey import to be honest... but will have to become a bit more comfortable with the local scene first so I have all my ducks in a row... is there anything in particular I should watch out for when looking at the grey stuff, apart from the ROM...?

[roddy]

I don't think the Dual has wifi, so that rules it out for me. Didn't really look at it in any detail. If I could add one feature to my Touch though, it would be a hard keypad for input.

@Shadowdh, just make sure whatever your buying does everything it should do, and make sure you clarify what you're getting - charger, headset, memory card, etc - before you start talking prices. Check the battery is the original manufacturer (原装) one, not a third party one that's been swapped in. But if you find a reputable dealer, you should be fine. The guy I used, if you do a bit of Googling, has been selling smartphones and PDAs for years, knows his stuff technically (and indeed will talk at you very rapidly, at length, about the pros and cons of many, many different pieces of kit) and has two stores.

Check up on guarantees - you're unlikely to get any help from the manufacturer with a grey import, I think. I can't remember the details of mine, but basically the guy will cover repairs for varying lengths of time on different components.

[roddy]

Just wanted to follow up on Plecodict use. I've had the beta of 2.0 installed, so I won't attempt to have the final word on the matter, but basically it works very nicely. I haven't used any of the add-ons like the document reader (probably won't use that) and flashcards, but basic dictionary look up is fine and works well with the device's own handwriting recognition. Obviously Pleco has it's own HWR, but at the moment it doesn't work in full-screen, so I'm using the Touch's. I think they're both Hanwang anyway, I know Pleco is.

[badr]

thanks Roddy,

that's the info I've been holding out for! pleco performance under windows mobile!

It might finally be time to ditch the old palm OS

[roddy]

I don't know, if there was a phone with these features running on Palm OS I wouldn't take much persuasion to change. Windows Mobile - at least on this device - is usable but often seems to get tangled up trying to do three things at once and just failing. On average it seems to just freeze up and stop responding at least once a day, and as there's no reset button that means sliding the back off and popping the battery out. Maybe that's just standard for devices like this nowadays - my TX certainly had it's share of soft resets, but at least Palm had the courtesy to have a reset button. In fact that was probably the biggest advance from the T5/T3 - the more easily-pressed reset button.

That said, it's still very usable and it only freezes when you are overdemanding, rather than at random inexplicable points. You just need to remember not to ask it to do too much, like starting an app just after you turned it on (like its big brother OS's, it looks ready a lot sooner than it actually is), switching apps while it's trying to connect to wifi, etc. Keeping wifi off helps a lot, as otherwise every time you turn the screen on it will try to connect to something.

On Pleco - I'm not sure if you ever had Instant Access on WM devices, but on Palm with Pleco 1.0 you could set it up very easily to give you up a pop-up definition by highlighting a word and pressing any hard / soft button of your choice. It's not quite that smooth with Pleco 2.0 - you need to highlight, then copy, then bring up Pleco and it will read the word from the clipboard. This is a slower process as you specifically need to copy the word and start the entire Pleco app rather than its little pop-up. I'm speeding this up slightly by mapping the camera button (the Touch's only user-mappable button) to Pleco, so I highlight, copy, press the button. Actually I'm not sure if that's any quicker, but I like mapping buttons. I miss Instant Access, but the new dictionaries are great. Bear in mind this is only the 2.0 Beta though, I'm not sure about 1.0 performance on WM6. I have it installed, but haven't used it.

[ipsi()]

From what I have heard, you'll never find a Palm OS phone with those features - the OS just can't support Phone + Bluetooth + Wifi - it'll do 2 of the three, max, from what I understand. And even with the phone, the OS can't support 3G due to lack of multitasking... It's basically a case of Palm OS is dead for smartphones. For PDA devices, it'll continue being fine for a while yet. I also don't imagine we'll see any new Palm OS devices this year, apart from a GSM Centro. And that'll still be 2.5G at best.

Of course, I could be wrong, but that's what I've heard.

