These updates help to overcome the lack of content and control that plagued the earlier release. They have also streamlined the application to make downloads faster—another major sticking point. The download is free, so it is worth a shot regardless—but if you tried it before and were put off, it may be worth revisiting. [Zumobi]

The Price: Free

The Performance: Zumobi is, in reality, a fancy widget application. So don't be fooled into thinking that this is some sort of robust new browser for Windows Mobile devices. Basically, Zumobi piggybacks on Internet Explorer to provide content for these "tiles" that can range from news content to small apps and games. Zumobi currently falls under the invisible "beta" umbrella of protection, but nonetheless, I found my experience with the platform to be largely frustrating and generally unentertaining (except for the douchebag part in the video).

First of all, Zumobi was a bit on the slow side and it was awkward to navigate the UI with the the T-Mobile Shadow I was using. Selecting and downloading tiles from the online gallery was an easy process, but a manual refresh option to update time-sensitive tiles that provide information like news, sports, and traffic tiles is sorely needed. On the plus side, the developers have assured me that this feature will be arriving post-beta.

I was also frustrated with what I considered to be a cluttered UI. Gray boxes and tiles abound with no real structure or organization. My feeling was that things needed to be cleaned up, and some sort of category driven layout would be necessary as the number of available tiles increased. The developers argued that the boxes were necessary to provide orientation adaptation and a consistent resolution target for the dev community. They also noted that research showed that users wanted to know where things were spatially—and a category driven layout on the users "zoom space" wouldn't work. While I can not pretend that I am in touch with the needs of developers using Zumobi's SDK, I can tell you that a zoom space consisting of 100 tiles arranged willy-nilly would be much harder to navigate than those same tiles broken down into categories (keep in mind that the current zoom space can only accommodate 16 tiles).

The Verdict: Not my cup of tea. I feel that there is potential here, but the execution falls a bit short and the appeal will most likely be confined to those who would enjoy a "novelty" experience as opposed to a hardcore functional browser. However, given the fact that it is free (and the advertising is pretty unobtrusive) it is definitely worth a shot for anyone. Just make sure you have an unlimited data plan. [Zumobi]

HTC did, for one, but their UI isn't quite as good as Pointui. In addition to enabling finger gestures, it also adds skinning on top of the standard Win Mo apps. Clicking the phone app, for instance, gets you a much prettier call log that aggregates calls from the same person into one entry (just like the iPhone). There are still other apps like email and calendar and tasks that aren't skinned—these just go into the regular WM app when active—but are much easier to get to.

The real winner is the system settings, which are made top level (instead of hidden under 3 layers of menus). It doesn't fix everything wrong with Windows Mobile, but it's free and it fixes a lot. We haven't gotten this excited about Windows Mobile in...ever. Holy crap. [Pointui]

The good news is that this has an eight hour battery life and can power your cellphone on the go, plus has USB ports so you can store your data via USB flash drives and not have to burden your phone with it. The price: $499 directly from Celio in March. I don't know—the Palm Foleo wasn't all that bad, even if its use was limited to a very small segment of the market that relied on their smartphones instead of a full-sized laptop to send/receive email and work on documents on the go. The same segment that doesn't have an ultra-portable like an Eee PC.

We can't say whether or not it'll be successful for everyone (unlikely), but for the people whose needs are met by the Mobile Companion, it could be quite nifty. We'll check it out in person at CES. [Celio]

Zumobi has also released the beta version of the Zumobi SDK which will allow developers with a basic level of knowledge in JavaScript and SVG to develop and potentially earn money on their tiles. Hit the following links to get started using the Zumobi browser or the SDK. A full press release follows. [Zumobi Beta and Zumobi SDK]

ZUMOBI USHERS IN A NEW AGE OF MOBILE CONTENT AND COMMERCE; BETA NOW AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD ON WINDOWS MOBILE PHONES

Amazon.com, MTV Networks, The Associated Press, AccuWeather.com, Traffic.com, FlightStats.com and OTOlabs Among Partners Set to Launch Zumobi Tiles Today

SEATTLE - December 14, 2007 - Zumobi today launched the highly anticipated Beta version of its award-winning Zooming User Interface and mobile widget platform. Zumobi can now be downloaded free from the company's Web site: www.Zumobi.com. Content will be available from more than 75 mobile widgets or Tiles, including many from Zumobi launch partners such as Amazon.com, MTV Networks, The Associated Press, AccuWeather.com, Traffic.com, FlightStats.com and OTOlabs, who developed Tiles for Vail Resorts and Fox Television's "Family Guy".

Where to Go For More on Zumobi

* Download and participate in the Beta at www.Zumobi.com
* Check out our newest video at www.Zumobi.com/youtube
* Tune into the latest podcast from company co-founder and Vice President of Product and Services, John SanGiovanni at www.Zumobi.com

"The Zumobi team has been working for over a year to make this product a reality, and we're very excited to launch the first version of our public Beta today," said Zumobi CEO Eric Hertz. "Our partners who have created Zumobi Tiles for the initial Beta have delivered an excellent portfolio of news, entertainment, travel content and more."

