We've been watching Windows Mobile 6.5—or Windows Phone, as Microsoft is sometimes calling it—for months, since Jesus first laid his thumbs on it back in February. We even taught you how to install developer builds! The final version I got for testing, though, was almost identical to the builds we saw so many months ago. This means two things: That we already know what it's going to look like and how it's going to work; and that no, it's nowhere near the upgrade that Windows Mobile needs to be even remotely interesting.

It's a superficial update, and not a very thorough one. It's an interim product, and a vain attempt to hold onto the thinning ranks people who still choose Windows Mobile despite not being somehow tethered to it until the tardy Windows Mobile 7 comes out, whenever that may be. And it won't work.

The Interface

The first thing you'll notice about Windows Mobile 6.5 is Titanium, the new, menu-style homescreen. It's large and typographical, and looks almost Zune-like. This is an auspicious start.
Each menu item provides a shortcut to an app, function or widget, and most have some kind of preview capability: you can flip through photo thumbnails, see missed calls, and thumb through emails, calendar appointments and Internet Explorer favorites without leaving the homescreen. Scrolling is smooth, and has an inertia that 6.1 so conspicuously lacked. Likewise, the new lock screen brings some information to the surface, but not much. (It'll let you know that you have a text, but not what the text says.) Too bad you probably won't see Titanium, ever, since handset manufacturers will almost certainly cover it up with their own custom homescreen.

The second most obvious change is the Start Menu, which Microsoft is so proud of that they've required all 6.5 phone to include a dedicated button for it on all "Windows Phones" a la the Windows Key on a PC. Again, it's striking, and again, it's smooth. This one, though, feels more like a design concept than a final product. For example! The only tool you're given to sort apps is a "Move to Top" command—no dragging, no alphabetical sorting, nothing except this bizarrely-chosen menu command that makes organizing apps feel like completing some kind of horrible puzzle game.

On top of that, there's no way to tell how many apps you have, to delete them, or to tell which "Page" of the start menu you're on. The offset icon spacing is awkward and occasionally ugly, and hey! That Windows button? It doesn't behave like you'd expect it to, opening the Start Menu but not closing it. This whole piece feels half-assed, to put it kindly.

Another well meaning, if not quite adequate change is to the contextual menus. Though they're ordered exactly as they were before, they're now huge and thumb-scrollable.

Things get worse when you move past the surface, revealing an OS that hasn't been fundamentally changed in years, and which bears a strong resemblance to Windows Mobile 6.1, and a startlingly not-weak resemblance to PocketPC 2002. The new homescreen Start Menu, lock screen and contextual menus are just veneers, and they're not very thick.

The remaining interface changes are subtle, and intended almost solely to make Windows Mobile 6.5 bearable to use without a stylus. (Though don't get me wrong—most WinMo 6.5 devices will, damningly, still come with styluses.) It doesn't really feel like a redesign—it feels like someone went through 6.1 and adjusted a few values. Add a few pixels of menu spacing here, some plasticky highlight graphics there, and BOOM. 6.5. Let's go to lunch.

The terrible Windows Media Player app looks the same, the photo albums are helped only by smoother scrolling and support of basic swipe gestures, and the text, email, notes and settings pages are jarringly old-looking, and seriously hostile to pointing devices any larger than a pen. Especially fleshy ones.

Come to think of it, after using 6.5 developer builds for a few months and then switching briefly back to a 6.1, the only thing I really missed was the system-wide inertial scrolling, which replaces 6.1's chunky faux-physics scrolling engine with something that at least behaves predictably.

Windows Marketplace for Mobile

Windows Mobile finally, finally has an app store—quick, look around, is there anyone left who doesn't? The interface is bit awkward, falling somewhere between the large-typeface aesthetic of Titanium and the barebones HERE'S A LIST sensibility of the rest of the OS, resulting in odd text overflow in menus (sort of like on the Zune HD, except less pretty.) You can find apps though a sensible system of categories, or by searching, and downloading and installing is as easy as pressing a button, though you'll occasionally be met with prompts from the app installer.

I can't really pass judgment on the Marketplace's offerings just yet—it's only been open for a few hours, and apps seem to be flooding in at a fairly steady rate—but the initial offerings are pretty bare, counting among themselves just a few free apps, nearly all from Microsoft, with cameos by some recognizable Windows Mobile app developers who are still obliviously charging upwards of $20 for apps that wouldn't break $5 in the iPhone App Store.

Don't get me wrong, the Marketplace is a good thing, in that it'll drive prices down and make finding apps much easier, but it remains to be seen if developers will take to it like they did on the iPhone App Store, or just kinda ignore it like they did with the BlackBerry App World. In any case, this isn't even a 6.5-exclusive service, and just about any app written for 6.5 will work on 6.1 and 6.0, and vise-versa. A victory for Windows Mobile, sure, but not one that 6.5 can claim as its own. A few more notes on the Marketplace:

• Users are entitled to a 24hr refund

• You can browse apps either on the phone or on a website

• Charges go to either your phone bill or CC bill, though nobody's signed on for carrier billing yet.

• 6.0 and 6.1 gets the Marketplace in December

• Marketplace will only show you apps that run on your specific phone

• Apps can only be installed on internal storage, despite the fact that you can manually install apps on an SD card with no problem.

• App purchases are tied to your Windows Live ID, and which can be used on up to five phones. Seems a little lenient, but hey, thanks!

My Phone

Another touted feature of 6.5 that will also happen to be available for every other Windows Mobile phone, My Phone is a decently capable backup service. We've seen most of it before, but today there are a few new features in top of the super-simple backup service that Jason went so far as to call "fancy:"

• Phone wipe will let you remotely purge your phone

• Locate your phone lets you put it on a map, in case you were wondering where it went/where you neighborhood petty thief eats lunch

• You can search text messages

And I kind of love this one:

• You can switch your phone from silent/vibrate to full volume remotely, in case you lost your phone in the couch and just need it to ring

Alas, these cool extras will be part of a premium version of My Phone, price TBD. UPDATE: It's free until November 30th, after which it's $4.99 for 7-day access (most of the premium services are for emergencies, so this makes sense). The free user experience will be a lot like the beta, which is to say basic, but useful for backing up contacts, photos, and other basics on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. The web interface is nice, too—more on that here.

The Browser

The confusingly-named Mobile Internet Explorer 6 is to Mobile IE 5 what IE 7 was to IE6 on the desktop. Get that? This is to say it's a massive upgrade, but like IE7, which added tabs and popup blocking about two years after everyone else had it, Mobile IE6 is at least a generation behind its competitors. For what it's worth, it adds smooth panning and scrolling, intelligent zooming and full(er) support for CSS and Javascript pages that MIE5 used to choke on spectacularly.

Rendering is good, but not WebKit good, and the browser has a tendency to reflow text in an odd way, formatting columns of text more narrowly than it should. And even though rendering is vastly improved—though inexplicably, not to the point of the Zune HD's browser—the experience is still glitchy. Page loading is slow even on a fast Wi-Fi connection, and there's often a pretty wide gap between when a page looks like it's done and when the browser actually becomes responsive enough to interact with. In short, you're going to want to install Opera or Skyfire, the former for faster rendering and easier navigation, and the latter for better Flash support (IE6 includes Flash Lite, which is better than nothing, but can't stack up to Skyfire's compressed full-Flash trickery.) And hell, one of the two will probably come with your phone anyway, because whoever sells it to you probably wants you to like it.

Of course, you won't be able to completely abandon IE, since Microsoft is planning on using it for a new Windows Mobile widget platform. This sounds like a bigger deal that it is—these are just web apps, not desktop widgets or anything like that, but they'll rendered using IE6's engine, and be available in the Marketplace, mixed in with the other apps.

Performance

Microsoft isn't really advertising the SUPER SPEED of Windows Mobile 6.5, which makes sense: 6.5 is based on the same underlying Windows CE version (5.2) as 6.1, and even 6.0. In other words, its guts are oooold. In practice, this means that cold app launches are quick enough, but not noticeably faster than 6.1, even on slightly more powerful hardware. (A Touch Diamond2 for 6.5, and a Touch Pro for 6.1)

For Windows mobile, the perception of slowness has always been more of a problem than actual slowness, since flashy animations are sparse, and the manner in which apps load, close and minimize can look a bit clunky. The smooth scrolling and easier navigation at least give the impression the 6.5 is a little leaner and less laggy, but there's not much new going on under the hood to back that feeling up.

