Database Users

Is It possible to downgrade Prophet with Magician2003SE Rom?

Hi guys, got a question for all of the genius heads out here,
Is it possible to downgrade Prophet to 2003 SE, let’s say using Magicians rom? Will the RUU work at all? It probably will return error “Wrong Rom supplied”? I don’t want to try it just in case it will reflash my device and then would not boot at all!
But got to tell you, this Prophet is way to slow because of this stupid OMAP Processor! I can’t believe that HTC put out a newer model of the phone and downgrade it the processor! Plus this WM 5 OS is slow as a turtle! I don’t care for it at all! So I was wondering if I can put WM 2003 SE in my Prophet and hope it would work a little faster.
Do you guys think it could work? Please let me know what you think. And yes, I’m using the OMAP Overclocker, it brings up to 240 and still 10 times slower then Magician! Takes forever to boot, and to do anything!

Yes, well... I guess that's the trade off for permanent storage and flash rom instead of putting it all in super fast ram.
it's definitely sluggish compared to my older Dopod 700 (BlueAngel) but definitely gets better battery life and I can keep more apps open in the RAM I have.
I don't think you'll have any luck installing WM2003 since it is RAM-based.
I could, of course, be wrong. But I don't think so.

OMAP850 195MHz is better than intel 400MHz as when you compare 1.5G PIV and 2.4G Celeron. . Windows mobile 5 always slow but benefit is good.

Forget it, man. It is no WM2003 for Prophet. Magician has different hardware so has to be different software. I have Imate JAM before and I compare my new S200 and old JAM. S200 reboots after soft reset much longer, but work faster than JAM, no doubts about. OMAP overclock starts after WM5 complete reboot process, so overclocking have no effect for boot time. I don’t see any reasons to soft reset my S200 every week after I complete installations all extra software. As result, long reboot process doesn’t bother me to much.

bombomtr said:
Forget it, man. It is no WM2003 for Prophet. Magician has different hardware so has to be different software. I have Imate JAM before and I compare my new S200 and old JAM. S200 reboots after soft reset much longer, but work faster than JAM, no doubts about. OMAP overclock starts after WM5 complete reboot process, so overclocking have no effect for boot time. I don’t see any reasons to soft reset my S200 every week after I complete installations all extra software. As result, long reboot process doesn’t bother me to much.
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I though so. To bad. I’m sure 2003 would of ran pretty smooth on Prophet. But I don’t see how OMAP 200 is better and faster then PXA. I tried watching a movie in avi or divx or mpeg with high and low video and audio quality. Not that it is a movie theater for me, but pretty nice option on the road. And got to completely different results. Where it runs smooth like dvd quality on Magician and is just plain turtle on the Prophet. And overall performance in various applications in WM 5 invirment is pretty slow. Just plain disappointed. Thinking about buying Atom. Do you guys think WM 5 would work better on PXA ?

Whish rom is faster Qtek or imate? is there a Russian rom
Another question, I’ve experimented with original German rom on my Prophet and now I have i-mate rom 2.13. 9.23 WWE Radio 02.20.21 Some of you guys have qtek, what do you guys say, if you experimented with it of course, which rom is better as far as speed concern? May be I just should change my roms? And hey, is there a russian rom available for prophet, or maccentre is the only option right now? Maccentre doesn’t translate everything in WM 5 though.. But its close.. Thank you!

aleksandr, if your Prophet is 10 times slower than the Magician take it back to the shop because there must be something wrong with it!
I had the JAM for a year and excluding videos (I did not bother to test) the Prophet is at least as fast as the JAM. With many apps open the JAM would also slow down considerably, while with the Prophet open applications do not impact the performance at all!
Plus, the Prophet/Wm5 combo is far more stable than the Jam/2003se combo. Everyone had to soft reset ever now and then with the JAM while almost no one has to reset the Prophet for weeks!

kta said:
aleksandr, if your Prophet is 10 times slower than the Magician take it back to the shop because there must be something wrong with it!
I had the JAM for a year and excluding videos (I did not bother to test) the Prophet is at least as fast as the JAM. With many apps open the JAM would also slow down considerably, while with the Prophet open applications do not impact the performance at all!
Plus, the Prophet/Wm5 combo is far more stable than the Jam/2003se combo. Everyone had to soft reset ever now and then with the JAM while almost no one has to reset the Prophet for weeks!
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Hi, thank you very much for your time and reply. I really appreciate it. Do you think it could be the problem with some applications having compatibility issue with WM 5?
I’m running all the latest applications (freshly downloaded from developers sites) including Pocket Plus, Pocket Breeze, and WisBar Advance. My phoneAlarm wouldn’t run though. I’m using Hudson Mobile Dashboard. These are the applications that are always in memory. And of course OMAP Overclocker set at 240Mhz anything over hangs the prophet. Browsing through the phone lets say with Resco Explorer is a pain since its loading files for 3 minutes even with all sys files and extensions hidden option. Build in File Explorer got the same problem. Tried Commander, same results.. And I can forget about playing the video for example, I shut down WisBar Advance, as it is impossible to use anything else along with it cuz the speed is just way too slooow, and still results are much worst then Magician I have no idea what’s causing it I don’t think it’s a hardware problem, as far a malfunction concern. I guess its either ROM or just it’s the way WM 5 is.. I tried german Rom as well as a i-mates rom. Should I go with Qtek or Dopod may be? Thank you guys for your time and advice!

