I'm planning to buy a MDA Compact from T-Mobile here in Austria.
Gaming is important to me - so how is the gaming performance on this device? I've heard, that it's quite bad, because you have less programmeable Hardwarebuttons.
In general, is Magician suitable for Multimedia???
Due to button placement, it's hard to play games with the mini(compact). It feels cramped when I play games that need buttons (i.e. morphgear). but for stylus games, its fine.
Music and Movies though are great and I enjoy listening to MP3s with Mortplayer using my Senhheiser MX550 earphones with a 3.5mm to 2.5mm adapter.
I play SkyForce ( Beautiful Graphics ) with Stylus on Mini.
I think it's very well suited for gaming. Usually all games give you the opportunity to select which buttons to use for what operation. I'm playing Tomb Raider, Flux Challenge, Worms, Sky Force, Kevtris and others with no problems. The graphics power also is sufficient. The only real disadvantage it has is, that you can't press two buttons at the same time. That's a real disadvantage for almost all games! Many PDAs (not all) have this problem though.
Button Pressing
Actually, on the imate jam, I found that I can press multiple buttons at the same time. I noticed that I can move using directional pad while firing at the same time. Also, I it seems like the BT gamepad was made for the Jam as it works perfectly!
Ok, maybe you can use one of the buttons while using the DPad but you can't use two directions of the DPad at the same time e.g you can't move up and right at the same time - very annoying for action games.
I didn't think about that. Most of my old school games work great. I would suggest you get the BT pad when the price goes down. You will not regret it!
For stylus+button game no problem such as skyforce, atomic cannon and my favourite age of empire.
Dandie said:
I think it's very well suited for gaming. Usually all games give you the opportunity to select which buttons to use for what operation. I'm playing Tomb Raider, Flux Challenge, Worms, Sky Force, Kevtris and others with no problems. The graphics power also is sufficient. The only real disadvantage it has is, that you can't press two buttons at the same time. That's a real disadvantage for almost all games! Many PDAs (not all) have this problem though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you tell me how to change the controls on the mda compact when playing tomb raider. I can't work out how to save a game as the MDA has insufficient buttons. Many thanks.
Colinf1903
Gaming is great on the Jam!
I play loads (and i mean, loads of games) including Tombraider, Worms World Party, Age Of Empires, Solitaire , Warfare Inf, Rayman Ultimate, Mini Jetfight and some other games.
All are very easy to play IMO. Most games don't require more then the DPAD and Calender/Contacts buttons. Most games use stylus control.
The best device to run games is on Magician compared to xda I, II and IIs or IIi.
Related
Just got mine today and some of you have asked me to comment about it when I recieve it.
I got the black version and the look is in my opinion slightly more professional than the Magician's. Size and feel are exactly the same.
The first HUGE improvement over the Magician is the OS! Yes WM5 is awesome!
One handed-operation:
As many have said before me, one-handed operation is very very easy. Also thanks to the Start and OK buttons. From my little experience so far, the extra hardware buttons on a WM5 device are a MUST! A further improvement towards one-handed operation is that in WM5, tabs, volume bubbles, etc. are all NAVIGABLE with the D-pad.
Key Lock:
Device locking can be done from the today screen using the D-Pad, pretty much like a normal phone. The touch screen is also disabled when the keys are locked!
Camera:
The camera quality is awesome. I found the refresh rate before taking the picture a bit slow when set to 2 MP but I can live with that, especially after looking at the results! (Sample pic attached)
Memory:
For the time being I decided to install all the customisations in the extended rom. This left me with 41.95MB of (permanent) storage and 25.6 MB of Program memory.
Battery:
I can't say a lot about this so far, but looking at the battery settings it was nice not seeing a Backup Battery level (not required for WM5!). A battery level is now included on the Today screen without installing any plug-ins.
Photo Contacts:
This program, usually included in all HTC devices, is not included. I don't know why yet, but presumably WM5 can store pictures against a contact so no 3rd party program was required.