That said, I don't see why not, since ROM cookers the world over have been squeezing impressive speed out of Windows Mobile for years now, and have even done some admirable work on 6.5 pre-release.

The Crux of the Problem

Last month I reviewed the HTC Touch Pro2. It was too expensive to recommend, but its software was a pleasant surprise. Contextual menus had been skinned with larger, finger-friendly buttons; there was a panel-based app launcher; the supplied browser was pretty good; certain version had a replacement for the start menu; and hey, there was even inertial scrolling across all apps. The catch, though, was that this was a Windows Mobile 6.1 handset. HTC had replicated almost every feature of 6.5 with their own software tweaks, and provided a much better homescreen than Titanium with TouchFLO 3D. All before 6.5 even came out. Install My Phone and Marketplace for Mobile on there, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a single reason to upgrade to 6.5.

To put it another way, handset manufacturers have done more in the last two years to improve Windows Mobile than Microsoft has, which borders on pathetic. In the time since Windows Mobile 6.0 came out in February of 2007, Apple has released the iPhone—three times. Palm has created the Pre, with its totally new webOS. Android has come into being, and grown into something wonderful. RIM has created a touch phone and a revamped BlackBerry OS. For these companies, the world has changed.

And Microsoft? They eked out some performance enhancements and a new homescreen in 6.1, and executed a gaudy facelift for 6.5. This is what they've done to Windows Mobile. What's amazing is that in the time it took Windows Mobile 6.1 to lazily morph into 6.5, Microsoft—Microsoft!— designed one of the most spectacular handsets I've seen in years, loaded it with brilliant, inspired software, a decent web browser and a fledgling app store. One problem! It's wasn't a handset. It was a Zune. I understand the the two platforms aren't directly comparable, and as is, Zune OS wouldn't work very well for a smartphone, but it's a taste of something great. And why on earth does the HD have a better browser than Microsoft's smartphone OS? It's almost like the Zune team was trying to embarrass the mobile guys or something. And to their credit, if they're looking for it, they did.

Just Not Enough

Judging from the first wave of 6.5 handsets, the change OS will barely be noticeable to most folks. Alternative interfaces like TouchFLO and TouchWiz will remain, and won't outwardly change, nor will included apps—they're all compatible. Customers will buy Windows Mobile phones based on the quality of their 3rd party interfaces; carriers will continue to carry them because certain people, chained by their employers or a specific piece of software, will need them; and app makers will be slow to take to the Marketplace, since hey, how much longer do these Windows CE 5-based OSes even have left? It'll be a sad, long slog until April (or god forbid, December) when Windows Mobile 7, whatever it is, finally hits phones.

I'd like to think that 6.5's stunning failure to innovate is a symptom of a neglected project—maybe Microsoft just needed something, anything to hold people over until the mythical Windows Mobile 7 comes out, whatever it is. But as Steve Ballmer himself has plainly admitted, it's worse: Microsoft has simply lumbered in the wrong direction for two years, letting everyone, save maybe Nokia, fly right past them. [Microsoft]

The new start menu, homescreen and lock screen at least look like they're from 2009

The default browser is acceptable, whereas it used to be horrible

MyPhone and Marketplace are welcome additions and both show plenty of potential, but both will be available on pre-6.5 phones

The core of the OS is almost exactly the same as 6.1, and 6.0 for that matter

It never takes more than a few finger taps to get from the pretty, new 6.5 interface, to the blocky, old, finger-hostile one

Seriously, it reminds me of Windows for Workgroups

After carriers and handsets manufacturers have their way with it, it will be literally indistinguishable from 6.1.

The price: $349 with a 2-year contract, after instant rebate, making it T-Mobile's most expensive phone

The conclusion: A respectable swan song for Windows Mobile 6.1, the Touch Pro2 would be a safe recommendation for diehard Windows Mobile fans, and a cautious "consider it" for business-oriented smartphone shoppers, assuming it was priced at $200 or less. It costs nearly twice that much.

The previous Touch Pro was an impressive piece of kit, but something wasn't quite right about it. It could've been the screen—2.8 lame inches, when the emerging smartphone standard was closer to 3, or 3.2. It could've been the battery, which didn't last much more than a day, and in some situations, not even that. But it was almost definitely the fact that it was literally a brick. It was fat and squat, and felt like a clenched fist in your pocket.
The Pro2 has inherited the excellent 3.6-inch WVGA screen from the HTC Touch HD, meaning that it's a much broader device than its predecessor, but somehow, it's actually thinner. Battery life is much improved, stretching to nearly two days with fairly frequent use. And despite being a larger, heavier handset, it feels more like a phone, and less like a chunk of building material.

With the larger footprint comes a revamped keyboard, which is obviously more spacious, but also totally redesigned: instead of the contiguous, plasticky low-profile keys on the Pro, the Pro2's got rubberized chiclet keys. The original Pro's keyboard was good; this one is one of the best I've ever used. Once you get used to the odd placement of the Delete key (it's where you'd expect Enter to be), it's a dream, which is fortunate, since typing on the Pro2's somewhat squishy resistive screen isn't a very gratifying experience, with or without the stylus.
The display half of the device is revamped too, with a less prominent chin—chalk that up to the replacement of the circular d-pad/zoom ring with a left/right zoom strip—and different sliding mechanism, which allows the display to be flipped up as well as slid to the side, for easy reading on a table or, had T-Mobile not stripped out the front-facing camera, hands-free video calling.

I'd miss the zoom/scroll circle a bit more on the keyboardless Diamond2, since the strip doesn't conceal the noticeable input zoom lag as well, and more to the point, you lose the 4-way clicking ability; here, though, it's fine. So far, so good.

Your first impression of the Pro2 is that it's an impressive, heavy, well-though-out chunk of handset, but HTC hasn't done everything right. Like, hey, there's no 3.5mm jack! Instead we get a giant multifunction Mini-USB adapter that somehow manages to be more cumbersome that the old wire dealy—a fact made doubly annoying by photos of other carriers' Pro2s with 3.5mm jacks built in. Internal storage is still measurable in megabytes, expandable by means of a MicroSD slot.

In addition, the camera's the same underwhelming 3.2-megapixel unit as HTC's been using for years, and the core hardware—processor and RAM included—are essentially unchanged (though software tweaks make the whole handset feel faster anyway—more on that later). Lastly, the backplate doesn't feel all that sturdy or well-secured—more than once I flicked it off by accident, though it never fell off in my pocket. Given enough time though, I'm pretty comfortable that it would, which is disconcerting, and feels out of place on such a pricey piece of hardware. (This seems to be a problem across carriers. The stock Euro HTC Touch Pro2 has a different backplate, as you can see in the gallery, but it was even more prone to flying off at the slightest push.)

The software package is actually a pleasant surprise, for what it is. HTC has done a fantastic job gussying up Windows Mobile over the years, and their newest version of TouchFlo 3D is, given WinMo 6.1 almost-over lifecycle, the best this OS will ever look or feel. HTC has reached down as far as they can, so you rarely see 6.1's embarrassing, Windows 3.1-like guts. Even when you do, they've been given modernizing treatments: the tiny, finger-dodging contextual menus have been replaced with larger, HTC-skinned ones, and everything from emails and text messages to system folders and Mobile IE has been given proper inertial scrolling, like in Windows Mobile 6.5. HTC has even gotten a little assertive this time around, adding a Sense-like contacts system to the mix, which lets you flip between contacts' call lists, text messages, and Facebook updates in a single screen, and a thorough email setup wizard, which beats the hell out of Microsoft's default tools. The whole TouchFlo system has been heavily optimized over the years, such that the Pro2 feels like it's been stuffed full of much more powerful hardware, even if it hasn't. And one last thing: there's finally a full landscape mode, instead of that cop-out icon grid. T-Mobile's yanked out two features that were standard on the Pro2—a panel-based Start Menu replacement and HTC's iconic flip-clock homescreen—though you won't miss either too much. Sat side by side with Windows Mobile 6.5—which this handset could eventually be upgraded to for free, if T-Mobile so chooses—HTC's take on 6.1 shows they've done nearly as much to keep this OS relevant as Microsoft has. For HTC, that's admirable. For Microsoft? More sad than anything else.

The stock software bundle leaves a few gaps, but nothing you can't download in a few minutes. Opera Mobile is included, and it's as good as ever. Google Maps and Skyfire weren't, but these free apps worked a treat once installed.