Zumobi revolutionizes the way people access, retrieve and share Web-based content on their mobile phones. Through an intuitive, lush user interface, Zumobi allows people to easily "bounce" in and out of snack-sized bits of the entertainment they want and to stay on top of the information they need throughout the day, while offering advertisers a better way to connect with consumers through their mobile phones.

* "We're constantly creating new touch points on-air, online and on handsets that deepen our audiences' engagement with their favorite programming," said Jeremiah Zinn, Senior Vice President of Digital Distribution for MTV Networks. "Zumobi's new platform brings Web 2.0 functionality to wireless devices, and that allows us to create even more experiences for our audiences to stay connected to their favorite music, music news and gaming content."

* "The exciting combination of Zumobi's intuitive interface combined with Traffic.com's nationwide real-time traffic content gives on-the-go consumers the relevant, valuable, engaging user experience they demand," said Barry J. Glick, Vice President, Consumer Markets for NAVTEQ, parent company of Beta partner Traffic.com. "When users download Zumobi to their phones, they'll instantly benefit from the graphical, dynamic interaction with our mobile traffic solutions by making informed decisions about the best time to leave and the fastest way to get there."

* "In these days of air travel challenges, reliable and timely travel data is vital to people on the move," said Meara McLaughlin, Vice President of Conducive Technology, makers of FlightStats.com "The Zumobi platform gives FlightStats.com an exciting new way to connect with travelers on the mobile handset. Whether you are flying yourself or connecting with someone who is, having the right information, delivered in a clear and user-friendly way can make all the difference. We are thrilled to be one of the first Zumobi Tiles in such good company with the other founding Tile partners. We hope that users will check our Tile out when they download Zumobi."

* "Weather is the perfect match for mobile phone users - immediate, personal and location-specific," said Jim Candor, Senior Vice President of New Media for AccuWeather.com. "We're always looking for new and better ways to bring people the weather information they crave. Working with innovative companies like Zumobi helps us deliver a user experience that is quicker and more satisfying than ever before."

* "Mobile marketing has not taken off due to poor quality user experience; consumers are simply not excited to receive ads on the mobile phone," said Mitchel Ahern, Director of Product Management for OTOlabs, a permission-marketing platforms company. "We're very excited to be developing Tile applications for our clients on the Zumobi platform. We believe that by providing branded utility and entertainment as a mobile widget, our clients such as Fox Home Entertainment and Vail Resorts will see higher adoption, deeper engagement and more interaction with their audience."

Accessing the Beta Version of Zumobi
To access the Beta version of Zumobi go to www.Zumobi.com and follow the instructions on the website. The first Beta version of Zumobi is available for phones running Windows Mobile 5 and 6, with Blackberry and selected J2ME compatibility coming early in the second quarter of 2008. A data plan is required, and unlimited data plans are strongly recommended.

Beta Version of Zumobi SDK
Zumobi also unveiled a Beta version of the Zumobi SDK for developers, delivering on the company's promise of an open, device-neutral platform for building and deploying rich content for mobile phones. Developers can download the SDK from http://dev.Zumobi.com. The Zumobi SDK will enable developers to create and showcase their own Tiles. Developers will also be able to share and upload their Tiles to the Zumobi Gallery beginning in the first quarter of 2008.

About Zumobi
Zumobi is the open platform that is reinventing the mobile content experience. A highly-acclaimed innovator in the mobile industry, Zumobi provides developers with a device-neutral platform for building and deploying rich content for mobile phones; enables a better way to connect consumers and the brands that define their lives; delivers a new set of benefits that carriers can offer to their customers; and gives consumers an experience that makes their mobile phones more useful and fun. More information on Zumobi is available at www.Zumobi.com.

As mentioned in March, Zumobi's UI is based on a system of "tiles" that allow users to navigate in an out of bite-sized web content quickly and easily. A user's "zoom space" can be customized to include personally relevant items like photos, blogs, and friends in addition to generic web content. These tiles can also be sent to other friends and groups that share the same interests. The experience is said to be significantly faster than traditional browsers because of a new background data caching system that makes it possible for users to access data even when cellular service is nonexistent.

One of the most interesting aspects of the new technology comes in the form of Zumobi's SDK, which will allow developers with even a basic level of knowledge in JavaScript and SVG to develop and potentially earn money on their tiles. Apparently, if a tile gets hot among Zumobi users, it could pick up sponsorship and a cut of the advertising revenue for the developer. Naturally, that means that targeted advertising is going to be part of the equation here, but the software will be free when it is released —and that, my friends, is what you call a trade-off.

