Now that the excitement of the EVO 4G announce has finally worn off, it’s time to get down to more practical matters — in a street fight, would the WiMAX-powered beast hold its own against an HD2 and a Desire, for example? We had all three in a room just now, and here’s what we’ve got to say:
It feels significantly beefier than the HD2, but in reality, it’s not — it’s just a single millimeter thicker. The brushed metal back of the HD2 is a little sexier, but just by the tiniest of margins; it’s hard to argue with soft touch and a kickstand, obviously.
We would’ve never noticed this without the Desire next to it, but the EVO’s text is pretty huge, a side effect of the fact that it’s running the same resolution on a screen 0.6 inches larger. It’s not annoying, really, but it struck us that they could’ve comfortably fit quite a bit more information on the screen without getting cramped. The Desire’s display is more vibrant, too, but that makes sense — we’re indoors under artificial lighting and the Desire has AMOLED on board.
The EVO’s got touch-sensitive buttons below the display that function much like the Nexus One’s, but no worries: they work quite a bit better. We think this might be because there’s more touch-sensitive bezel real estate below the keys; on the Nexus One, you’ve got to be far too accurate for comfort.
Interestingly, this is the first EVO we’ve seen today with a silver earpiece grill — Sprint’s have been red. We’ve confirmed with HTC that production devices will be silver.
Want to draw some of your own conclusions? See the shots for yourself in the gallery below.
Sprint had promised a first-quarter update for its Touch Pro2 way back in January, and sure enough, it’s delivered the Windows Mobile 6.5 boost right on time. It might not have as much punch now that we know everything there is to know about Windows Phone 7 Series, of course, but it’s still a pretty big deal — the Touch Pro2 remains one of the best Microsoft-powered phones you can buy in the States, and unlike AT&T’s Tilt2, it launched with that grubby old WinMo 6.1. It’s available now, complete with Sense “enhancements” and a variety of bug fixes — so if you’ve got one of these bad boys in your pocket, it seems like a must-grab.
Well, we’d already had a pretty clear indication that the HTC HD2 would be launching on T-Mobile on March 24th (or possibly the 23rd), and Laptop Magazine is now reporting that a “very close T-Mobile source” has confirmed that the 24th is indeed the date, and that the phone will run $199 on a two-year contract (or $449 off-contract). The March 23rd date that recently cropped up is apparently just the day the MobiTV software will go live. Just as notably, Laptop also says that it has confirmed that the phone won’t be upgradeable to Windows Phone 7 Series — although, at this point, we’ll have to hear that first-hand to truly put an end to the speculation. Thankfully, that should happen in just a few days.
Like clockwork, we’ve just been dropped a line by T-Mobile USA asking us to join them for a very special media event to check out the HTC HD2 — “a larger than life entertainment powerhouse” — in fabulous New York City on the evening of March 16. That lines up nicely with the company’s earlier assurances that we’d see a launch in March — but what day in March, exactly? Well, we’re hearing from a number of tipsters (including trusted sources) that the 24th is the day this thing breaks loose at retail, so set your watches and calendars accordingly — assuming you haven’t been wooed into Windows Phone 7 Series’ tender, loving grasp, that is.
Update: MobiTV — which has an app bundled with T-Mobile’s version of the HD2 — says the HD2 is launching on the 23rd, and frankly, they’re probably in a position to know. Thanks, Stephen!
An Adobe employee over in the company’s official forums dropped a bomb earlier this month that they’ve now decided to pass on releasing Flash 10.1 for Windows Mobile 6.5, instead moving straight to 7. The official explanation is that “WinMo6.5 does not support some of the critical APIs that we need,” but frankly, this sounds like a load of crap — since the project was announced last year, there’s no way it took them this long to figure out that an official cut for 6.5 wouldn’t be technically possible. If we had to guess, the real justification also explains why Adobe has been so quiet on the matter: 6.5′s now viewed as a dead-end platform since 7 represents a clean break for Microsoft, and the company feels like it can’t be bothered to invest the necessary time, energy, and money to see the project through. In all likelihood, Adobe was briefed on 7 prior to its official announcement at MWC, and that’s when the decision was made. Of course, that’s all pure speculation on our part — but regardless, don’t get your hopes up, HD2 owners (unless you get an upgrade, that is).