In so many ways, this feels like a tribute to a class of luxury handset that is getting less relevant by the day. Remember the original Sony Xperia? It too had a huge screen, pretty hardware, a fantastic keyboard, a deeply-modified version of Windows Mobile 6.1, and an astronomical pricetag. Now think: have you ever actually seen one in the wild? Smartphones have changed a lot in the last two years, to put it lightly; not only have they gotten smarter, but they've gotten cheaper. The Pro2 is standing alone at the end of a path laid out years ago, that smartphone manufacturers—including HTC, with their Android handsets—have been trying to split off from, and with good reason.

If you really want this handset, you've probably known so since it was announced, and you shouldn't be deterred by anything except this ridiculous price. The handset is fine. But just know this: for $349, you can have virtually anything else on the market today. Putting the Pro2 at this price point means that every prospective buyer will have to compare it to the Pres, the iPhones, the MyTouch 3Gs, the Heroes (soon), and the BlackBerry Bolds of the world, all of which will cost less, and for most people, offer more, and ask themselves: This? Really? [T-Mobile]

Screen is huge

Keyboard is wonderful, even for giant banana thumbs

TouchFlo 3D does an admirable job sprucing up Windows Mobile 6.1

Dude, Windows Mobile 6.1, in August of 2009

The backplate feels like it's going to fly off half the time

No headphone jack, and a stupid adapter

THREE-HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS

Developers will be able to submit applications to get started on the vetting process as soon as July 27th, giving Microsoft a little lead time to ensure a healthy selection at launch.

If Microsoft didn't explicitly state that the Marketplace would be exclusively available on Windows Mobile 6.5, they certainly implied it, touting the service as one of the great new features of the OS—they're even launching together in Fall. Wider availability makes sense, since the core components of the OS are largely unchanged, and apps will generally be cross compatible. Basically, this is great for the scores of Windows Mobile users who can't—or don't want to—upgrade.

That said, it leaves Microsoft, and 6.5, in an awkward position. Without the draw of the Marketplace, there really isn't much left to be excited about in 6.5. Intertial scrolling? A new Start menu and home screen? As someone who's been using a late build of the OS for quite some time, I can say that it's a welcome upgrade, but improves things to a degree you'd expect from a third-party shell replacement like Touchflo 3D or Touchwiz, not a proper OS upgrade. [Microsoft via PCWorld]

AT&T COMPLETES ITS FULL HOUSE OF SMART DEVICES WITH THE NEW SAMSUNG JACK™

Compact, Elegant Handset is Powered by Windows Mobile 6.1 and features Wi-Fi, 3.2 Megapixel Camera and Integrated aGPS Technology

DALLAS, May 14, 2009 - Smartphone fans have an ace in hand with the latest Windows Mobile device from AT&T and Samsung. AT&T* and Samsung Telecommunications America (Samsung Mobile) announced today the May 19 availability of the Samsung Jack™, the next generation Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphone available exclusively to AT&T customers in the U.S and powered by the nation's fastest 3G network.

The Jack is a sleek and compact handset with an optimized keyboard for easy and accurate messaging, including SMS, instant messaging and access to multiple e-mail accounts. Microsoft Direct Push is available for enterprise and small business users, while AT&T Xpress Mail offers access to most major personal e-mail accounts. The Jack also features over-the-air synchronization of contacts, calendars and task lists with Microsoft Exchange Server or Xpress Mail.

"The Samsung Jack will be another hit crossover smartphone in the tradition of the Blackjack and Blackjack II," said Mike Woodward, vice president, Mobile Phone Portfolio, AT&T Mobility Corporation. "The Blackjack series has been the number one selling franchise in Windows Mobile history."

The Jack combines the familiar look and feel of a Windows desktop with a stylish, streamlined device ideal for customers looking to simplify and increase the productivity of their business and personal lives. Additional key features of the Jack include 256 MB RAM, a 3.2 megapixel camera with video-capture capabilities, Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g) to connect with home or office networks, and built-in aGPS for use with AT&T Navigator, AT&T Navigator Global Edition and other GPS-based applications for personal and business use. AT&T Navigator is available to try at no cost for 30-days. Data usage charges apply.

"Samsung has a long tradition of bringing award-winning smartphones to our customers and the Jack is our next flagship device," said Bill Ogle, Chief Marketing Officer, Samsung Telecommunications America. "The Jack takes the best messaging features, coolest multimedia options and cutting-edge productivity tools and packs them into a high-tech phone."

Make Your Life Easier with Pocket-Sized Productivity

Windows Mobile 6.1 puts your desktop computer in the palm of your hand. Microsoft Office Outlook Mobile on the Jack keeps enterprise and small business customers connected with synchronization of schedules and contacts, Internet Explorer Mobile provides improved quick and easy Web browsing and Office Mobile enhances productivity with the ability to manage Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents. Additional Windows Mobile 6.1 features on the Jack include threaded SMS messaging, and Voice Command.

The Jack also supports Microsoft's System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008, an enterprise-grade mobile solution for managing and protecting Windows Mobile 6.1 phones. Mobile Device Manager provides users with software distribution capabilities and security-enhanced access to company data while they are away from the office. The Samsung Jack will also be upgradable to Windows Mobile 6.5.

Entertainment On-The-Go

Style meets substance with the robust feature-set of the Samsung Jack. AT&T Mobile Music, an integrated, on-the-go music experience that delivers "your music, your way" by providing simple access to a robust collection of music content, including access to XM Radio Mobile™ and more.

For the visually oriented, CV (Cellular Video) from AT&T gives viewers access to thousands of video clips - news, sports, weather, entertainment, and more - via streaming video. The Jack also includes features such as stereo Bluetooth® technology, Windows Media Player 10 Mobile and microSD™ memory card slot for external storage of up to 16GB of data.

AT&T offers the best wireless coverage worldwide, offering the most wireless phones that work in the most countries. AT&T customers can use the Jack to make or receive a phone call in more than 215 countries and check e-mail, browse the Web or perform other data functions in more than 170 countries, including in more than 80 - such as Japan and South Korea - that have deployed 3G networks.

Pricing and Availability

The Samsung Jack will be available May 19 through select AT&T retail locations or at www.wireless.att.com for $99.99 after mail-in rebate with a two-year service agreement. (Pay $199.99 and after mail-in rebate receive $100 AT&T Promotion Card. Two-year agreement and voice plan of $39.99 or more, plus a Personal PDA data plan.)

However, there isn't much as far as specific details are concerned. The exact date that it might arrive has not been determined (although they did note that launch should take place in Q2 ). Whether features like 3G compatibility will be added to the Pro2 for it's US debut also remains to be seen. [Twitter and Twitter via Electronista]

X960
• Pre-installed GPS software
(Navigon try-and-buy, for Europe market)
• 2.8" VGA touch screen
• High speed HSPA connectivity
• New easy-to-use virtual keyboard
• Access directly to key applications
via widget-based home screen
•3.2MP Auto-focused camera

F900
• Pre-installed GPS software
(Navigon try-and-buy, for Europe market)
• 2.8" VGA touch screen
• High speed HSPA connectivity
• New easy-to-use virtual keyboard
• Access directly to key applications
via widget-based home screen
•3.2MP Auto-focused camera

M900
• Physical Qwerty keyboard
• 3.8" WVGA touch screen
• Fingerprint reader
• 5 Megapixel autofocus camera
• HSPA, WiFi, BT
• Windows Mobile 6.1, Outlook, Office

DX900
• Physical Qwerty keyboard
• 3.8" WVGA touch screen
• Fingerprint reader
• 5 MP autofocus camera
• HSPA, WiFi, BT
• Windows Mobile 6.1, Outlook, Office
• Standby time 160h / Talk time: 5h

But while Acer's skin they've placed on top of Windows Mobile 6.1 looks alright and the hardware seems passable, why aren't they breaking into the smartphone market with WinMo 6.5? [Acer]

These handsets have always represented something of a standard to which WinMo phones are measured, and the tastefully restyled new versions, boldly called the Diamond2 and Pro2, play on their predecessors' strengths.

The Diamond2 gets a screen upgrade, from 2.8in to 3.2in, with an accompanying resolution boost from VGA (480x640) to WVGA (480x800). The lauded TouchFlo 3D alternative interface now reaches a bit deeper into Windows Mobile 6.1, making a few more functions touch-friendly, but stopping short of a total overhaul. The most interesting new interface feature is the "Single Contact View", which consolidates your complete history of communication (texts, calls, emails) for a given contact into a single screen. A SD card expansion slot replaces the old model's fixed internal memory, which results in greater flexibility but severely diminished memory size on delivery (gone is the 4GB internal memory, replaced with the wimpy 512MB ROM) and a new 5-megapixel autofocus camera.