Both the public beta of the Zumobi browser and the SDK will be available starting on December 14th. If you would like to be part of it, make sure you have a phone equipped with Windows Mobile 5 and 6 (Blackberry and selected J2ME compatibility will be coming early in the second quarter of 2008.), and hit the following link for a beta signup and product demo. [Zumobi]

As for features, it's got DMB for live TV, a 2-megapixel camera, 512MB flash, an audio/video player, microSD slot and the front camera for 3G video calling. Even though it's running Windows Mobile 5, this is still a phone we'd happily trade in most other phones for (provided we have the WiMAX/WiBro access to back it up). [Akihabaranews via Electronista]

Just head over to the download link, grab the file, and install. You'll need the .NET Compact Framework in order for this to work (it's a free download), and in order to create a new create a new document you'll have to open up an empty one and save it as a new document. Weird, but them's the limitations. – Jason Chen

Hack [Thinkabdul]

Oh, and now you can even choose between minimizing or closing an app when you hit the X button on the top right. At least you get that feature now without having to wait till WM6. – Jason Chen

Download Page [HTC America via Mobile Burn - Thanks Keebles]

The phone itself will have WM5 (darn, no WM6), a Qualcomm MSM7500 400MHz processor, 256MB ROM, 64MB RAM, 2.8-inch touchscreen, EV-DO Revision A, Wi-Fi, 2-megapixel camera with auto-focus, Bluetooth 2.0, microSD and an internal antenna. Those of you who long for the days of a gigantic antenna poking you in the thigh will have the option of attaching an external antenna as well.

The date for launch? Looks like late next month. – Jason Chen

Spec Sheet (PDF) [Boy Genius Report via Boy Genius Report]

"Dear Diary. Oh my god, you wudnt beleive what Brandy said about Crystal today. She said Crystal was a super slut to be dating Herald. I mean, oh my god, Herald only has a 2-megapixel camera, quad-band GSM, EDGE, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi. That's like, so last year! But he is thin, and he does have Windows Mobile 6, so maybe he's not so bad after all. THE END! p.s. Jason, I know you're reading this. Get out, you're so gross!!!"

Damn it, how did she know? – Jason Chen

FCC Page [FCC via Phonescoop]

We'll skip the Windows Mobile 5 stuff that the Pharos has in common with all other WM5 phones, and just say that reception and call quality are on par with HTC's phones. Which is to say, pretty great.

Let's focus on the GPS features. How did we like them? A lot, once we got past the arduous task of learning how to use the UI. Oh, and it's definitely not for use when actually driving.

The phone itself is like a thinner version of the Cingular 8525, which makes sense since the 600 doesn't have a keyboard. This in turn means you're not going to be doing a whole lot of text inputting like you are on the 8525, but that's not a huge deal. You're mainly going to use this for going places.

First off, when you're using the GPS, you're going to only get about four-ish hours of battery life on a single charge. Your phone has a hard enough time reaching the nearest cell tower, so imagine how much more juice it needs to talk to space. You never see the Star Trek communicators in the original series being recharged because they run off sweat. Sweat and bad acting.

When you're actually using the mapping app, you can toggle between a combination of 3D, 2D and list directional view. Searching for directions is pretty easy despite not having a hardware keyboard thanks to its large on-screen virtual keyboard.

Its GPS features are pretty great once you've learned how to use the device—which is actually the hard part. The GPS screen is totally non-intuitive, with not very many controls on the main screen. If you want to do just about anything, you're probably going to have to dig deep down into the menus to find your option. Don't do this when you're driving unless you really feel like finding out how your steering wheel tastes.

Examples. Switching from 3D to 2D views requires clicking on the sky (wtf?), but switching from 2D back to 3D requires going into the second screen of the menus and hitting 2D/3D view. Also, centering back onto your current location isn't wired to a hard button. You'll have to hit the "cancel" button for that. Again, that's not at all intuitive.

But once you've played with it for a couple hours and figured out its tricks, you'll know that the actual navigation is quite fine. There's no huge delay between making a turn and having the phone tell you verbally what your next move should be. Although it didn't always give us the best directions to where we wanted to go, it did get us there, which is a hell of a lot better than not.

All in all, we're happy with the phone both as a Windows Mobile phone and as a GPS mapper. The price may be a bit steep ($600), but it's about as much as you'd expect to pay for a GPS and a WM phone together. Thanks to its only mediocre UI, it's not a phone that you should be using while in the driver's seat. You should either let the passenger use it to navigate or pull over altogether. – Jason Chen

Watch the video and hit the jump for our impressions.

It's true that the whole setup look quite nice. By taking a snapshot of a webpage on the server side and sending the image to your phone, you get proper rendering without a lot of CPU use. The downside to this is that dynamic pages, javascript, flash, and other web advances since Netscape 1.0 aren't supported.

Other quirks are that it's quite bandwidth heavy and slow if you're on a skinny pipe. Whenever you zoom in, the zoomed-in high quality has to be downloaded from the server. Not too bad, but it does slow down the web browsing experience.

Scrolling isn't bad on my Cingular 8525, but it's nothing to brag about. There are noticeable delays and the page actually cuts off a certain distance down the page. We're not sure what's going on here.

So all in all, it's a nice start for an experimental browser. Sure, there are kinks to be worked out, but in the meantime you can actually get desktop-quality HTML rendering on your WM smartphone. Other phones like the iPhone and certain Series 60 phones support similar browsing features as well. We'll have to put the three together and see who wins. – Jason Chen

Project Page [Deepfish]

Treo 750 Review [Wireless Info]

Video Source]