With Windows Mobile devices coming with ever increasing quality of digital cameras built into them, the need for applications to view those photos in a quick and easy way has also increased. While the built-in Photos & Videos application of Windows Mobile 5.0 and 6 does a reasonably good job, it still is somewhat stylus intensive. Fortunately the VITO Technology team has seen this as well and has developed a truly easy to use, simple and finger friendly - not stylus - application to meet the need - EyePhoto. EyePhoto is available through VITO’s iWindowsMobile division and is a simple but effective photo viewing application. EyePhoto does not have any editing tools built into it - it is strictly a viewer both of individual photos and in a slideshow. That said however, it is fast and easy, turning any device into a virtual photo album in a snap.

Figure 1: EyePhoto Main Interface
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Some of you may have seen me post about the greatness of Dashwire in the past. Dashwire is a service that runs on your Windows Mobile device that allows you to do a variety of things on your device through a web-based application on your PC. From Dashwire you can send/receive SMS’, share videos and photos and give the world a view of what you are doing at a particular time just to name a few.

Dashwire themselves probably state it best: Dashwire offers the industry leading Mobile/Web Connected Service to help people seamlessly connect their mobile phones with their computers and the web, enabling them to backup and manage their content, search and interact with their information, and share their experiences with friends and social networks. As you’ve seen with the Apple MobileMe and Nokia OVI initiatives, the Connected Services space is on fire, creating exciting opportunities and demand for a free, cross-platform solution like Dashwire.

Today the folks at Dashwire announced the release of version 2.0 of their application which sports a host of improvements including a whole new device interface. The new UI looks fantastic and so far I have been impressed with what I’ve seen.

Some of the new features include:

• Graphical phone experience featuring user avatar, status updates, and media gallery
• Mobile access to photos & videos located on your Dashwire web account – even if the actual media files aren’t on your phone
• Photo uploads from your computer to your Dashwire web account, which then automatically appear on your phone
• Media editing, blogging, and sharing with friends – on the go as you’re capturing your experiences
• Direct status updates to Facebook & Twitter
• Privacy controls & media publishing

Truthfully I’ve been playing with v2 for only a few hours but you can tell the Dashwire team has put a lot of thought and effort into this release. I’ll be sure to post a follow up in a few days to let you know of any issue/challenges I ran into - if I do.

To try this free service, visit http://www.dashwire.com to sign up for an account then point your mobile device’s browser to http://m.dashwire.com to download the client. Note that Dashwire (and us here at Gear Diary) highly recommend you have an unlimited data account on your phone as the service runs in the background and constantly updates your photos, SMS’, videos and other items you synchronize automatically by default.

You can always check out my Dashwire page at http://dashwire.com/clintonfitchdotcom

One of the challenges with using Windows Mobile devices, as with most mobile devices, is the size of the screen. It is great having Office Mobile on the latest and greatest device but doing a significant edit of a document on a 3.5″ QVGA screen is, well… fun? Granted, on bigger devices that have VGA screens, the HTC Advantage comes to mind, it is a bit easier but you still end up doing a lot of side-to-side scrolling. Couple this with either a soft keyboard on the device or a small thumboard to type with and once again, doing big edits on a document is, well… fun? How then do you get around this quandry? With a colorful insect of course!

The Celio REDFLY is designed to help resolve this difficulty for Windows Mobile users by allowing them to connect their device via a USB cable or Bluetooth to the REDFLY and gain an 8″, 800×480 VGA display and full QWERTY keyboard. The REDFLY has no memory, storage or operating system itself. It is literally an extension of your device, utilizing the memory, storage and operating system of it. Even better, the REDFLY has a VGA output so you can display on an external monitor or projector straight from the device, something only a select few Windows Mobile devices can do natively. All of this in a package that is less than 2lbs. and 9″ wide and under $500? If you a a true power user of your Windows Mobile device, you should seriously consider a REDFLY. It could save your eyes and thumbs!

Figure 1: The REDFLY Closed
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If you’re intereseted in the MWG Atom Life, then you simply MUST take a trip over to ClintonFitch.com and check out Clinton’s comprehensive review.

As per youz-u-al, Clinton does a bang-up job on the review, and has lots of pictures to satisfy everyone. The device is only tri-band, so those on T-Mobile will be happy; but those on AT&T maybe not so much.

 

To start, let me clarify that I’m not going to post about data plans pros and cons. No, my questions is about usage - your usage to be precise.