File Explorer:
Now supports a "Back" feature, not included in previous versions. Thought I should mention cause I could never understand why it wasn't always there. Btw, navigating in file explorer without a stylus is now possible.
Performance:
For the time being I cannot say much, but loading as many programs as possible DID NOT slow the device at all! I did not find opening applications slower than the Magician. If it's milliseconds slower I won't notice it ... sorry!
Comm Manager:
A program called Comm Manager (not sure if it's standard Windows or HTC yet) allows you to control all wireless activity, i.e. BT, WIFI and ActiveSync.
Headset:
The quality of the headset is improved, built quality as well as sound quality
It's too early to comment on call quality, GSM signal quality, etc. but I promise I will keep you posted
BY THE WAY, DEAR ADMINISTRATORS, WHEN CAN WE HAVE AN HTC PROPHET FORUM SECTION PLEASE? THIS DEVICE IS BEING DISCUSSED IN ALL THE OTHER BIG FORUMS, WHY NOT HERE AS WELL?
Hi there mate can i ask where u got it from ive been after 1 for a while but being in the uk its pretty difficult to get hold of 1
Thanks
I think he ordered it direct from Expansys
Yes, from expansys.
Some uppdates
After some hours of use I'm in love with WM5 already. M$ have finally put more phone in their OS.
With regards to performance I cannot notice any difference from the Magician at all. As I'm posting this I have the following programs running:
Wifi switched on
Pocket MSN
MSN Messenger
Text Messages
Windows Media Player playing
TCPMP
Internet Explorer
Activesync
This has no performance impact whatsoever.
I think you should try the device yourself to really know if the OMAP performance is OK. People's opinions can be misleading at times!
Built:
As I said in my previous post, the built quality is similar to the Magician. Buttons have a better feel though. They feel more robust.
Audio:
Audio quality is a major improvement I think, during calls and while listening to music. It has more bass, no more tinny audio
So far it's perfect. Feel free to ask any questions
Some uppdates
After some hours of use I'm in love with WM5 already. M$ have finally put more phone in their OS.
With regards to performance I cannot notice any difference from the Magician at all. As I'm posting this I have the following programs running:
Wifi switched on
Pocket MSN
MSN Messenger
Text Messages
Windows Media Player playing
TCPMP
Internet Explorer
Activesync
This has no performance impact whatsoever.
I think you should try the device yourself to really know if the OMAP performance is OK. People's opinions can be misleading at times!
Built:
As I said in my previous post, the built quality is similar to the Magician. Buttons have a better feel though. They feel more robust.
Audio:
Audio quality is a major improvement I think, during calls and while listening to music. It has more bass, no more tinny audio
So far it's perfect. Feel free to ask any questions
Well..will kindly ask you to give an update in a week's time. I think you've got a lot of Magician users here excited :-D
Would love to know how you find video playback using TCPMP, video streaming as well as playing DVDs....take your time....
I will try a DIVx with TCPMP later on today. With the applications I mentioned above all running, I had no problem playing AVI files, but these were only like 10MB each. No frame skips, no nothing!
I'll let you know how it goes with a 160MB DIVx later ...
you're the man!! :lol:
Some more updates, not the DIVx yet
I wanted to say this earlier, but wanted to be sure before I post it here. I noticed that the screen is slightly brighter than the Magician's and is also much better when used in sunlight.
I think HTC do listen to their customers after all. With the Magician we complained a lot about the tinny sound, quality of the headset headphones, no WiFi, bad camera, etc. ... and guess what? The sound is awesome, the headset quality is very very good, WiFi is included (and g not b) and the camera is probably the best PDA camera as of now. Until I recieved it I was thinking that it cannot be much of an improvement over the Magician but I'm starting to change my mind now
congr. on your new toy..
I would love to know more about video capturing.. is the same as on the magician or is it changed > better worse?!! :?
cheers
I've encoded a 320x240, 360Kbps, 235MB avi movie and played with TCPMP without any problems whatsoever. I then made a call to the Prophet and did not have any issues either.
