Bryant Likes

Ok, I've decided that I'm a Windows Mobile Junkie. Last Friday I received my latest mobile phone, the SMT5800 from Verizon (made by HTC). I really liked my last phone, the Samsung i760, but it was just a little to big and I'm not a fan of the Windows Mobile Professional SKU. The Standard SKU, in my opinion, is much cleaner and easier to use. Because there is no touch screen everything is geared toward the buttons on the phone, whereas the Professional SKU has multiple input methods which means that for a lot of things you have to pull out the stylus.

Below is a history of the devices I've had to date (except for the imate sp5 which I lost). From left to right: imate sp3i, HTC MTeoR, HTC Vox, Treo 700w, Samsung i760, and the SMT5800.

Same phones, but with the slide-out keyboards shown.

I think the SMT5800 might be the perfect phone for me. It is the Standard SKU, has very fast network speeds thanks to EV-DO, is supposed to work as a modem (haven't tried this yet), and fits nicely in my pocket. The Vox was almost the perfect phone, but the slow network speeds and slow processor bogged it down. In addition to the EV-DO for fast network access, the SMT5800 also has a 400 MHz processor making it faster than the Vox (although it still lags a little).

So I'll probably stick with this phone for awhile, or at least until the Touch comes out on Verizon. :)

So supposedly Verizon is coming out with a bunch of new Windows Mobile phones in the next few months. When I started working for Avanade I switched from Verizon to T-Mobile since at the time the company didn't have a contract with Verizon but also because Verizon has always been pretty lacking when it comes to Windows Mobile phones. So now that my company has a contract with Verizon and Verizon looks to be coming out with a bunch of cool phones, I think I'm ready to switch back. TMO's painfully slow EDGE network just doesn't cut it anymore. So which phone from the Verizon Rumor Roundup should I buy? Here is a nice SizeEasy stackup of the rumored phones and their rumored sizes:

I was really leaning toward the i760 since it has the numbers on the front (which I really like) and looks a lot nicer than the HTC phones (I really dislike motorola phones). However, sizing it up next to the 5800 shows that it is quite a bit bigger. Of course these specs are just rumored specs so they could be off. The other items that has me leaning toward the 5800 is that unlike the rumor roundup, my verizon rep has the 5800 coming out before the i760.

Which phone do you like and are these new phones making you think about switch to VZW?

Yesterday my Vox arrived from MobilePlanet. Here it is along side my SP3i, MTeoR, and my Dash (my SP5 isn't in the picture because I lost it and my Treo 770w now belongs to my wife :)

Here is how they stack up together:

And a comparison of the keyboards on the Dash and the Vox:

So far I really like the Vox. The keypad is very nice and the buttons have very good feedback. The slider is easy to use and the keyboard buttons are raised which makes it easy to type. The buttons are also larger than the ones on my Dash which are almost too small for my fingers. Almost.

For a full unboxing video of the Vox click here.

I agree with Greg, I want this application for PDC 07. :)

Howard Dierking announced that the Mobile Exam has gone live [Via Email]:

The long-awaited mobility developer exam (70-540) was released today! Check out the preparation guide for a list of the topics covered and links to resources to help you prepare. When you feel ready, you can register for the exam at either Pearson VUE or Prometric.

According to Vue I passed the exam which I took back in September during the beta. That gives me another certification MCTS - Windows Mobile 5.0 Applictions. I think it is pretty interesting that even though I'm one of the first people to get the certification it is already out of date since Windows Mobile 6 has already been released.

So lokeuei is also excited about the new HTC Vox:

Finally a smartphone with both a NUMERIC KEYPAD and a QWERTY KEYBOARD. Now I can be a responsible driver and not crash into anything or god forbid, anyone, on the road struggling to type a message on my Excalibur's keyboard with both fat thumbs.

Lokeuei also posts a comparison of HTC phones using Sizeeasy. I went to sizeeasy and did my own comparison of the previous HTC SmartPhones that I've owned.

As you can see, the Vox is shorter than the other three, as wide as the MTeoR, and the same thickness as the SP5. This is pretty amazing if these are the actual specs. I'm definately going to be ordering this phone. Let's hope they boost up the processor speed, add some more memory, and stick crossbow on it. :)

Via Boy Genius:

The HTC Vox concept photo has been floating around the net for a little while so I thought it was my turn to step things up a bit. I present the first live picture of the HTC Vox (S710) smartphone with complete spec sheet. Quad-Band EDGE, Spring-assisted keyboard like the P4350, WiFi and more.

This is what I've been waiting for! A SmartPhone with a slide out keyboard. The specs he posted are OK, but not that great (200Mhz processor?). Let's hope that HTC upgrades the specs before it produces the phone.