Video
aleksandr,
The Prophet is my first PPC so I cannot compare speeds with previous versions. However I regularly watch videos on it.
First of all, do not use Media Player bloatware, but TCPMP. Second, it can handle PC-quality AVI's, albeit with certain quality settings it will be slow. However it's a waste, why watch a 700Mb 624x352 video when your PPC's resolution is max 320x240? I use a program to re-encode it to that resolution without any loss of quality in audio or video, it comes down to 300Mb and it works like a dream on the Prophet.

Re: Video
acer175 said:
aleksandr,
The Prophet is my first PPC so I cannot compare speeds with previous versions. However I regularly watch videos on it.
First of all, do not use Media Player bloatware, but TCPMP. Second, it can handle PC-quality AVI's, albeit with certain quality settings it will be slow. However it's a waste, why watch a 700Mb 624x352 video when your PPC's resolution is max 320x240? I use a program to re-encode it to that resolution without any loss of quality in audio or video, it comes down to 300Mb and it works like a dream on the Prophet.
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Hi, thank you very much for the reply. I really appreciate your input! As I hear about you all experience, it helps me to make up my mind about this prophet. I actually already have it on the ebay for 3 days and still double guessing. I was thinking about going for Atom, but if you guys can share your experience and help me believe in this prophet I’ll keep it and won’t spend bunch of money on Atom. Plus I just love the design of Prophet! Especially this black mate finish
Any way, for video converting I used DVD to pocket PC, Pocket DVD Wizard, Doctor Divx, XiliSof converter, AVM Movie maker, PQ DVD, DESET video maker, microsofts windows media video converter plug-in, Smart video Converter and few others, I used the 240x320 resolution my self with 256 to 700 k sound compression (about 300 to 600 mb) in any case with every program I get pretty much same results, nice and smooth on magician and distorted-like quality on prophet What would you recommend in such a case scenario?

aleksandr said:
kta said:
aleksandr, if your Prophet is 10 times slower than the Magician take it back to the shop because there must be something wrong with it!
I had the JAM for a year and excluding videos (I did not bother to test) the Prophet is at least as fast as the JAM. With many apps open the JAM would also slow down considerably, while with the Prophet open applications do not impact the performance at all!
Plus, the Prophet/Wm5 combo is far more stable than the Jam/2003se combo. Everyone had to soft reset ever now and then with the JAM while almost no one has to reset the Prophet for weeks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, thank you very much for your time and reply. I really appreciate it. Do you think it could be the problem with some applications having compatibility issue with WM 5?
I’m running all the latest applications (freshly downloaded from developers sites) including Pocket Plus, Pocket Breeze, and WisBar Advance. My phoneAlarm wouldn’t run though. I’m using Hudson Mobile Dashboard. These are the applications that are always in memory. And of course OMAP Overclocker set at 240Mhz anything over hangs the prophet. Browsing through the phone lets say with Resco Explorer is a pain since its loading files for 3 minutes even with all sys files and extensions hidden option. Build in File Explorer got the same problem. Tried Commander, same results.. And I can forget about playing the video for example, I shut down WisBar Advance, as it is impossible to use anything else along with it cuz the speed is just way too slooow, and still results are much worst then Magician I have no idea what’s causing it I don’t think it’s a hardware problem, as far a malfunction concern. I guess its either ROM or just it’s the way WM 5 is.. I tried german Rom as well as a i-mates rom. Should I go with Qtek or Dopod may be? Thank you guys for your time and advice!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have Resco Explorer installed on my Prophet and it's as fast as it gets. I would suggest you take a backup of your device, do a hard reset and install just Resco Explorer. Leave it running for a few days and see how it goes. If you're satisfied with the performance, start installing more applications ONE AT A TIME, allowing at least a day to test the performance after installing each individual program.
I'm pretty sure that the problem you have with performance has to do with 3rd party software.

slow prophet
thank you. I tried that few times. nothing seems to stand out.. it seems slow with any program installed just by it self its still much much slower then magician and I'm just trying to find a way to either speed it up, by configuring it right.. or just see if its just slow pda..

aleksandr,
I have russian WM5 interface translator from Paragon (not sure). It coms with my Qtek S200. I have no idea how good or bad it is because I remove it and never use it. If you do like to try it, let me know and I'll send it to you.