I then switched on Wifi (known for its CPU power consumption) and continued to watch the film without any interruptions. I then loaded the following programs and could still watch the film without any problems:
Activesync
Windows Media (just loaded a playlist but this still consumes memory)
File Explorer
Pictures & Videos
MSN Messenger (signed in)
TCPMP (of course!)
Pocket MSN
So I guess the performance has passed my test. I could never be watching a film, watching pictures, chatting on MSN and browsing in File Explorer at the same time!
I think the only real performance problem people have had with this processor was Skype. I'm not a Skype user so I will not try it, but if you ask me, I think the problem with Skype is code optimisation. Newer releases of Skype will run flawlesly on the OMAP processor as well. Mind you, some people on PPCSG forums are using Skype on the Prophet already!
Anyway, if you have any more questions, please just ask.
I've uninstalled Cyberon Voice Commander that comes shipped with the Dopod and installed Microsoft voice command. Cyberon is barely usable and the speech recognition is horrible.
hi kta, that's good to hear...well apparently quite a few members from the PPCSG (PPPC Singapore) forum are experiencing issues running avi divx movies on their Dopod 818 Pro, using tcpmp.
http://www.ppcsg.com/index.php?showtopic=68322
maybe it could be to do with the encoding...maybe they tried a high encoding rate?
I went back to a Magician after having a Vario, bored of the slowness of WM5 and the weak processor. Can't see how this Prophet pulls any tricks out of the bag.
O2mini_noob said:
http://www.ppcsg.com/index.php?showtopic=68322
maybe it could be to do with the encoding...maybe they tried a high encoding rate?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm sure someone was experiencing problems with avi file encoded over 500kbps. Pocket Divx did not allow me to go this high. Anything over 300kbps is probably too much size wise anyway.
monkeyphonix said:
I went back to a Magician after having a Vario, bored of the slowness of WM5 and the weak processor. Can't see how this Prophet pulls any tricks out of the bag.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, the MDA Vario implementation of WM5 is inferior to the HTC Prophet's. This is evident from posts on PPCSG from owners of both devices. To start with, the HTC Prophet does not have anti virus installed. There could be many reasons why the Vario is slower as the device is slightly different as well. No keyboard drivers, different camera, different screen, etc. The slow down in a ROM could be caused by many things, a bad device driver implementation for example. But surely the next Vario ROM will be improved.
WM5 is not the culprit. Users of the HTC Prophet and the E-Ten M600 are not complaining, on the other hand Atom users (read 416Mhz Xscale) are complaining. This shows how much difference a ROM implementation can make.
duke911 said:
congr. on your new toy..
I would love to know more about video capturing.. is the same as on the magician or is it changed > better worse?!! :?
cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In VERY good light conditions video capturing is OK. Nothing more than the Magician. In dark light condtions the refresh rate is horrible, nothing worse than the Magician but nothing better either.
I would be interested to find out what people thought were good and bad about the wizard, as this will change for what people want to get out of their phone / pda. If you have time could you list your pros and cons of the Wizard? Thanks, heres mine...
PROS
Phone / Text works good
Games are excellent
Can connect to the internet through wi-fi / bluetooth / t-mobile
MSN
The keyboard
Touch screen
Easy to navigate
MP3 player with up to 2gb storage
Can play videos
Can be used as a webcam
Calendar works well
MP3 ringtones
CONS
Controls for some games are difficult to use
Sometimes my alarm doesnt go off...
Hmmm... I broke my headpohnes...
I cant think of any!!! I love this phone too much
Here are mine
PROS
Excellent communication abilities
QWERTY keyboard
Organizer
CONS
Not enough CPU speed
In spite of this it is great!
That would be "Wizard Pros & Cons" - I'm an apostrophe nazi
I was going to write a full review but this is easier. So:
Pros:
* Great keyboard, innovative input design.
* Nice, large screen
Cons:
* The operating system for being unreliable and hard to use (definite feature creep getting in the way of useability and maturity).