I had an issue on two of my computers where the screen saver would never start. I could preview the screen saver, but no matter how long I waited it would never come on. I tried a number of things, changing various settings, but nothing seemed to work. Last night I did another search on the topic and finally found an answer:

Anyway, the big problem I've been having with Vista is my screensaver not working since build 5381, it just would not kick in, I Checked everything, made sure there was nothing preventing the system from idling etc..  I was playing around the other day and it hit me.  Right after 5381 was released, I bought a Microsoft Laser Desktop 6000 KB/Mouse combo.  No, it can't be that I thought.  Well just for kicks I plugged the PS/2 portion of the wireless reciever in for the keyboard and left the USB as was (essentially making the keyboard PS/2 and the mouse USB).  Still no screensaver, so I figured, OK let's yank the USB plug.  2 minutes after yanking the cable the screensaver kicked in.  It was the mouse the whole time. 

Sure enough, both machines have a Microsoft mouse.

Chris not only figured out the problem, but found a temporary solution:

And for anyone wondering, I did some research into the problem, apparently this issue affects any machine running Media Center with this keyboard/Mouse combo.  If you kill ehtray.exe, the screensaver will kick in, but then your MCE Remote won't work.

Sure enough, if I kill ehtray.exe on these machines the screen saver kicks in right when it should. I was pretty happy with just finding that out and then today when looking for the post so that I could write this entry I found that Chris had figured even more out about the issue:

It turns out that with this KB/Mouse setup and a few others released around the same time they introduced a new "Microsoft Wireless Desktop Receiver 3.0A".  Previous wireless sets had the 2.0A receiver, and I just happened to have one of these old receivers lying around.  Plugged it in, aquired signal with my devices and walked out of the room.  When I came back 5 minutes later, the screensaver was working as I would expect it to.  So it's the receiver, not the keyboard or the mouse.  When I called Microsoft support about the issue, they said it is known but have no plans to fix the issue and outright refused to send me a working receiver. 

Seems pretty lame that MS knows this is an issue but isn't going to fix it. I wonder how many of these receivers are out there? The bummer thing is that on one of the machines the mouse is part of a keyboard/mouse combo which I paid a lot of money for. Now I have to either get a new one or kill the ehtray.exe process everytime I reboot.

How about a fix for us Microsoft?

Update: A fix has been posted to Windows Update that is called "HID Non-User Input Data Filter" as posted below by RYAN and Fred. Thanks to my readers for keeping an eye on this. I installed the update and it does fix the issue. Thanks Microsoft!

The Windows Live Search for Mobile got great reviews by Gizmodo. But if you tried to install it on your MTeoR you will find it doesn't install because the MTeoR is locked. Today I found this post which explains how easy it is to unlock the MTeoR. I ran through the steps and then installed the program and I'm very impressed. It is really easy to use even on a SmartPhone like the MTeoR.

Also, if you're running Vista and you're not getting the Mobile Device Center from Windows Update (even though you've connected to your Windows Mobile Device), check out Jason's troubleshooting guide. The trick of turning the connection back to a serial connection worked for me. Now I have the live search client and the mobile device center running.

via Tomas:

A new release of the IntelliPoint software for Microsoft Mice as well as the new Vista-compatible software for the MS Fingerprint reader is available now from the MS Hardware site. These were two of the updated set of drivers I was expecting since repaving my laptop with Vista.

You can download them now (which means this mouse now works great in Vista). The IntelliType software is also there. So if you emailed me asking me for the beta drivers, you can now get them.

My last mouse purchase was a real flop. The seem to be well designed, but for some reason when I would plug it into the usb ports on the right side of my M5 it would only work about 10% of the time, but when I used the left side usb port it would always work. Kind of annoying, but not a deal breaker. However, Logitech still hasn't provided the Vista drivers for it so you don't get any usage from all the cool extra buttons. So when I found out the new Microsoft Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse 8000 was available I went out and bought it.

In the two months that I had the Logitech mouse, I never got a single comment on it. The first day I had the Microsoft mouse I had people asking me what kind of mouse it was and where I got it from. It is definately a nice looking mouse, size is right, and the features are great. I played around with using the mouse as my presenter with power point today and it worked very well. It also would work great as a remote control while watching movies or listening to music since you can play/pause, navigate, and control the volume all from up to 30 ft away. If your laptop has bluetooth then you don't loose a USB port which is nice. The mouse is well designed in that there is a presentation button on top that puts the mouse into and out of presentation mode which turns on the bottom buttons and turns off the normal mouse features. My only complaint so far is that the clicking is squeaky. I guess this is a common Microsoft Mouse problem.

Look for a Logitech VX to be listed on ebay real soon. :)

Note: If you want to use all the features with Windows Vista you will need to be on the beta program so that you can get access to Intellipoint 6.1 (which doesn't list this mouse during setup, but just choose a random mouse and then change it after you're done with the install, it is there).