Wizard Overall Performance... are u satisfied?

I have a Cingular 8125. I bought it only a couple weeks ago, and I have to say that if it wouldn't have been for these forums and all the tips tricks and hacks that are being discovered here - I would have taken this devvice back to the store... I have days when I love it and days when I hate it - but overall I have to say that I just barely satisfied with the performance. It just feels like the OS (wm5) is to intensive for the processor in these devices.... and is it just me ... or does anyone else feel like they also are a BETA Tester for this devices and this platform in general .... cause let's face it - these things are not for everyone - it takes a über-geek like me and you to use one
Anyway, I am rambling, but - share your thoughts...

Yes i am, with it overclocked, upgraded rom and various hacks lol... Plus it gives this forum a boost - most problems are fixable

The 195 Mhz of the Wizard are enough for PDA/phone activities. But it's too little if you want to do more wiht your device. For example, when streaming mp3 via WiFi and then immediately encode to A2DP, the machine CRAWLS.
And it is getting worse with WMV video: it won't playback any QVGA WMV videos, too slow of a cpu (tried both WMP and TCPMP).
So, it depends how you use your device.

the 8125 processor 195/200mhz is just as fast as the Verizon/Sprints Xscale 400mhz process just different chips that clock speeds differently. it's like comparing a Intel Centrino 1.5ghz to a 2ghz mmx the centrino can blow past the mmx chip in a benchmark... but anyway the device is pretty fast being that it's small and can hold a decent battery life.
a lot of people add tons of plugs to there device that really slows it down. crappy coding in a plugin can make the 8125 really slow

I have to concur with phlojo on this: I migrated from a Himalaya (XDA2) & WM2003SE onto an MDA Vario. I was seduced by the prospect of built-in wifi, smaller footprint and WM5, but I have been severely disappointed by speed, memory space and stability. The poor stability is probably due to lack of memory, but there are other 'features' :x that infuriate, like a hit and miss alarm. Today I got 2 at the same time - but I have known it to miss alarms or to lose WEP keys, which is a PITA to type in as you can't paste the key on WM5; you have to type manually.
It was suggested in this thread that these issues were caused by additionally installed user applications. All I can say it that I'm only trying to run the same apps as I did on my xda2 (GPS map finding, opera & TCMP). At the moment I give it 6/10. If I find a smaller memory footprint rom to download, this might go up.
I think those considering the upgrade version of this phone need to check the hardware specs before taking the plunge. I've got this on a 18 month contract, so I'm stuck with it for a while.

running wm5 on a vario is like running winxp on a celeron 700
definatley needs more ram as well

Hi everyone,
I was quite concerned when I went from my Dell Axim x50v to the MDA Vario.
I was worried that the jump from 624Mhz to 180Mhz would be a bridge too far!
And it nearly was.....until I upgraded my ROM to 2.17.x.x, now it is reliable, doesnt randomly reset without warning and the performance is very good.
I use Tube 2 quite a bit and Tom Tom 5.21 and find there is little noticable difference to the Axim.
I am sure media encoding and streamng would be a totally different kettle of fish though - 180Mhz is just not enough for this kind of 'work', I am sure the Axim would struggle with this too!
The question is, is this really what you want to do with your Phone/PDA when theres such good 'tools for the job' such as the Sony PSP?
Mark

as a new user to the ppc scene. i dont really know what to expect. i should be receiving my 8125 very soon..
It set to come stock with whatever cingular puts on it..
any advice from the start? im really new to this whole rom thing so dont know what to do exactly..
ive read on here that overclocking boosts performance?

Im really impressed with mine, it works twice as good as i expected it to and thats with minimal hacks, its not even overclocked
im using the latest O2 ROM and i cant say i notice any slowdowns at all.
as i've said before, it performs so much better than my old XDA IIi and thats a 500Mhz WM2003 device!
i honnestly cant complain about it in anyway ... well 1 thing i spose, the stock headphones are horrible, but they work

Mediocre phone barely useable for business
I came from a kyocera 7135, treo 650 to this phone. I had two purchase 1 program and install 3 third party apps to get the functionality of the 7135 on the treo. As for the 8125 wizard this phone is a toy. I use my phone and pda functionality to the fullest and its just been extremely frustrating. DPAD navigation is a joke if it exists for the application. Phone integration with the PIM is worthless just try to copy a phone to the clipboard it only allows to save as new contact. MS made a big deal of respond to missed calls with an sms on the treo 700. Why exclude that feature on this version. Like everything they do nothing is consistent. My favorite flaw though is something that palm does very well. Hard reset the device and your screwed. Apparently not everything is backed up. You are required to reinstall many apps.
Performance the device has to be overclocked. Its performance isn't even acceptable out of the box.
To make the device usefull you need to overclock, install a few apps for menu navigation, a few progs for system maintenance, upgrade rom, make varios registry changes. If it this forum didn't exist I would have sold the phone bought another Treo.
The device or WM5 is good on two items. Wifi and web browser. Palm droped the ball on this big time although the newest version of blazer is supposed to be much better there is still no wifi.
MS needs to work on their PIM/Phone integration and the dpad for the device. the dpad hould navigate to all controlls and menus on the screen.
anyway just my gripes.
- Richard