* Connectivity (wifi & BT) seems sketchy at best
* Poor battery life
* Hardware unreliabilty
BT and Wifi works fine for me.
Battery life is comparable with any phone I've had previously - I regularly get 2.5 days with some average usage and with calls. That's using Wifi and GPRS too.
Install some crap like phonealarm or Wisbar and it drops through the floor, but leave a vanilla install and it's pretty good IMO.
Maybe it's just my battery, but with moderate use (music & frequent calls) I pretty much require a recharge every day. Seems the state of phones these days. I remember the time when a phone would last a week! :x
True, but they were also useless blocks of concrete which could barely make a call, let alone play video and music, organise your life, surf the web, etc.
for my Cingular 8125
PRO:
eliminate multiple devices and performs those functions well
keyboard
exellent conectivety options
CON:
mobile Windows Media player interface and functions
face buttons get activated easily in a bag or pocket (so i end up calling people)
Sir.B said:
CON:
face buttons get activated easily in a bag or pocket (so i end up calling people)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Go to Settings, Buttons and there is a tab that says "Lock"
2. Choose "Lock all buttons except power button".
3. Place phone in your pocket without worries.
4. When you need to use the phone, press the power button and call.
Yorch said:
Sir.B said:
CON:
face buttons get activated easily in a bag or pocket (so i end up calling people)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Go to Settings, Buttons and there is a tab that says "Lock"
2. Choose "Lock all buttons except power button".
3. Place phone in your pocket without worries.
4. When you need to use the phone, press the power button and call.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i set that setting...
but when on the bus and listening to music the phone is on
it dials sometimes...
thank you for trying to help...
True, but they were also useless blocks of concrete which could barely make a call, let alone play video and music, organise your life, surf the web, etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Largely true, but I had a very nice Treo beforehand that would do all that, with a very stable and usable interface, that would last a good 4-5 days.
But I digress. Sorry for hijacking this thread :roll:
Sir.B said:
Yorch said:
Sir.B said:
CON:
face buttons get activated easily in a bag or pocket (so i end up calling people)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Go to Settings, Buttons and there is a tab that says "Lock"
2. Choose "Lock all buttons except power button".
3. Place phone in your pocket without worries.
4. When you need to use the phone, press the power button and call.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
:roll: i got that setting...but when i'm on the bus and listen to music the phone is on it dials sometimes...
but thank you for trying to help...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When you have windows media player on if you close it the music still plays and you can lock the device then
I hate mine. Bought 2x at Xmas one for me one for the Wife. Wife refused to use it so cancelled contract. I have made 10 calls on it since and it hasn't been used for 6 months.
Really long winded to send a text or multimedia message. Too small to be a practical PC .
I intend to get one of the new 5" tft mini notebook/tablets.
PROS
Phone is good
Can connect to the internet through wi-fi
keyboard good
Touch screen
sat nav use
MP3 player with up to 2gb storage
Can play videos
MP3 ringtones
CONS
too flippin heavy and thick
Text sending takes too many keystrokes
screen too small
alarm problems
headpohnes socket 2.5mm ? wrong size
Pros:
keyboard
Connectivity
Expandable Storage
Compatibility with MS Office ( word, outlook, excel, PPoint)
Music
video
flaunt value
Geek factor
Cons:
os (but this is not a Wizard fault)
Battery life (heavy use -wifi, games etc only last- 2 hours)
Camera -poor at best
limited memory
Slow processor (You Can over clock it but only to an extent and it affects the battery life )
Poor Stylus
But I like the phone and have reached the stage where I no longer Carry my laptop with me
a video out port and 'built-in FM would have been great
cheers!
The texting seems quicker for me with the keyboard than the old phone methods.
A fm radio would of been great, a big miss for me that is.
Why do people think the phone processor is too slow? Everything I have tried to run on my mda including games such as tomb raider have ran great.