Microsoft has released an updated version of its Marketplace for Mobile application for WinMo 6.0 and up recently that makes a few key changes — nothing that’s going to shake you to your very core the same way that Windows Phone 7 Series did last week, certainly, but there’s some good stuff in here nonetheless. Most importantly, Marketplace will now allow for app installs straight to memory cards, a critical capability for devices that don’t have gobs of storage built in (and something that Android tragically still lacks — for the moment, anyhow). We’ve also got deep links to app product pages, user-selectable regional stores, Russian support, and the list goes on, so it seems like a must-have upgrade for anyone on a 6.x device. Just don’t break the bank going on a wild, Red Bull-fueled app buying rampage now, alright?
There’s no better proof that you don’t need a current SDK to publish apps for Windows Mobile 6.5 than the Marketplace, but that’s not to say there aren’t specific bits new to 6.5 that devs might like to use — problem is, there’s never been a final SDK that Redmond’s made available. That changed — ever so briefly — on Friday as the company posted both Standard and Professional Edition SDKs in a variety of languages, but by today, they’ve been pulled. No official explanation has been given, but there are a couple solid theories: one, the SDK outed 6.5.3′s full details (it’s still not clear whether Microsoft has “officially” unveiled this update or if it’ll be throwing a bigger launch party, perhaps at MWC), and two, there are apparently some incompatibilities with newer versions of Visual Studio, which is required for the SDK to function. Stay tuned, but in the meantime, just keep on developing the way you’ve always been doing it and you should be fine.
Update: So the::unwiredheard back from Microsoft on the issue, and apparently, the SDK was “prematurely” posted in beta form and pulled once the company realized the mistake. Of course, this explanation could realistically be a cover for virtually anything, so we’ll take it with a grain of salt.
Windows Mobile 6.5 fever: catch it! AT&T had the good fortune of releasing the Tilt2 late enough to get 6.5 out of the gate, but the other guys have been falling in line ever since: first Verizon, then T-Mobile, and now Sprint’s getting in on the action. The bad news is that they’re only committing to a vague “by the end of first quarter, 2010″ window at this point, but the great news is that this appears to be more than a simple 6.5 bump — Sprint says that there’ll also be “significant enhancements to the Touch Pro2 user interface which will allow additional customization / personalization options and more integration with the applications users access most.” We’ll take it — and actually, why don’t you just go ahead and make it this mysterious 6.6 while you’re at it, guys?
So far, it seems like manufacturers (well, HTC and a couple others, anyhow) are staying on the ball about upgrading recent handsets to WinMo 6.5, and the next deserving pair comes from none other than T-Mobile USA — the Dash 3G and Touch Pro2. Of course, the unbranded versions of both of these handsets (the Dash 3G goes by Snap internationally, you may recall) were quite literally the first pre-6.5 devices anywhere to get updated way back in October, so you could make the argument that the American cousins are already way, way behind the curve. Anyhow, the carrier is saying that official updates for both models will be ready for download on the 20th of this month, so get ready to say your final goodbyes to 6.1 and start wishing that you’d received a 6.5.3 update instead.
Remember that leaked Ozone ROM from a couple weeks back? Yeah, well, it’s back — and this time it’s being offered in a very official way. PCD — the middleman between Verizon and HTC — is offering Windows Mobile 6.5-imbued builds for both the Ozone as well as the Touch Pro2, bringing it up to spec with AT&T’s Tilt2 which launched with 6.5 out of the gate (thanks in no small part to its late availability). Both updates are posted on PCD’s site, so go grab ‘em while the grabbing’s good.
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