The Pro2 is treated to most of the same upgrades. Its screen stretches to a full 3.6 inches, which is just .2 inches smaller than the monstrous TouchHD. It gets a louder speakerphone system and less-pixely camera than the Diamond2, but retains the larger battery and slide-out QWERTY keyboard that originally distinguished its dad from the Diamond.

Battery life is apparently boosted by 50% on the Diamond2 and "improved" on the Pro2, a change which is more than welcome, as this is one of the areas where the original Diamond/Pro fell down. Other, less immediately interesting new features include "HTC Push Internet", which is essentially pre-loads parts of your favorite webpages, and the inauspiciously-named "Straight Talk", which allows for easy transitions between text or email communications and regular or group phone calls, letting you immediately initiate a conference call with, say, the recipients of an email thread.

A few things don't sit will here—mainly the lack of internal memory and lost touchwheel—but anyone who has used the TouchHD knows that the enhanced resolution is a welcome change. And not to repeat an all-too-obvious grievance, but HTC fans have long said that the Diamond and Pro should have been the company's Android handsets from the get-go, so it's hard to avoid being slightly disappointed by Windows Mobile 6.1, again.

HTC hasn't announced pricing yet, but should hit European and Asian markets by early Q2, with early H2 availability worldwide. Full press release below. [HTC]

BARCELONA - Feb 16, 2009 - HTC Corporation, a global designer of mobile phones, today unveiled two new flagship devices, the HTC Touch Diamond2ä and HTC Touch Pro2ä. Integrating innovative simplicity with unique style and an intuitive interface, the devices balance function, form and cutting-edge technology to personalize the communication and mobile Internet experience.

"The HTC Touch Pro2 and HTC Touch Diamond2 introduce a mobile communication experience that simplifies how we communicate with people in our lives whether through voice, text or email," said Peter Chou, president and CEO, HTC Corp. "HTC is delivering the latest, cutting-edge sophistication in a broad portfolio of mobile phones that improve how people live, work and communicate."

HTC TOUCHFLO 3D INTEGRATED WITH WINDOWS MOBILE
The HTC Touch Diamond2 and HTC Touch Pro2 utilize HTC's latest TouchFLO 3D interface. TouchFLO 3D has been more deeply integrated into a customized version of Windows Mobile 6.1 to deliver more consistency throughout Windows Mobile applications and menus. Focused on making navigation easier and more intuitive, TouchFLO 3D brings important information to the top-level user interface, including quick access to people, messaging, email, photos, music and weather. As part of this improved Windows Mobile integration the touch focus areas have been enlarged to be more finger-touch friendly.

BRINGING PEOPLE TOGETHER
With the HTC Touch Diamond2 and HTC Touch Pro2, HTC is introducing a new people-centric communication approach, providing a single contact view that displays the individual conversation history of contacts regardless of whether voice, text or email were used. This can be viewed from the contact card or the in-call screen during a phone conversation, ensuring the latest communication contact-by-contact is always at hand.

SIMPLIFYING HOW PEOPLE ACCESS THEIR INFORMATION
Continuing its commitment to making the mobile Internet easier and more enjoyable, the HTC Touch Diamond2 and HTC Touch Pro2 introduce HTC's Push Internet technology. HTC Push Internet alleviates slow downloading and rendering of Web pages on a mobile phone. Users can preselect their favorite Websites to get immediate access to them when needed.

HTC TOUCH DIAMOND2
The HTC Touch Diamond2 is the next step in the evolution of the successful HTC Touch Diamond. Crafted to fit perfectly into the hand, the Touch Diamond2 evolves the compact design and iconic style of the original HTC Touch Diamond. It incorporates a larger 3.2-inch high-resolution wide-screen VGA display for a greater viewing area in a design just 13.7mm thick. The phone also includes a new touch sensitive zoom bar for even faster zooming of Web pages, emails, text messages, photos or documents.

Leveraging HTC's TouchFLO 3D experience combined with a people-centric communication approach and HTC's new Push Internet technology The Touch Diamond2 offers an advanced touch experience that is optimized for one-hand use.

With fifty-percent better battery life, a five mega-pixel auto focus camera, expandable memory, gravity sensor and an ambient light sensor, the Touch Diamond2 brings the most sophisticated capabilities to a broad consumer audience looking for the professional benefits of a smartphone without sacrificing size, looks or functionality.

HTC TOUCH PRO2
Designed for business professionals, the HTC Touch Pro2 is architected with distinct style and strength while delivering the most powerful productivity experience available on a mobile phone. Leveraging HTC's TouchFLO 3D, people-centric communication and Push Internet technology, the Touch Pro2 features a high-resolution 3.6-inch widescreen VGA display for an expanded viewing area and large finger-friendly QWERTY keyboard. With improved battery life, expandable memory, a touch-sensitive zoom bar as well as gravity, proximity and ambient light sensors, the Touch Pro2 is optimized for touch as well as heavy email use.

INTRODUCING HTC STRAIGHT TALKÄ FOR HTC TOUCH PRO2
The new HTC Touch Pro2 leverages voice in a new way to create one of the most sophisticated communication experiences found on a mobile phone. HTC's new Straight Talk technology delivers an integrated email, voice and speakerphone experience. Users can transition seamlessly from email to single or multi-party conference calls and turn any location into a conference room.

In addition to the new simplified calling experience, Straight Talk includes an innovative mechanical and acoustic design that features a sophisticated speakerphone experience similar to those found in corporate boardrooms. Straight Talk delivers a high-fidelity voice and sound experience enhanced by asymmetric speakers and advanced noise suppression with full duplex acoustics. When the Touch Pro2 is flipped over it automatically turns into a conference room speakerphone system.

Availability
The HTC Touch Diamond2 will be available to customers across major European and Asian markets in early Q2 2009 with broader global availability coming later in the year. The Touch Pro2 will be available across major global markets beginning in early summer.

About HTC
Founded in 1997, HTC Corporation (HTC) is a global leader in mobile phone innovation and design. Since its establishment, HTC has developed strong R&D capabilities, pioneered many new designs and product innovations and launched state-of-the-art mobile phones for mobile operators and distributors in Europe, the US, Asia and around the world. HTC is one of the fastest growing companies in the mobile device market. The company is listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange under ticker 2498. For more information about HTC, please visit www.htc.com.

The scroll wheel's still there, and the T-Mobile customized UI is still there, the sliding SureType half-QWERTY keyboard is still there and the Windows Mobile Standard (non-touchscreen) edition OS is still there. I can't call this the same phone, but it's pretty damn similar. It does have support for T-Mobile Unlimited HotSpot Calling, which is the calling over Wi-Fi (@ Home) system you can sign up for.

The first thing we've noticed is that the phone is light—we thought the battery was missing at first until it booted right up. The keys are bulged and feel good enough (looks the same as the first), and the scroll wheel flipped between items with only slight lag. There's still Windows Mobile sluggishness throughout, which you'll notice as you're dumped from the T-Mobile customized front screen whenever you're trying to do some task.

The new Shadow doesn't seem to push the bar of Windows Mobile as much as the original Shadow did, but it's not a bad phone—it's just a Windows Mobile phone. It's portable, light, and somewhat solid. It's just too bad that it uses Windows Mobile Standard instead of Professional. This is about as good a WM Smartphone as you're gonna get before Windows Mobile 6.5 hits later this year, which is what you should be waiting for instead of making a purchase now. But if were looking for a phone that's really black, there's a reason why they call this the Shadow. Seriously. Cause it's black. Really black. Ninjas could use this and not be detected.

Before we get started, a quick note on the last Windows Mobile test, and what we're doing differently here. Some of you guys complained that the Samsung Epix was a crappy, slow piece of hardware. However, according to Laptop, its 624MHz Marvell processor and 128MB RAM are specs that just about on par with the three phones clamored for in the comments. Still, you get your wish: Here we lined up the Sony Xperia X1, HTC Touch Pro (AT&T's Fuze) and the Samsung Omnia, and put them through the same tests. On the Epix, for Opera testing, we went with v8.65 in order to not use beta software. (Opera's own site lists 8.65 as its most recent stable version.) Here, all the Windows Mobile hardware we've added to the test have Opera 9.5 built right in.