Let me set the stage a bit for all you GearDiaryites…. I eat up a lot of bandwidth. A lot! I average nearly 100MB per day on my phone-flavor-of-the-week. That means if you extrapolate that out, I’m burning through about 3GB worth of data a month. Mind you, this is on my Widows Mobile device - not my PC - and that doesn’t include what data I download while I’m here at home on my WiFi network. How do I eat up nearly 3 gigs a month? Easy really. I have a corporate Exchange account in a company of nearly 200 people. I hold a national role in that company so I see a lot of email from every part of the organization - easily 100-150 per day in total. Add to that my Dashwire account which is contantly updating as it upload videos, images and what-not every day. Dashwire actually doesn’t account for much of the traffic unless I add a picture or video. Then there is Newsbreak, my RSS reader. That probably gets me more than I would like to admit. Between the hourly updates and the daily download of a podcast or four, I burn up a lot there. Add in the periodic weather updates from Spb Mobile Shell and, well, you get the picture. It all adds up to an impressive 3 gigs per month.

I know I eat through that much data per month because I measure it using Spb GPRS Monitor. GPRS monitor is an oldish application from Spb which allows you to configure it so it monitors your data connection. When it originally came out, unlimited data plans were both rare and insanely expensive and most mobile users needed to make sure they didn’t go over their included megabytes less they incur a massive overage bill. Although this is not so much the case today, I still like to see how much I’m burning through each day or month. Call it morbid curiosity.

So my fellow GearDiaryites, I ask this simple question: Am I alone? Am I the only one who eats through this much bandwidth on their mobile device each month? Am I on the low end? Do some of you eat up 10GB of data per month or am I absolutely insane by using what I do?

Post your bandwidth usage per day or month in the comments and let’s compare. Again, call it morbid curiosity…

Please join me in wishing Clinton Fitch a very Happy Birthday! Clinton is one of our resident propeller heads, and nothing makes him happier than geeking out with his gadgets - the latest of which is the HTC Advantage 7510. In addition to contributing as a member of the Gear Diary team, Clinton is the owner of ClintonFitch (Dot) Com! and co-owner of HPC Factor.

Now let me tell you a little bit about my friend Clinton…

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When I first began my adventure into mobile technology, it started with Handheld PCs. H/PCs, as they are known, were made from the late 90s to 2003 by a variety of manufacturers, most notably NEC and Hewlett Packard. The devices were more-often-than-not a clamshell form factor, with a built-in keyboard and VGA or HVGA screens. They were powerful and business friendly, especially in light of the fact that at that time, Pocket PCs (as they were known) did not have built in keyboards. Through a variety of market changes and marketing blunders, the H/PC soon became a non-factor in the mainstream mobile arena. I say mainstream because Handheld PCs are still widely used today, despite having not been made for several years. In fact, I co-own HPC:Factor, a site which is considered by many to be the hub of the H/PC user community. There you can find anything from drivers, to software and how-to’s, to reviews for Handheld PCs which allow the owners of these great devices to keep on keeping on.

Still, with the advent of Bluetooth, built-in WiFi, GPRS and other technologies - most of which were not available during the years H/PCs were produced - the longing for a H/PC-like device with the power and flexibility of a contemporary Windows Mobile device has been and is strong. While some have tried and come close, none have ever fully satisfied that longing until now. HTC has done it with the Advantage X7510, a  device which hearkens back to the glory days of H/PCs, yet provides users with outstanding performance and flexibility. It is truly a business class device, one that would have made the visionaries of the Handheld PC proud, and one that makes this H/PC die-hard jump for joy! The Advantage X7510 is a Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional device that sports an impressive VGA display, built in Bluetooth and WiFi, a detachable keyboard and a fantastically powerful processor. It is easy to see this device as the natural evolution of the H/PC, given its satisfaction of both consumer and commercial needs combined in a single device.

This review will be the first of two installments covering the X7510. In this review I will be covering the device’s physical hardware, while the second will cover the software including the Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional OS which the device runs. The reason for this separation is both practicality and timing. Given the extensive detail of the device and its specifications, making a single full review of the device and its software would prove to be one heck of a read for you! Secondly, at the time of this writing, the X7510s ROM is not in its final shipping version. Instead of risking discussing something that may not make the final ROM, I’ve decided to have a separate discussion on the ROM and software when it is available in June.