I love my Vario. Everyone I show it to loves my Vario. That's even without google maps mobile, which I got working today.
Yes it is slow out of the box, I ran it for my first 2 months at default speed, I only setup overclock a few days ago, but now I have it overclocked 20% 24x7 and it's so much better.
I am totally happy with it. Of course I would love the faster CPU and UMTS and scrollwheel of the Wizard II, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

I am happy with the software side. Very happy. It is the first XDA that I can rely on for receiving phonecalls, which afterall is what its for. Hell, its the first one where caller display works properly.
An overclocked XD mini-s plays QVGA videos fine for me.
I bought it knowing it would need hacking, but yeah, were it not for these forums and me being a phone nerd I'd wanna take it back.
I am not happy with hardware. The gap between the botom of te screen and case is appauling. Stuff gets down there, then the touchscreen stops working and its an arse to get out. The stylus falls out and the black paint flakes off.
Also, it randomly fried my 2GB mini-SD card, something which I have never forgiven it for as I still have not managed to replace it. Using this device without a card is impossible. If you have more than 5 photos on it, it constantly comes up with low memory errors.

The main reasons for the dreadful performance are two.
first, the processor has very small data and instruction caches. second, wm5 has this great nifty trick where system calls from a user-space process gets intercepted by the os, run, and then the results go to the process. Or something like that.
Plus, a significant portion of the os and user interface must be .**** i mean .NET which makes it even slower.

I use the custom 2.17 rom available on this site and I'm quite happy with it. Granted, I don't use it's every available feature or play mp3s and video with it often, but I do now and then, either as files or streaming off the web, and it all works fine. I was overclocking for a while but found I didn't really need it and haven't used it since the 2nd or 3rd week I had it. It's definately slower than my old Blue Angel but WM5 is so much smoother in operation than 2003SE which makes up for it. Also, just like with a pc where the keyboard is faster and more convenient than a mouse, the keyboard is much faster and more convenient than the stylus and I avoid pulling out the stylus when at all possible.
I guess everyone's milage may vary but my experience has been a very good one.

Wizard Performance
I must begin by saying that I really love the Wizard after using the ROMs and hacks on this site.
My first Windows device was a n xv6600 with verizon's EVDO network. The xv6600 has a 400 mhz processor. It was very fast but had horrible battery life, poor reception, and had to be soft reset all the time.
When I first got the 8125 Wizard, I almost sent it back. it was slow and locked up often. Next, I tried the Qtek Test ROM which worked better and had A2DP. However, I was still resetting all the time.
Now I'm running Exelencin's 2.17 Custom ROM for TMO. It works very well. The unit performs all tasks just as fast or almost as fast as the xv6600 (Blue Angel) which I still have and use as a benchmark.
I'm hooking up to the Wifi at work and home between 900 and 1200 kbps. That's faster than the EVDO speeds on the Blue Angel. The Wizard streams video from the web very well on Wifi. I'm getting Edge connections through TMO in SLC from 60 to 95 kbps. Though the EVDO is supposedly 3 to 4 times faster, it sometimes takes just as long to download some pages.
I use a ton of BT devices, including but not limited to:
I-PHONO 450RX and MOTO BT820 stereo headsets; Jabra headsets, my HP laptop with BT, and my Audi A6. The Wizard works much better than the Blue Angel. The Wizard even transferred all my contacts directly into the Audi. The BT connections are clearer and work from a longer distance.
I use a variety of foreign language dictionaries, read my mormon scriptures on the wizard. These memory intensive programs actually run faster on the Wizard than the BA. I put all programs on the sd card except one's like voice command which must be in device memory to work well. I also keep all pictures etc. on the mini sd card. Voice command can also be activated with my jabra or moto stereo headsets.
All in all, the Wizard rocks with the right ROM and settings. The battery life is simply outstanding. I can go one to one and a half days without a recharge.
The only time I get the wizard running slow is when I have half a dozen programs running. I wish programs would close when closed. I'm tired of going in the memory settings and shutting down programs I've already closed.
All in all

I have an imate Kjam which I got in MArch this year. I have installed and removed TONS of software and only had to do one hard reset as a result of crap dictionary software. I only have a speed issue when opening large Word docs with tables in it. Otherwise I am a happy camper with my device. I will not use the overclock software as I believe you are looking for trouble.
I will never go back to a regular cellphone now.
I regularly use mortplayer, TCPMP with full feature movies, Media player and Real One Player, and I have NEVER had speed/memory issues.
Remember guys that this little sucker has a DUAL CORE processor!!! It handles graphics BETTER than other faster clock speed processors.
ENJOY!!!