I have the 8125 using T-Mobile
Pros:
Excellent phone with loud ring;
Extremely reliable and acceptably fast (with Mr. Clean AKU 2.3 ROM);
Works well with BT Stereo Headsets and other hands free devices;
With a simple hack, it can be controlled from a bluetooth headset;
Extremely customizable due to the xda-developers site and all the hacks and .cab files available.
Most flexible pda/phone available.
Standard Mini USB Charging
Cons:
No 3G UMTS/HSPDA (I'm waiting for TyTN bugs to get worked out);
Processor could be faster but with proper ROM and customizations, it works acceptably fast;
Camera takes marginal photos bue comes in handy in a pinch;
Battery life is one to two days depending on usage. This is better than some devices with WiFi.
I have the 8125 using T-Mobile
Pros:
Excellent phone with loud ring;
Extremely reliable and acceptably fast (with Mr. Clean AKU 2.3 ROM);
Works well with BT Stereo Headsets and other hands free devices;
With a simple hack, it can be controlled from a bluetooth headset;
Extremely customizable due to the xda-developers site and all the hacks and .cab files available.
Most flexible pda/phone available.
Standard Mini USB Charging
Cons:
No 3G UMTS/HSPDA (I'm waiting for TyTN bugs to get worked out);
Processor could be faster but with proper ROM and customizations, it works acceptably fast;
Camera takes marginal photos bue comes in handy in a pinch;
Battery life is one to two days depending on usage. This is better than some devices with WiFi.
I have the 8125 using T-Mobile
Pros:
Excellent phone with loud ring;
Extremely reliable and acceptably fast (with Mr. Clean AKU 2.3 ROM);
Works well with BT Stereo Headsets and other hands free devices;
With a simple hack, it can be controlled from a bluetooth headset;
Extremely customizable due to the xda-developers site and all the hacks and .cab files available.
Most flexible pda/phone available.
Standard Mini USB Charging
Cons:
No 3G UMTS/HSPDA (I'm waiting for TyTN bugs to get worked out);
Processor could be faster but with proper ROM and customizations, it works acceptably fast;
Camera takes marginal photos bue comes in handy in a pinch;
Battery life is one to two days depending on usage. This is better than some devices with WiFi.
I'm using tmobile with the data plan, I've used both the Treo and Wizard and like the wizard for it's extensive connectablity and the treo for its elegant OS and deeper application pool. Since I have the MDA, I'll use it until something better comes along
Pros
Excellent screen
good connectivity via gprs/bt/wifi
fairly easy to tweak, unlock, overclock
good selection of win mobile applications
Ability to use phone as WAN modem to laptop
Outlook sync
Bluetooth headset support
Cons
Stylus falls out of phone, this is a design flaw it is fixable but a pita
Camera is awful, why bother
Windows mobile - do we really need to multitask on a phone?
Windows media - what a half ass attempt, I wish Ptunes supported this OS
Windows email client, I guess I'm just used to some of the excellent palm apps, this is really lame
not really designed for one handed operation, you need to use a bluetooth headset
The phone connectivity could be better, I have a small Siemens phone that's much better than this & can pull in a distant signal where the MDA is still searching
Most of my gripes are not so much with the phone, it's an elegant design but rather with the MS OS, it's not like MS is a startup, I just expected more, its ok but could be so much better.
chrisredmayne said:
Why do people think the phone processor is too slow? Everything I have tried to run on my mda including games such as tomb raider have ran great.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try playing Resco Guardians final stages with your phone not in flight mode (pun incidental). @195 Mhz you'll know what I mean.
Sir.B said:
Yorch said:
Sir.B said:
CON:
face buttons get activated easily in a bag or pocket (so i end up calling people)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Go to Settings, Buttons and there is a tab that says "Lock"
2. Choose "Lock all buttons except power button".
3. Place phone in your pocket without worries.
4. When you need to use the phone, press the power button and call.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
:roll: i got that setting...but when i'm on the bus and listen to music the phone is on it dials sometimes...
but thank you for trying to help...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I find on WMP I am able to switch off the display while I am listening to music through my HT820 headsets!!!