On the other hand, I do like the way Palm designs its smartphones, and thus if the rumoured Vodafone Treo comes out I'll pick that up - rumoured to have 3G, Wifi, GPS, Bluetooth, 320x320 screen, Treo form-factor, etc, etc. Basically an awesome device. Running Windows Mobile 6.1, in all likelihood.

[roddy]

Follow-up as I've now had my new toy for about a month, and I'm curious as to whether or not Shadowdh has got round to buying anything yet.

My verdict on the HTC Touch is: It's very nice, I like it. It does everything I need it to. I find the screen a little poor for reading, particularly for Chinese, but it is usable. Battery life is a little disappointing - it'll last a day with significant use of PDA functions, but only just. I went out with a full charge at about 12 and did quite a bit of podcast listening and dictionary stuff and it's now asking to be recharged at 9pm.

I also need to correct two amusing errors I made above. I'd said it crashed quite a bit - it now appears that I may just have been locking the screen and not noticing the words 'screen locked' at the bottom left. Clever me. Also, it does actually have a soft reset button, I just needed to have it pointed out to me by someone who isn't an idiot. You know who you are.

Another tip for anyone thinking of moving to Palm to PPC - remember to budget for any software you may need to purchase as you move. I ended up paying for a browser (Opera. Pocket IE was painful, Minimo looks promising but I didn't get on with it), email client (Flexmai) land RSS software (Newsbreak. Newsgator has a free one, but I didn't like the way it handles podcasts so much).

[Shadowdh]

Hi there Roddy,

I did end up buying the TyTN II (or rather the MDA Vario III as it is known in its Tmobile incarnation)... I have been using it extensively over the last few weeks as a pda, phone and I have also been modifying it (Changing the ROM and adding a few extra bits of software to make it my own so to speak)...

My first impressions are that it really is an incredible piece of kit. I have it set up with a ROM that uses touchflo (which it comes with anyway) and the cube (which is an addition thanks to this rather wonderful ROM I am using). It was easy enough to use straight from the box and the sliding keyboard is great to use when writing texts or using word... plus its pretty robust and keeps the angle you put it at well. Screen is clear and I have been using MS reader to read some books and its easy to read those even on the smallest text size... I have not tried to read Chinese books with reader yet (will try to find some of those and see how that works) but using pleco 2's reader the Chinese text is clear and easy to see.

I have used the internet/wireless facilities only a little but (using opera mobile) it seems quick and easy to use. I have yet to log onto a site with Chinese text but shall do so soon and report back in case anyone is interested... I like the size, its "hefty" (as sometimes described) weight is not troubling in the least. The screen is only .6 or so inches smaller than my N50 pda but it still works well. Its light enough to use it easily on the go and is always with me so makes pleco that much more accessible...

I have yet to fully set up all the software and applications that I want as I have not settled on a permanent ROM yet and dont want to set it up to then have to re do all the installing over again. It does have quite a few handy apps...

I have not yet tried out the music player or its video capabilities due to not having enough time to really sit down with it for a couple of days and really play with it... I dont really have any gripes about it yet as its been performing admirably for all the things I want it to do... a bit more playing might find some rough bits. The memory card slot is on the bottom though which is really accessible.

Edge is really cool and HSDPA looks promising... Battery times seem pretty good so far and I am looking to upgrade to a ROM that delivers an even better battery performance soon. Overall I am really happy with it and its doing all that I want so far. I might do a more comprehensive write up in the next week or so but at the moment I have a bit on the plate so that might have to wait for 2 weeks or thereabouts... that is if anyone is interested in such a review... I will of course answer all questions... if I can... cheers

*edit* oh I forgot to say the gps facility is really good... it locks on quickly and is simple to use... I have tomtom and mapking on there as they complement each other although I will try Garmin soon to see how it compares to tomtom... pretty much because I have garmin in the car and its pretty good...

[roddy]

How much did you pay for it in the end, assuming you got it in China?