So without further explanation, here are the numbers—time to load the page, and how accurately it was rendered using Firefox 3 as a reference:

As you can see, the Xperia, Fuze and Omnia are about on par with the Epix when it comes to IE (they suck!), though Opera Mobile 9.5 obviously crushes 8.65 when it comes to speed and competency. I asked Opera why I saw the performance differences between the three phones and they admitted that there are some tweaks, which "are mainly with making our browser work best on the different devices." So, let's look at the new phones and see how they rate against the Epix:

Xperia X1
You probably noticed in the chart that load times are longer over Wi-Fi in a few spots. This is because it would randomly hang, not loading data, for up to 20 seconds. The Xperia was aggravating because its touchscreen seemed to be the least responsive of the three, making navigation a pain, though its optical mouse came in handy for zipping around pages, and it worked better than the Omnia's. One other annoyance is that Opera blocked its virtual symbol keyboard from coming up, which made it hard to enter one of the URLs. It falls smack in the middle.

HTC Fuze
I had the smoothest overall experience with the Fuze, and would be my closest thing to a recommendation. Its touchscreen was responsive, which made double tapping to zoom and pan around pages fast and mostly intuitive in Opera Mobile. Having symbols mapped directly to the keyboard is a big time saver while punching in URLs. This is good, since it seemed to be the slowest of the three, both over 3G and Wi-Fi. Sluggishness aside, the web experience is markedly more usable than the other two new phones.

Omnia
The all-touchscreen Omnia, despite being the fastest over 3G in a number of cases, was a nightmare. During the 3G tests, it managed to crash Opera on three of the six pages tested. I also had tons of Wi-Fi issues. Eventually I was told by Samsung that VZAppZone, Verizon's pseudo-app store that's all but pre-installed on the phone (after you fire it up, it installs), was breaking the Wi-Fi. (On the Epix in the previous showdown, I was later told by Samsung that installing Opera is what broke Wi-Fi for IE. So, uh, Samsung maybe...oh, whatever.) Also, its portrait keyboard has keys so ridiculously skinny, they'd remind anorexic models not to eat. When Opera did work and a page was actually loaded, it was the snappiest at moving around the page. But overall, yeesh.

Conclusion
So where would I slot Opera 9.5 overall if I were to slide it into the previous browser battle? I'd give it a B-. It has a great, desktop-y UI (though I wish a few of the buttons were a smidge bigger, taking into consideration fat fingers and the inadequacies of resistive touchscreens). It's really competent, and it has a solid zoom metaphor, with the double taps usually working like a charm. And it has extras like tabs. But, and this is the big but, it still doesn't feel quite as smooth or instantly responsive as Safari or Android's browser. It's clearly an OS issue, though, not an Opera one.

Speaking to that, testing these three phones actually took longer than it did to test the six in the original Battlemodo, entirely because of how much wrestling I had to do with Windows Mobile. I've used close to a dozen Windows Mobile devices over the last year, and it's still a bitch.

If you haven't noticed in our reviews of Windows Mobile phones, we've basically ceased comparing to them anything but other WM phones, in a wishful attempt at dulling our totally appropriate disdain for the OS, lest the review essentially turn into one giant bitchfest. They're clearly off in their own world of performance and function.

Even ceding the point that Windows Mobile is somehow more functional than the iPhone or Android, it's like comparing one of those 100-in-1 kitchen gadgets that'll blend, slice, dice, toast, saute, braise, set the table, clean the dishes AND suck you off while it's doing all that to a Waring MX1000 blender. It doesn't matter how much the all-in-one gadget can technically do if you can't figure out how to use it, and it performs every task with only mediocre results.

If the iPhone ran half as poorly as Windows Mobile phones, Apple haters would (rightfully) scream as loudly as Apple fanboys do about Vista. If any BlackBerry was as much of a flustercuck, reviewers would trash the crap out of it. I'm sorry, but at this point, any apologist left defending Windows Mobile is either delusional or full of crap—either way, not worth listening to.

I won't touch another Windows Mobile phone until WM7 or at least 6.5, no matter how awesome the hardware looks. Call me when it runs Android.

Price: $250 after two-year contract and $70 mail-in rebate.

The Verdict: The Omnia is a Windows Mobile 6.1 phone, so at the basic level, you know what you're getting. The difference between it and basically every other WinMo 6.1 phone lies in the TouchWiz UIcing that's been slathered on top, and the hardware. If you're doing a double-take after peeking Sammy's Behold for T-Mobile, we wouldn't blame you—the Omnia is kinda like the smartphone version of the Behold, since it's got an almost identical industrial design, the same TouchWiz UI and a 5MP camera.

Hardware

Okay, so what sets this apart from other Windows Mobile offerings is that the hardware is in a fairly tight, if verrrrry familiar form factor. (I don't know why Jesus thought it felt so obese, actually.) It's faster and feels more responsive than most other WinMo phones, too, with a 624MHz processor compared to the more common (for HTC phones, anyway) 528MHz CPU, even though it has a puny 128MB of RAM. (It's still not quite as nimble as I feel like it should be, however.) The five-megapixel camera, like the Behold, is good—better than most phones, anyway—and has similar extensive-for-a-phone software for photo tweaking and editing. It's also got the Verizon equivalent of a unicorn with one testicle—Wi-Fi. Verizon's awesome network plus Wi-Fi gives it a serious network leg-up on most of the competition. And it comes with 8GB of storage, which is handy since it supports a crazy number of video formats natively.

Not so great on the hardware side, I feel like the touchscreen is slightly less responsive than the Behold or Instinct, though that might be Windows Mobile coming through. The resolution is disappointing, just 400x200, which looks markedly crappier stretched across its 3.2-inch screen than the 640x480 pixels HTC crams into the Touch Pro. I really miss a dedicated back button for navigating (or escaping, rather) WinMo's menus. Its optical mouse (in case you don't wanna go the bullshit stylus route to hit tiny, finger-hating Windows icons) is jankier and harder to use than the one on its cousin the Epix. Also, internet standard complaint for not having a 3.5mm jack and a BS proprietary power and USB connector.

UI, Features and Usability

TouchWiz more readily reveals some of its deficiencies here compared to the Behold—like not being able to resize widgets—since you want to do more from the home screen to avoid diving into the WM UI (or at least I do). Love the wireless manager widget for instance, but it's too damn big, covering like half the screen. As I said about the Behold, TouchWiz is really only skin-deep—it's not as deeply integrated as HTC's TouchFlo interface, so after one or two clicks you'll arrive in WinMo land. The plus side, conversely, is that performance is much better than the also fresh-off-the-boat HTC Fuze for AT&T (aka Touch Pro), since there's a lot less overhead from the skin. Still, overall, it does make stuff easier to get to. There are some thoughtful touches here as well, like the haptic feedback letting you know the accelerometer has been tripped, so the screen's about to flip around with a snazzy (albeit slightly gratuitous) animation.

The onscreen keyboard is shockingly worse than the Behold's that I just came off of, with a weird layout (why is space way on the other side of keyboard??) and a thoroughly terrible QWERTY rendition in portrait mode. The VZAppZone is another UI atrocity, which not only looks like crap, but functions really terribly as a browser based app store. Speaking of browsers, the Omnia ships with Opera 9.5, which offers a really pleasant web experience with solid page rendering, nice zoom and tabs, even though WinMo occasionally lags it up. (More on this in an upcoming piece, hint hint.) Finally, on the media front, the Omnia busts down a few barriers, with a built in FM radio (though you have to have the headset connected, since it uses it as an antenna) and support for a ton of audio and video formats from Ogg to Xvid. Too bad the media player UI is plenty bleh.

Final score

If you're looking for a Windows Mobile device on Verizon, you don't have a lot of (good) options. Luckily, the Omnia is one of the best choices for WinMo overall, not just on the carrier, though we wouldn't blame you for wanting the actual keyboard of the Touch Pro. However, that'll cost you $100 more, since the Verizon Touch Pro is $350 to the Omnia's $250. And if you're just looking for a standard smartphone on Verizon, you can get cheaper still and go with the $199 BlackBerry Storm, which, despite its flaws, I think is ultimately a more compelling, and usable, device that will only become more so after RIM fixes the bugs. But if you want Verizon, and Windows Mobile, and don't want to pay $350 for it, you've got a new phone.

Before 2007, using the internet on your phone would make you want to kill yourself, if you were dumb enough to believe the crap splattered across that tiny screen even was the "internet." But the combination of increased bandwidth and better mobile software means that more phones really are promising to deliver the real internet, in living color. We tested eight different browsers, and while some put smiles on our faces, others proved that rendering HTML correctly is a far cry from actually giving you an awesome web experience. And what about 3G vs. Wi-Fi? Everything the carriers have told you is a lie. This is the true state of mobile web.