Something else to keep in mind for those with issues with video playback is that the 1.0 version of TCPMP is basically built from the ground up. They are reporting a VERY large increase in speed all round.
Yes you may have to fork over some cash to get all the codecs but for a player like TCPMP I dont think that $20 or so is that big an ask.
Lastly - and something I think is overlooked often - The wizard is a pretty fair phone with good battery life. I bought the unit because it was reviewed as a useable phone, sure I wanted a PPC as well but the phone had to work and not die in 1hrs use.
If all I had wanted was a PPC I would have bought something else, but I hate single taskers and to me the wizard is a great multi-tasker.

Good and bad
After applying a bunch of the tricks available on this site, I am overall quite happy with the T-Mobile MDA, over the Treo 600. I also agree that this site is necessary, but treocentral's forum was necessary, too: every advanced device needs educated users to achieve full functionality.
The biggest nuisance to me is not the speed but the fact that it is not responsive for a long time, 20 seconds or even more, occasionally.
The second biggest nuisance is that I can't search my 700 contacts for a keyword and get an answer in a realistic amount of time. On the palm, that took a couple of seconds; here, even overclocked at 240, it takes 20 minutes. What is with that?
The third nuisance is caps/shift lock, which is mostly that I am used to the Palm method and partly that the palm method makes more sense (turn on sticky with a double press, turn off with a single press of the caps or shift key).
Better things about the MDA: multitasking. wifi. VOIP. Today screen with SPB weather and diary. Runni8ng programs from the mini-SD card. Sound quality (phone and music).

8125 Works Like A Champ
My Cingular 8125 Is absolutely Fantastic...
Previous History...
I had a Samsung x427m freebie Phone and a Used Hp1910 Pocket Pc Off ebay...(150bucks) Did everything I wanted at the time... Played movies encoded at 220bit just fine... Plus I'm Cheap... had games... NES Roms... Mobipocket.... mp3's Liked the 3.5 screen...Kept it for 3-4 years...
8125...MINE...lol
1gb minisd Card
Motorola h500 Bluetooth Handsfree
1 Delux Black aluminum Case...
Firest thing I did was Update the Rom...
Cingular_RUU_225111_BETA_Custom_A2DP_THMS_RNGRS.exe
I knew That I would need to do that Much before I started any Computer geek will tell you you to find the newest Firmware/Drivers...lol
added vjvolubilis.cab to use my motorola H500 Bluetooth Handsfree To listen to music...works good...
Did the Wifi Update so It would actually connect to my wifi... I like WIFI...lol
Kept Wisebar Advanced off... Decided that it Slows up stuff a little, and doesn't like landscape with the only theme I'd actually use...no big deal,
Installed Battery Pack Pro... A MUST HAVE... lets you setup custom little icons to quickly pick application or game to run.... and will let you endtask Without having Wisebar on there... also shows battery time left and memory...
Installed MS Voice Command...
Installed Sprite Backup Another MUST HAVE... Make a quick backup when everything you want is running perfect and everything is installed...
Mobipocket reader Pro.... BOOKS>>>>BEST PROGRAM EVER FOR THIS...
Full Screen, From TXT and other pda formats... Scrolls Best way to Read a book in the Known universe...
TCPMP --- VIDEOS --- Need I say More.... full lenght dvd is about 100mb an hour... at 248 bitrate
Age Of empires Gold ---- Works Good... Good Game.... Still Wishing for AOE2 on PPC
Pocket Tombraider... Works Good... Amazing....
OverClocking Utilities
I've Tested it with the defaults 200mhz 240mhz and 252mhz, seems stable with all haven't compared battery test with them yet
Cingular 8125... Finally SET ME FREE....lol
Music
I still need to Put Pocket Music Player on there... Don't care for Mediaplayer10 but media player 10 works ok...
Movies...
I encode movies from dvd using Lathe around 248 bitrate... Plays them Perfect... without needing to overclock over 200 don't know why anyone would want higher bitrate on such a small screen...
Games - Havn't tried NES yet, but SNES was still too slow...Oh well... I'm fine with Super Mario Brothers 3 --- I'm Still afraid to Remap the phone on and off buttons for games... don't want to miss a call...lol
Tested Battery at 200mhz... thats what I keep it at... looks like playing a movie 248 bit and music and movies, reading, with blutooth off, wifi off,
will give you somewhere about 6-7 hours... WOW... my old PPC only would go for 2h 35min... Oh... the Screen Brightness was at 50% which is what my old pda looks like at 100% and looks great... brightness could go Way higher but not Necessary (wow did I just say that)
Bluetooth... H500... number 2 Handsfree device Cost me 35 bucks including shipping on ebay... Works Very Well When Close to device... Like 7-10 feet...
I use a phone like almost never.... But using the BT to Voice Dial Numbers Is Great...
I was afraid to get this because of the suposedly slower 200mhz processor... what a joke... This is way faster than my old Pda clocked at 300mhz...
I'd say the only drawback is the 2.8 screen, but it seems no to make much difference...
Price... $400 bucks... I bought it New Off Ebay... Unlocked... payed about 50 bucks more than cingular sells it for but keeps me from their stupid 2 year contract... seems worth every penny...
a friend of mine returned hers after about 5 days because she didn't know any computer stuff... had lockup problems because she didn't update Rom... The usuall stuff...lol These arn't for the completely computer illiderate...(at least straight out of the box) But I'd be hard pressed to find a better Device...