There is, or can be created a car game where you have to drive the car by using the accelerometer ? It would be nice
I don't think at an accelerometer car game, but at a sort of app who map Gsensor's movements as Hardware keys
So it can be used with fpsece, morphgear, and all other "possible" games.
can someone do something ?
i've played that game on iphone,totally dependent on the g sensor,couldn't find it though,good luck.
Well, as I lost my iPod I was going to use the X1 to play my MP3s. I know it won't be as good but it is better than nothing, for now.
Is the built in player any good? What about the audio quality? Can you subscribe to podcasts? Is it worth checking out CorePlayer?
Thanks.
Hey there,
I'm a heavy listener who planned on using the X1 for music before I bought it. I came from a 5.5G ipod video and I'm familiar with the iphone/ipod touch, and a lot of mp3 players on the market.
My conclusion? Don't, convergence is still not an easy thing to do right now, at least the software side can be very difficult and frustrating.
For example, I think Volume control is messy on the X1. There's a system volume, and then each music player app usually has its own volume control. You'll want to juggle both to get the volume adjustment you want. I don't know if all WM phones are like this, but it should be less clumsy.
The Panel will give you tiny snags from time to time, like cover art may or may not show up, and it's not as finger-friendly as the button sizes suggest. I don't use it for music; it's almost my least favorite music app for the X1.
Heavy music users coming to the WM system will want to pay $20 for one of the music apps. Don't use CorePlayer. Conduit's Pocket Player is the best, lots of tweaking possible and closest to the iphone's music player in terms of interface. However it's still not as smooth as the iphone, and there are some aspects of the operation I took two weeks but simply couldn't figure out (e.g. podcasts always play on the fly instead of download and sitting on the phone for later).
I'm not sure if you've already got the X1, whether you want to permanently replace the ipod with the phone, or if this is just a stopgap solution, so my reply is a bit all over the place. If you want free apps, S2P is probably the smoothest right now and IMO puts the X1's hardware to good use.
Sound quality... one of the phone review sites tested the X1 and the signal/noise ratio went through the roof, better than a large number of phones and mp3 players. In the world of audio numbers don't necessarily mean much, but the sound is definitely good. I just think the software side is a big letdown.
i am using pocket player and it works really well. It has the today screen plug in, making it very easy to use.
as for the quality, i would say the performance is so-so...but it also depends a lot of the headphones and the format of the music is
I like Windows Media Player more than the media panel. I sold my ipod touch when i got my xperia and it hasn't been a huge downgrade honestly, considering it's one less thing i have to carry in my pockets. The 16gb microsd card pretty much makes it into a full blown mp3 player. It's not bad, but don't expect audiophiles to be pleased with it. I'm a pretty average user, and I listen to music at least 3-5 hours each day on my x1.
I use the media panel
don't want to carry 2 devices so
I leave my ipod touch at home as remote
works great for me think speakers/headset mean a lot more
for audio quality then the device
i use media panel beaucse its finger friendly and can easily play music - does drain the batty kinda fast tho
I am a heavy listener as well, except the huge storage on ipod (well, some models), I think any WM can do better jobs especially w/ A2DP/AVRCP. Since many of my music are in video format (MTV, KTV, youtube ...etc), core player is my first choice.
Sound quality wise, Nokia is the best but the OS sucks.
I've always used my phone for music, and I must say I think the SE A200 walkman player is the best one i've seen (better than iPhone imo), but the Media panel for X1 is okay too.
"I think any WM can do better jobs especially w/ A2DP/AVRCP."
yeah i use my nokia a2dp headset with mine to avoid wires
im a new owner of diamond 2 but i cant play games without d pad
i didnt think about that before i bought the phone...
of course games is not the main issue that i bought the phone
but what do you do ?
thanks
Most games for Topaz either use on screen buttons or the GSensor to control.
why dont you get a bluetooth keyboard? i've tried playing games with that and it works fine