Before we give you the rundown of each of the most prevalent mobile browsers, here's how they all stacked up in a timed test of how fast (and how well) they could render websites, chosen for their diversity and particular challenges:

CHART KEY: Number value is time for complete page load in seconds; page rendering is rated from "Fail" to "Excellent" for each; and the color (red, yellow, green) indicates overall performance taking into account both speed and rendering accuracy: Green = good overall, Red = fail overall.

This second chart runs through the same procedure with all of the phones that had Wi-Fi options:

It's a pretty daunting pile of numbers, so let's break it down into standard prose, rating each browser as we go:
Android
A fast, smart mobile browser based on WebKit. It tackles most sites with (almost) unrivaled grace and speed. Panning and zooming could be smoother and more responsive, but with a ton of options for getting around a page—various touch methods and the trackball—few sites will be challenging to zip around. The only thing we really miss is multitouch for zoom. Buttons just aren't a very elegant or precise solution, and while the whole-page magnifying glass technique is nice, we'd love something a bit more refined. Overall though, we're happy campers on Android's browser. Grade: B+

BlackBerry Bold
Leaps and bounds ahead of the browser BlackBerry users have put up with for years, it renders most pages correctly, even if scripts give it a conniption fit (hence its long load times for Wikipedia and the WSJ). It uses the standard "click to zoom" metaphor, which works well enough, though getting around a page with the trackball can be kind of a work out for you thumb. The Column View, which squeezes a whole page into a single column, is fairly convenient and makes it easier to get around wider pages, even if it doesn't work equally as well on every site (nice on Wikipedia, ugly on Giz). Hopefully they fix the script performance in the Storm, which is using an updated version of the Bold's browser. We humbly suggest they ditch their home-baked browser for one based on WebKit, which would help out there. Grade: B-/C+

iPhone
What can we say? It's still got the best mobile browser around. It crushes basically everything but Android's browser—which is also based on WebKit—in speed and outclasses its still classy brother-from-another-mother (and everyone else) with the ease and elegance of its multitouch zooming. Some pages still give it fits, and it's missing Flash support, but it really does deliver an unrivaled mobile web experience. We love it, but make no mistake we're eagerly waiting for something better. (Mobile Firefox? Is it you?) Grade: A-

Nokia E71 Symbian S60
Hey look, another web browser with WebKit guts! It doesn't perform quite as well as Android's or iPhone's iteration where speed or render accuracy are concerned (can any Symbian nuts explain why?), but it does a serviceable job. The big thing it has going for it is Flash Lite 3 support, though performance there is kinda assy and memory intensive. Navigation is tougher with the E71's d-pad than with a trackball, but the whole page magnifying approach makes it easy enough to get around (too bad you have to dig through a menu or two to get to it). Not bad, but short of excellent. Grade: B-

Internet Explorer on Windows Mobile
Jesus Christ. This is a joke, right Microsoft? Hahaha. No really, this is the worst smartphone browser on the planet. It couldn't render its way out of an ASCII-art paper bag. It totally screwed up every single test page, except for Wikipedia, which it only mostly screwed up. Good luck navigating a page if you're granted the miraculous occurrence of it being rendered in a state that's usable. Grade: F-

Opera Mobile on Windows Mobile
Microsoft's own intentions notwithstanding, you can use the internet on a Windows Mobile phone. You just need Opera Mobile. It's kind of hobbled by Windows Mobile's assy performance, but it usually gets the job done. Not as quickly or always as accurately as its WebKit rivals, but it's definitely usable. Interestingly, it benefits more from the extra bandwidth offered by Wi-Fi than the WebKit browsers do. Menu-based zoom is annoying and imprecise. Touch-based panning worked okay, though a little laggy. We mostly navigated with the Samsung Epix's optical cursor, which worked pretty well, somewhere in between a d-pad and a trackball. Grade: C

Sprint Instinct
Holy CRAP. This is not the painfully lousy browser the Instinct shipped with not by a long shot. The original was slow and fairly feeble, even if it was the head of its (dumbphone) class. The new 1.1 browser really is a life-changing upgrade. It suffers in the chart because it's much slower than most other browsers, and zooming is still clumsy, but once the page loads, it's much smoother to pan and actually move around. I got a bit annoyed that it lied about pageload time, hanging at the last 2 percent of the status bar for half the load, but it usually gets things right. This is the best non-smartphone browser you can get. Grade: C+

LG Dare
Like the Instinct, the Dare proves you can actually get a usable browsing experience on a feature phone. It's a little nimbler at loading pages than its Korean blood rival, but the reason it ultimately posts lower marks than the Instinct is that it buckles way more easily under a moderate to heavy pageload, turning it into an unresponsive picture of the website you were trying to look at. Still, it renders most pages fairly accurately, and we like the sliding zoom scroll bar, at least in theory, since it seems like an intuitive way to deal with the zoom issue. Unfortunately, it works more like a glorified pair of buttons. (Note: I don't think the speed was actually a piddly 300 Kbps—I think it just had a problem dealing with DSL Reports' mobile speedtest, even though it's text-based for the dumbest of phones.) Grade: C

Methodology
We tested every browser only using the full—not mobile—versions of selected sites, over 3G and, whenever possible, Wi-Fi. All scripts were turned on, and the cache was cleared before each round of testing. We took the average of a series of five sequential speedtests to give us an idea of the bandwidth we're dealing with, and timed how long it took to completely load a site according to each browser's progress bar. We assessed whether or not it rendered the page correctly, on a scale ranging from "excellent" to "good" (a couple things out of place) to "utter fail" (I've seen prettier train wrecks).

A few additional issues to note: Internet Explorer would not work on Wi-Fi. Opera yes, our Skyfire install, yes, Internet Exploder, no. (Samsung suggested it might be because of Opera.) We didn't pursue the matter because of how IE did in the 3G tests: A page that looks like a pile of blended dog poo is going to look like that no matter how much faster it loads. Sprint's updated Instinct and Verizon's Dare, which we included as best-of-class examples of feature phones, don't have Wi-Fi capabilities. We left out Opera Mini and Skyfire, since they both leave most of the hard work to servers which essentially spit out a kind of image file—besides, we don't think this kind of internet-by-proxy browser will be around for much longer.

The Big Gulp
Remember our mantra it's code that counts? It's true for mobile internet too. An awesome browser can make up for a mediocre network, but a terrible browser delivers a crappy experience no matter how great the network is. It's all about the browser. As it stands, WebKit is clearly the best thing going, but even then, software implementation matters, or Nokia would deliver as good a performance as Android and iPhone. Proving the point, it's striking how little Wi-Fi actually boosted speed beyond 3G—hell, WebKit browsers on 3G slid past some of the others that were running on Wi-Fi.

Another thing to note is that the zoom metaphor is a tricky thing to nail. Buttons are too brutish, the magnifying glass is imprecise. Multitouch seems to be the best way to handle zooming in and out in a way that's intuitive and precise. Hopefully we'll see other developers start to use multitouch interfaces in touchscreen phones (*cough*ANDROID!*cough*).

As much as this blow-by-blow battlemodo shows you all the problems we encountered, the big picture is that really, mobile web is pretty dandy right now, and getting dandier. It could be more reliable, faster, maybe a little more versatile, but for the most part, yes, you can access the internet on your phone. Compared to just two years ago, that's really saying something. We can't wait to see what it'll look like in two years. Maybe Internet Exploder will actually work. Nah, that's a little too sci-fi.