To begin, let’s take a look at the physical aspects of the X7510. As I mentioned before, this device is bigger than most Windows Mobile devices on the market today, measuring 98mm x 133.5mm x 16mm (or 3.9″ x 5.3″ x .6″) in width, height and depth. Those dimensions make the X7510 roughly 2″ wider than the TyTN II, one of the most popular Windows Mobile Professional devices today. Like its physical size, this device also is heavier than most at a weight of 375g (or 13.2 ounces). That puts the X7510 at about twice the weight of the TyTN II. Still, even at this size, the X7510 can easily fit into a back jeans pocket, a jacket pocket, or handbag without giving you a weighed-down feeling. Having used it now as my primary device for a couple of weeks, I have found the size to be a non-issue. The detachable keyboard measures roughly the same size as the device from a width and height perspective, but is only 3mm (or 1/10th”) thick, adding virtually no depth or weight to the device.

Figure 1: Advantage X7510 - Compared to AT&T Tilt and MWg Atom Life

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If you are looking for an inexpensive VGA Windows Mobile device then Expansys-USA may have an option for you. Currently they have the MWg (formerly O2 Asia) Xda Flame on sale for an amazing $449.95 (US). The device sports a 3.6″ VGA display running the nVidia GEForce 5500 Mobile Graphics chipset. Couple that awesome graphics power with a 520Mhz PXA270 Processor, a whopping 2GB of ROM and 128MB of RAM and you get one heck of a device for gaming and multimedia…. oh yeah, and work stuff too!

You can get more information at Expansys-USA on this offer but hurry, it looks like they have less than 50 in stock.

It is estimated, conservatively, that there over 6.5 billion SMS (or Text Messages) sent each day worldwide.  That equates to roughly 1 SMS message for every person on Earth - each day!  It is a staggering number to think about but one that has grown by over 4 billion in just the last three years.  Often these messages are short, one or two word questions or answers.  Further still, for many, the “language” of SMS is short abbreviations or acronyms such as LOL (Laugh Out Loud) or BFF (Best Friend Forever).  Regardless of the content or length however, keeping up with messages can be challenging.  Catherine, my daughter and fellow writer here at Clinton Fitch (Dot) Com! has expressed on many occasions her frustration with friends who don’t immediately reply to an SMS and expect her to “remember the conversation” some hours later.  Given this is coming from one who sends nearly 5,000 SMS messages per month, I do not find this surprising.

SMS has turned into a hugely popular means of communication, one that I find myself preferring when I am not sure if a call might disturb or I don’t have a lot to say. I think it is interesting to note that many people who might not answer a call, perhaps because they are in a meeting, will quickly jot back a text reply if you contact them that way instead. It certainly is a great way to communicate with your kids when they are at school, with friends, or on dates.

The problem with most Pre-Windows 6.1 devices is that they don’t have threaded chat, so as Catherine pointed out it can be tricky to remember what the last comment was, or perhaps what the person’s reply pertains to. Vito Technology has released Vito SMS-Chat to help keep your texts organized and threaded, and Clinton has a full review posted on his site.

Link: Clinton Fitch (Dot) Com reviews iWindowsMobile SMS Chat

Judie: Here’s how it all started. I got a press release from Kevin Doel regarding FlipSide, a new Windows Mobile MP3 Player which features “”Swooshing” Album Art as Part of Acclaimed Visual Interface.”

FlipSide, the MP3 player from Electric Pocket that has had BlackBerry users buzzing, is now available to users of Windows Mobile devices such as the Treo 700xw, Mogul, Ace, and Blackjack. The feature that has made FlipSide such an instant hit among BlackBerry users is its iPhone-like interface that allows users to visually “swoosh” through their music quickly and easily.

Navigating through music and selecting tunes is a simple process with FlipSide: scroll through the Album Covers, or flick through them using your finger on the screen, then click on the navigation button to open up a vertical list of the tracks. The spacebar is used to start, pause and skip songs, while the navigation button is used to scroll either left or right to either fast forward or rewind within a song.

While FlipSide comes with the features expected of any MP3 player, the feature that gets the most buzz is the attractive user interface that makes FlipSide both visually enjoyable and very easy to use. Its ability to “swoosh” through the full-color cover art of an entire music collection within seconds using the navigation control button makes FlipSide stand-out as both a simple and fun MP3 player. FlipSide downloads and displays the cover art of each album and even links to FlipSide Extras to provide biographies of the artists, recommendations for similar artists and more.

FlipSide for Windows Mobile plays music stored on memory cards in MP3 & WMA formats. FlipSide retails for $19.95 and a free trial download is available now from the FlipSide website at http://flipside.fm.

As I’ll usually do when I get a product announcement, I forwarded this release to the team to see if anyone might be interested in covering the item or reviewing the product…and then their emails started rolling in. It wasn’t long before we had another full blown GearChat Roundtable on our hands.

Sit tight; this one was a doozy…

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