I'm pretty happy with my 8125. It's zippy enough for me. I even have Wis Bar Advance 2 loaded along with a bunch of other today plug ins and it's fine at the factory 195mhz clock speed (Though I've recently up'd the clock speed to 228 just because I can, feels zippier w/menus and webpages). It's never frozen up on me, I use Explorer A LOT (3-4 hours a day minimum) for browsing email and webpages at work. I have my Motorola H700 BT headset with me at all times so bluetooth has been turned on since I've had the device. This is the best phone I've had so far. Kicks the **** out of my Treo 650. I was a hardcore Palm user (Owned many Clie's and a Treo 600+Treo 650) and it took me a lot of convincing to "try" the 8125 but now I'm just in love with it :wink:

Is it worthed buying Atom nowadays?

Hello,
I have an offer for buying O2 Atom for over 300$ which I thing is pretty cheap. But everywhere I look about this PocketPC I read mainly problems and crashes and ect.
So I want to know from you, owners of this device - is it worthed to buy this pocket or to stay with my current phone - the Nokia N80?
10x in advance

I actually chose an Atom Exec over an N80 and have not regretted it...havent had any problems in the couple of months ive had it

I've been using mine since August and have once had to soft-reset it. A very, very happy Atom Pure user here.
Note: I upgraded to the latest firmware which was incredibly easy and straight forward.

I got an Atom, original, for a really cut rate.
It's otherwise pretty good, but the default speakers leave MUCH to be desired. The music playing from them cracks up at high volumes. The only reason why I haven't gone back to O2 yet is that it has already gone back via its previous owner. Twice. And it still comes back with the same issue.
(the earphone quality, however, is fab.)
Then there's also battery life, but then again, my old O2 mini barely lasts a day and a half as well. I might be in the market for that Mugen Power after all...
Thing about smart devices is - they aren't just phones. They are computers. They act like computers, and even crash like computers. If you find that unacceptable, don't buy a smart device. Even the supposedly stable Symbian OS hangs a hell lot. >_>

Personally, I'd think twice about buying an Atom. But at around $300 you're probably not too bad off.
My only problem with the Atom is that I still don't think they've got the Radio stack right, especially with Bluetooth. And since they have already superceded the Atom with the Exec and the Stealth, I doubt whether they are going to concentrate on any updates to the Atom software/firmware.
I've recently handed my Atom over to my son and purchased an N80. I'm waiting for the N95 to come out but will give that another 9-12 months to stabilise. I want a phone. The Atom is a great PDA that is also a phone. The N80 and N95 are great phones that also have great PDA capabilities. I don't really need a computer in my pocket.

No please don't , the high pitch noise which comes out of it is a pain , voice quality sucks , even the camera is horrible , plus no keyboard , it;'s good for paperwieght though

atom vs jamin
i have been using jamin for about 1 year and recently changed to atom. Atom is pretty fast, sound, and camera much better than jamin, but difficult to configure for GPRS on PC, and at times resets when connected to GPRS on PPC. Display resolution of atom is better, but jamin has a wonderful bright display. Overall jamin is a very stable device, speed improves with overclocking, and if you use TCPMP or core player and do proper conversion of video files, e.g divX format, quality is very good, otherwise windows media player is very poor. Atom has another problem of heating in battery area when you use GPRS continuously for long time (e.g downloading files). Battery life of atom is not as bad as reported by some members.