Pharos Debuts Hybrid Navigation Services on Sleek New GPS Smartphones
Pharos Traveler 117 and 127 offer full-featured navigation and lightning fast 3.5G connectivity on an unlocked, Windows Mobile handset

TORRANCE, Calif. — November 12, 2008 — Pharos Science & Applications, Inc., a leading provider of location-based information and services, today introduced two new GPS smartphones that feature the award-winning Pharos Smart Navigator software, the first hybrid navigation system designed specifically for Microsoft Windows Mobile devices. With Smart Navigator onboard, the Traveler 117 and 127 deliver voice-prompted, turn-by-turn directions and a suite of real-time location information services on a sleek, stylish handset. Able to operate on any Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) network, the Traveler 117 and 127 give users the freedom to use the network of their choice and the power to take advantage of download speeds up to 7.2 megabits per second (Mbps). The Traveler 117 and 127 carry a suggested retail price of $529.95 and will be available on December 1, 2008 from major online retailers including Amazon.com, Dell.com eXpansys.com and Newegg.com.
“Windows Mobile provides the flexibility and customization to enable partners like Pharos to consistently deliver innovative navigation solutions for our devices,” said Tim McDonough, senior director, Mobile Communications Business, Microsoft.  “The Traveler 117 and 127 provide our customers with an exciting new way to navigate on a Windows Mobile device all the while staying connected to the things in life that matter most.”
“The Traveler 117 and 127 represent a leap forward in how we provide satellite navigation on a smartphone,” said James Oyang, PhD, President of Pharos. “The unique, hybrid nature of Smart Navigator enables us to provide more accurate and reliable navigation customized for a handset’s compact screen size.”
Traveler 117
With 3.5G connectivity and a roomy, 2.8 inch touch screen, the Traveler 117 is a powerful smartphone that is ideal for making calls, surfing the web or watching videos. With the touch of a finger, users can access work or personal e-mail or find the latest gasoline prices, movie show times, weather conditions or news headlines through Microsoft Live Search. Smart Navigator provides users with robust navigation support, including real-time traffic, maps on demand, dynamic points of interest (POI) search and an innovative Follow Me service that enables groups or families to view one another’s GPS-derived locations on their wireless Windows Mobile devices with GPS capability or on the Internet.

Traveler 127
Sporting a QWERTY keyboard for rapid text entry and a 2.5 inch touch screen, the Traveler 127 is designed to meet the heavy messaging requirements of the mobile professional. Able to download content at speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps, the Traveler 127 takes advantage of the fastest broadband speeds available to deliver an unrivaled mobile office experience. Users can access work e-mail and the complete suite of productivity applications in Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional Edition. The Traveler 127 includes a dedicated camera for video conferences as well as satellite navigation to help users find their next meeting while on the road.

Smart Navigator
Smart Navigator offers reliable, easy-to-use navigation software augmented by real-time location information services. Just yesterday, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) awarded Smart Navigator its prestigious “Best of Innovations” award in recognition of its groundbreaking design and engineering. For more information about Smart Navigator, please visit http://www.pharosgps.com/buzz/buzz_pdf/smartnavigator.pdf.

Traveler 117 and Traveler 127 Specifications

Operating System: Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
Processor: Qualcomm MSM7201-90, 400MHz
Memory: 256MB Flash ROM, 128MB SDRAM
Phone: unlocked GSM quad band 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, EDGE / GPRS
3.5G tri band 850/1900/2100 MHz, UMTS 384Kb/s, HSDPA 7.2Mb/s, HSUPA 2Mb/s
Talk time: up to 4 hours talk time and 200 hours standby time
GPS: NMEA0183/AGPS compatible
Wireless: Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth™ v2.0+EDR
Camera: 2.0 megapixel camera for picture or video; 0.3 megapixel front camera for video conferences
Battery: 1410 mAh Li-Ion, rechargeable/replaceable
Weight: 4.8 ounces

Traveler 117
Size: 4.44” (L) x 2.28” (W) x 0.60” (T)
Display: 2.8" Resistive TFT LCD, 480 x 640 VGA with 18-bit 262K color capability

Traveler 127
Size: 4.57” (L) x 2.44” (W) x 0.60” (T)
Display: 2.5" TFT LCD with touch panel, 320 x 240 QVGA with 16-bit 65K colors

Pharos Pioneers Hybrid Navigation for Smartphones and Personal Digital Assistants
Consumer Electronics Association hails the release of Pharos Smart Navigator with a “Innovations” award

TORRANCE, Calif. — November 12, 2008 — In a move that continues its tradition of breaking new ground in the navigation market, Pharos Science & Applications, Inc., a leading provider of location-based information and services, today unveiled Pharos Smart Navigator, the first navigation software plus services product designed specifically for Microsoft Windows Mobile devices. Smart Navigator offers a unique hybrid approach that combines onboard navigation software with real-time location services for traffic, maps, incremental map update, dynamic points of interest (POI) search and the innovative Follow Me service. Smart Navigator makes its consumer debut on Pharos’ new Global Positioning System (GPS) smartphones, the Pharos Traveler 117 and 127, also announced today.
“Pharos continues to develop innovative GPS solutions that expand the navigation possibilities on a Windows Mobile device,” said Tim McDonough, senior director, Mobile Communications Business, Microsoft. “Smart Navigator is a great example of an application that combines precise, consistent navigation with the familiarity and flexibility that Windows Mobile users have come to expect.”
“GPS is becoming a standard feature on mobile devices, but it requires smart, easy-to-use software to unlock the potential of satellite navigation on a pocket-sized device,” said James Oyang, PhD, President of Pharos. “Smart Navigator gives customers consistent access to full-featured navigation optimized for Windows Mobile devices.”

Smart Navigator
Smart Navigator is the first navigation software to seamlessly combine on a Windows Mobile device navigation capability with real-time location information services including traffic, dynamic POI, maps and Follow Me, a service that enables groups or families to view one another’s GPS-derived locations on their wireless Windows Mobile devices with GPS capability or on the Internet. With Smart Navigator, users can instantly access maps of the United States (US), Canada, or other countries; intelligent route calculation, and turn-by-turn route guidance, via graphic and text instructions as well as voice prompts. Smart Navigator will navigate using maps resident on the device, or if needed, will download maps on demand wirelessly from Pharos. Its routing calculation can occur either on the smartphone or on Pharos’ server.

Smart Navigator Real-Time Navigation Services
Follow Me: Allows groups or families to view one another’s GPS-derived locations on their wireless Windows Mobile devices with GPS capability or on the Internet.

Smart Traffic: Provides real-time traffic incident and speed data as well as video feeds derived directly from State Departments of Transportation, highway patrol agencies and other sources.

Smart Finder: Finds nearby business or attraction locations, addresses and phone numbers from the Pharos POI server whenever and wherever users need it. Pharos POI hosts approximately twelve million POIs including national parks, beaches, forests, earthquake faults, and many other natural and historical features from the US Geologic Survey.

Maps On Demand: Enables users to download regional maps based on their GPS position location or corridor maps based on routes to their destinations. Dynamically cut maps ensure that the user is centered on the requested map area, and the program automatically calculates a new route when users have strayed off course and then displays the newly mapped route. Maps can be downloaded for $1.99/one day of access, $4.99/one week of access, $6.99/one month of access or $49.99/one year of access.
Key Features
Automatically selects day or night display mode based on local sunrise and sunset
Automatically upgrades over the wireless Internet
Intuitive object and task-oriented on-screen menu
Advanced multiple-stop routing to plan and optimize schedule
Route calculation by specified address, intersection, POI, Outlook contact, saved favorite, recent destination with options of by shortest distance, fastest path, avoiding highways or toll roads, or pedestrian mode
Screen displays next turn direction, next street name, distance to next turn and distance or estimated time of arrival to destination (as well as current street on full arrow view)
Records trips and displays a bread crumb trail
Exports trip records to Microsoft Virtual Earth or Google Earth by using Pharos Trips & Pics software (free download for Smart Navigator users)
Pricing and availability
Smart Navigator will be available to consumers in December from major vendors for a suggested retail price of $99.95. Bulk licenses of Smart Navigator for device manufacturers and mobile operators can be obtained directly from Pharos.

Now, it bears mentioning that HTC is pretty diligent about updating their phones, releasing driver and software updates to improve performance when necessary. Problem is, these updates don't usually trickle down through the cellular providers, leaving most users stuck with the first (and only) generation of the phone's branded—and sometimes crippled— software. Thanks to XDA, most users can switch to an up-to-date OS, with a variety of extra tweaks added at the discretion of the community.

What do you stand to gain from upgrading your ROM?

• Better battery life
• Faster performance, especially in TouchFLO 3D
• Stronger reception
• Quicker, less laggy GPS locking and tracking
• Bundles of useful software, included updated, faster Opera browser
• Reenabling carrier-chopped features such as tethering, HDSPA

Popular phones best suited for upgrade:

• Touch
• Touch Dual
• Touch Diamond
• Touch Pro
• Other variants

The prospect of upgrading your phone's entire OS might sound intimidating, but the XDA community has provided GUI tools for each step. The procedure is not risk-free, but the success rate polls highly among people who follow the directions closely. I flashed T-Mobile's branded Diamond, the MDA Compact IV, without incident.

Ready to give this a shot? XDA's detailed guides are available here:

• Touch/Touch Dual
• Touch Diamond/Touch Pro
• 
  Others can be found in the device subforums here.

If ROMs and bootloaders and radios all sound too scary (and I wouldn't blame you), XDA also has a hefty collection of simpler tweaks and mods for your HTC phones, including themes, games and apps that you might not find elsewhere.

Expect to hear a lot more about these guys in the coming months—they'll probably be the first ones to port Android to older HTC handsets. As of the 4th, they've got a severely gimped version of Android 0.8 (the G1 launched with 1.0) running on the Diamond, so an "Install Android on Your HTC Phone" Dealzmodo Hack is inevitable, if still pretty far off. [XDA Developers and ModMyDiamond]

Dealzmodo Hacks are intended to help you sustain your crippling gadget addiction through tighter times. If you come across any on your own that are particularly useful, send it to our tips line (Subject: Dealzmodo Hack). Check back every Thursday for free DIY tricks to breathe new life into hardware that you already own.

You're more likely than ever to buy a smartphone, not just because they do so much more than dumb feature phones, with real email, decent web browsing and downloadable applications, but because they're cheaper than ever. With the exception of some expensive ass unlocked-but-unsubsidized European models, you generally don't have to pay more than $300 for a balls-to-the-wall smartphone—though the voice plan plus data fees can easily run you $80 or more per month. Here's a rudimentary overview of your choices (more now than ever before), why you might pick them, and why they might suck for you.

ANDROID by Google
The splashy new entrant into smartphone land, Android is Google's Linux-based open source mobile platform meant to bring real, constantly connected internet to phones. Even though it's debuting on a single phone, the G1 from HTC, expect to see the free OS show up on tons of phones, from HTC, Motorola, and others. It's totally modern and powerful, and the fact that it's open source makes it incredibly appealing to some developers, so most signs point to awesome applications and mobile internet.

Why You'll Use It Unlike BlackBerry, iPhone or Windows Mobile, there are no limits on what application developers can do. So its real strength is the power that developers hold—we're hoping to see some of the wildest, most innovative applications hit Android first. You'll have tons of hardware options, from low to high end, and pretty much any input you want—touchscreen, QWERTY, whatever—once the ball gets rolling. This is the ultimate geek phone.

Why It Sucks Developers have to plug a lot of holes right off the bat, like the complete lack of business features. If they fail to come through, it could fall flat. Not as elegant as the iPhone (though it beats, say, Windows Mobile, by leaps and bounds), it still doesn't quite pass the "mom" test.

BLACKBERRY by RIM
Research in Motion's BlackBerry started out as a glorified two-way pager before evolving into what most consider the best smartphone for email. It is also a shining validation of tightly integrated hardware/software model—they make the phones, they make the operating system. Previously it was a phone that corporations gave to people in suits because of its BlackBerry Enterprise Server, which integrates it with a corporation's email, plus its Exchange support and high security. Now, though, it's increasingly popular with real live people. The BlackBerry Bold offers the latest version of the standard OS, while the recently announced Storm uses one modified for a touchscreen.

Why You'll Use It It has the best email experience around—in part thanks to their traditionally awesome keyboards, so the touchscreen Storm is something of a risk. The OS is really to easy use, with everything neatly presented up front using rows and rows of icons. There's a reason it has surpassed Windows Mobile in marketshare and is the corporate drone phone of choice. Also, RIM seems intent on juicing up its already solid dev community, so expect even more great apps in the future. (Catching a pattern with the importance of apps?)

Why It Sucks It's totally closed and proprietary. You've gotta buy a BlackBerry phone to get the OS. If you're not using the Bold, Storm or the Flip Pearl, it's not very sexy and can easily look dated. Also, in past models, the web browsing experience was absolute garbage. Now just finding its stride as a consumer device, it's not as media-centric as some others, but that is fortunately changing as well.

IPHONE OS X by Apple
Some haters still stay that the iPhone isn't really a smartphone, but for all practical intents and purposes it is. Running a stripped down but very real version of Mac's OS X, it's one of the most powerful and modern OSes of the bunch.

Why You'll Use It It's the most attractive and usable smartphone around, period. It has the best mobile internet browser, largely thanks to multitouch navigation. But its killer feature might be its ability to run third-party apps, which come from one of the most vibrant dev communities around, and are often—but not always—actually useful. Not to mention that, as an iPod, it's also the best music phone on the planet—at least until that mystery Zune phone appears.

Why It Sucks For being so powerful and modern, it can't do things even the dumbest phones do, like MMS, or copy and paste, a smartphone standard. Also email and corporate features aren't quite up to BlackBerry standards, lacking email search among other deficiencies. Apple tightly controls it, which might hurt development and innovation. And the whole making a phone call thing itself still kinda blows.

WINDOWS MOBILE by Microsoft
Unlike the iPhone and OS X, the only thing Microsoft's smartphone OS shares with actual Windows is the name. It has its roots in Windows CE and originally went by the Pocket PC moniker before becoming Windows Mobile. Mostly for corporate troopers, the current version number is 6.1, and it comes in touchscreen and non-touchscreen flavors. It recently fell behind RIM's BlackBerry in marketshare.

Why You'll Use It Diehards swear by its power, even if it isn't so easy for Joe Six-Pack to pick up and run with. It runs on handsets from a bunch of manufacturers, and unlike the BlackBerry and iPhone platforms, you can build your own device to run it. So much of the most advanced mobile hardware you'll lay your eyes on runs Windows Mobile, including the HTC Touch HD and Sony Xperia X1. It's got a corporate soul, so it's designed for business users, and it has specialty applications (like in the medical field) that some professionals need and can't get anywhere else.

Why It Sucks There's a reason premiere Windows Mobile handset makers have become increasingly adept at covering up the user interface: It's frankly terrible, especially when it comes to touch navigation. It isn't a great media phone, has a god-awful native browser and doesn't look so hot either. Unfortunately the next version, WM7, is over a year away.

PALM GARNET
Oh, whither Palm. Without getting into the complicated story of Palm's various fits, seizures and splits, the Palm OS goes all the way back to 1996, when it powered Palm's PDAs. All but dead now, its last hurrah was on the Centro before Palm plunged ahead with Windows Mobile. Supposedly work on its Linux-powered follow-up is well under way, but it's been delayed multiple times.

Why You'll Use It Though dated, the Palm OS makes a great starter smartphone, hence the success of the cheaper-than-dirt Centro. The learning curve is shallow and it provides most of the smartphone features you expect, even if it does look like it's still trapped in 1996.

Why It Sucks Uh, it's basically dead. You probably won't see it on another phone post-Centro, Palm's more pricey phones use Windows Mobile, and prospects on the upcoming Palm OS overhaul are dicey. (They should take Android and use it as a powerful foundation for the next Palm OS, but that's just my two cents.)

SYMBIAN by Nokia
Symbian is the world's most popular smartphone platform, thanks to Nokia. The most prominent variant right now is S60. While it doesn't seem so ubiquitious in the US, abroad it's far more common. It powers some seriously sick hardware, like Nokia's N series, and has a solid dev community, though the free side of that isn't as big as on other platforms.

Why You'll Use It Did you miss the "world's most popular smartphone" thing? Buy a Nokia multimedia phone, and you buy Symbian. It offers a lot of the best smartphone features—strong email, web and calendar, plus a large global development community—in a package that is far more usable than Windows Mobile. Also, it works with Macs with far less hassle than Windows Mobile.

Why It Sucks It can be overly complicated, and still not as easy to use as a BlackBerry or the iPhone. If you're not using a really solid piece of hardware, it can be really sluggish. Also, connecting to the web can be annoying. And while it's on handsets from a couple of other manufacturers, for the most part, you had better love Nokia hardware.

And that's pretty much the lay of the land, at least for now.

Something you still wanna know? Send any questions about dumbphones, dumber people or Mark Wahlberg to tips@gizmodo.com, with "Giz Explains" in the subject line.

Now, we built the Zune hardware with the Zune software—and what you’ll see more and more over time is that the Zune software will also be ported to and be more important not just with the hardware but on the PC, on Windows Mobile devices, etc.

We're really hoping "etc" means a whole bunch of phones, including other smartphone platforms and even the iPhone, but it's more likely that the UPS man will drop off a million dollars RIGHT NOW as we type this. Now. Now? Now? How about now? [CIO.co.uk via WM Power User]

In desktop mode, IE Mobile 6 identifies itself as "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)" while the mobile mode says it's "[Device Name] (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows CE; IEMobile 8.12; MSIEMobile 6.0)". I wish Safari had this on the iPhone, especially to avoid reading the mobile version of Gizmodo.

According to The Unwired, the page rendering is quite good. You can head there for a few more screenshots. [The Unwired]