$300 for an Atom is an excellent price. The Atom doesn't crash anymore than any other PC unless you are treating it bad -- generally people who complain about PPC problems don't know what they're doing and are damaging their phones' setups with bad practices.
My Atom Exec has never crashed on me from normal use, and I bought it second hand. To think someone else was screwing with it before me! I just did a hard reset and set it up the way I wanted it. The only times I had to soft reset was after experimenting with new software. Just backup your phone before that just in case.
The only real problem I had with my Exec was the battery life, which is really abyssmal. But removing the O2 Plus application and making sure "Receive All Incoming Beams" option is off helps a lot. I don't even lower my backlight; I hate doing that. But you'll still only get like 3 days tops for moderate usage, usually less.
Another issue I had was with the Exec overheating; using WiFi drains the battery and makes it really hot really fast. Using the camera also does this, as does any other CPU-intensive app.The bad thing about this is that it can cause problems if too hot; like your camera gets really screwed if the device is too hot. A reset followed by cooling it off fixes it though.

usmjan said:
i have been using jamin for about 1 year and recently changed to atom. Atom is pretty fast, sound, and camera much better than jamin, but difficult to configure for GPRS on PC, and at times resets when connected to GPRS on PPC. Display resolution of atom is better, but jamin has a wonderful bright display. Overall jamin is a very stable device, speed improves with overclocking, and if you use TCPMP or core player and do proper conversion of video files, e.g divX format, quality is very good, otherwise windows media player is very poor. Atom has another problem of heating in battery area when you use GPRS continuously for long time (e.g downloading files). Battery life of atom is not as bad as reported by some members.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know about the Atom but I thought the Atom Exec had better screen quality than the JAMIN. Also I thought both had the exact same resolution.
As for the N95, isn't it "what computers have become" LOL

It's good if you can live with its quirks
I've had mine for over a year now and I keep encountering these problems:
- it crashes often. A soft-reboot fixes it but it's annoying when i'm in the middle of a program. These could also be due to the programs i've loaded in it. Sometimes though it's the built in programs that freezes it, like the camera.
- battery life is pretty low- Less than a day. I have another 02, the XPhone II and the battery in that one lasts me 3 days.
- The hands free bluetooth headset isn't REALLY HANDS-FREE. Everytime I have to make a voice call, I have to hold down one of the buttons then announce a contact's name. Annoying really because it defeats the purpose of it being hands-free. The bluetooth works really well w/ my XPhoneII
- BIGGEST PROBLEM right now for me is that the battery drained to 0 and the unit shut down. Now I can't seem to charge the battery anymore?? The suggestion to charge the unit w/o the battery first then w/ the battery didn't work. So right now, I have a small brick in my hand and still awaiting help.

I've never had an issue with the built in camera crap crashing the phone, but then I don't use the camera often.
Often times crashing on PPC devices is due to the odd software loaded into it; my old PPC crashed a lot from Dinomite (a PopCap game ported by Astraware to PPC) and my current PC crashes from Monopoly.
Also running too many programs at the same time, especially the ones that do background processes, will cause it to crash. Taskbar managers like vBar and pBar are your friend.
The battery life is indeed abyssmal but it is just slighlyt below par with other PPC devices with this kind of processor. You can't compare it to the XPhone, which is only a smartphone. By the way, to improve your battery life uninstall that dreadful O2 Plus it drains your battery like crazy.
As for bluetooth handsfree I don't think there exists a trully "handsfree" solution anywhere yet. Every voice option needs you to at least press a button to activate it.
As for your phone dying now well sorry I don't know maybe it just up and gave up. Could be the new Quanta hardware isn't so durable.

Why do we need Athena if Universal Crossbow is already amazing!

Hey mackaby007,
How could you move from Universal Crossbow to Athena at the moment? I find that for a few days of using crossbow, it's exceptionally responsive, also it's a better and more stable ROM compared to WM5. I noticed right away the extra performance and fast synchronization, Better multiple SMS features, No Longer memory Leak problem(So I don't have to keep soft resetting), Reliable Installing/Uninstalling software, Elimination of occasional pauses problem.
Just the mean of justifying Athena purchase now.

jlingo said:
Hey mackaby007,
How could you move from Universal Crossbow to Athena at the moment? I find that for a few days of using crossbow, it's exceptionally responsive, also it's a better and more stable ROM compared to WM5. I noticed right away the extra performance and fast synchronization, Better multiple SMS features, No Longer memory Leak problem(So I don't have to keep soft resetting), Reliable Installing/Uninstalling software, Elimination of occasional pauses problem.
Just the mean of justifying Athena purchase now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree too WM6 on UNIVERSAL is really good, but there are things Universal can't do, but Athena could! e.g. GPS, extra Rom, Micro Drive, bigger screen.
Personally, i really thing the 5 inch screen is a plus, you can fit so much more info on one screen, i used to think Universal screen is big enough, but after using Athena for almost a month, Universal's screen look really quite small to me.
And also i think the design and built quality of Athena is better then Universal as well.

wu5262 said:
I agree too WM6 on UNIVERSAL is really good, but there are things Universal can't do, but Athena could! e.g. GPS, extra Rom, Micro Drive, bigger screen.
Personally, i really thing the 5 inch screen is a plus, you can fit so much more info on one screen, i used to think Universal screen is big enough, but after using Athena for almost a month, Universal's screen look really quite small to me.
And also i think the design and built quality of Athena is better then Universal as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Perfectly said Wu. Just to add to that.....WM6 is a great O/S, which makes the Universal great for a while longer.....but Athena blows it clean out of the water in every way!! Therefore Athena (best device IMHO) coupled with WM6.....= cutting edge mobile technology with the richest hardware feature....simply no competition IMHO.
It's like comparing the Wizard with the Hermes....same form factor...different device/technology alltogether.

wu5262 said:
I agree too WM6 on UNIVERSAL is really good, but there are things Universal can't do, but Athena could! e.g. GPS, extra Rom, Micro Drive, bigger screen.
Personally, i really thing the 5 inch screen is a plus, you can fit so much more info on one screen, i used to think Universal screen is big enough, but after using Athena for almost a month, Universal's screen look really quite small to me.
And also i think the design and built quality of Athena is better then Universal as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi Wu,
May I know how can you fit more information in one screen compared to Universal? Isn't Universal and Athena essentially the same resolution 640x480, therefore technically you see the same amount of information only bigger size?
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Thanks,

jlingo said:
Hi Wu,
May I know how can you fit more information in one screen compared to Universal? Isn't Universal and Athena essentially the same resolution 640x480, therefore technically you see the same amount of information only bigger size?
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Thanks,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes that is basically right, but don't forget because Athena has bigger screen, you can really change the font size to smallest and is still visible, (so small font in Athena = Medium font in Universal). This way you can fit more info on one screen, you can also change the icon and everything to smaller one.
For opera it's the same, browsing through internet is so much better now.

jlingo said:
Hi Wu,
May I know how can you fit more information in one screen compared to Universal? Isn't Universal and Athena essentially the same resolution 640x480, therefore technically you see the same amount of information only bigger size?
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Thanks,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The next of my concern would be the battery life. How much better is the battery life in Athena compared to Universal? Let say if you work on documents with lowest backlight on continuously in universal would last you for 5 hours but perhaps 8hours in Athena?
Thank you guys for the encouragement.

jlingo said:
The next of my concern would be the battery life. How much better is the battery life in Athena compared to Universal? Let say if you work on documents with lowest backlight on continuously in universal would last you for 5 hours but perhaps 8hours in Athena?
Thank you guys for the encouragement.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i would say Athena's battery is truly amazing, personally i think it's much better then Universal. I have not work on documents that much on my Athena, but for day to day normal usage (read news, make calls, send message, play games, GPS), with Bluetooth and 3G always on, with backlight set to highest, it can easily last for 1 day.
Stand by time is good too, i have my athena beside me when i go to bed (battery level is 70%) . Wake up in the morning and is still 70% !

I have virtually every device that HTC have made; So far the Athena (My one is a dopod U1000) is the best so far. It is by far the most usable that i have come across. The screen is Wow and best of all the phone is so dam stable. BT works across all profiles, all my software works, I am a heavy user of the phone both voice and data, I must admit as a very heavy user by the time i get home my battery is like around 40-50%, possibly also because all my apps are on the microdrive. (TomTom runs so fast installed on the MD that when i installed the Maps on the SD card the difference was unacceptable compared to the MD) TBH when i got my Universal it was a little disappointing (way too slow did not support HSDPA), and no soon as the TYtn was released i upgraded. The tytn is also a great phone but the screen size is too small compared to the Universal. The Athena Rocks! best HTC device I have had so far..

i agree with you faisal. I do a lot of remote oncall support for my office and my athena has now completey replaced my bulky laptop, allowing me to connect to my office whenever, wherever I am.
The athena offers a much better and user friendly screen size, although much bigger than the tytn, its size certainly outweighs the annoyance of having to scroll all the time.
To most people the athena is massive but after using it for a week i find myself liking it more and more, as I have said it has now more or less reduced my on call laptop to a brick in the corner gathering dust.

faisal.husain said:
I have virtually every device that HTC have made; So far the Athena (My one is a dopod U1000) is the best so far. It is by far the most usable that i have come across. The screen is Wow and best of all the phone is so dam stable. BT works across all profiles, all my software works, I am a heavy user of the phone both voice and data, I must admit as a very heavy user by the time i get home my battery is like around 40-50%, possibly also because all my apps are on the microdrive. (TomTom runs so fast installed on the MD that when i installed the Maps on the SD card the difference was unacceptable compared to the MD) TBH when i got my Universal it was a little disappointing (way too slow did not support HSDPA), and no soon as the TYtn was released i upgraded. The tytn is also a great phone but the screen size is too small compared to the Universal. The Athena Rocks! best HTC device I have had so far..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey faisal, nice to hear you enjoy your device so much, me too here ! just wonder when you say you install all app on Micro drive, do you come across any problem at all? any more battery drain? And also when you say TomTom on MD is much faster, how much faster is it? I have install mine on SD and it seems really fast as well. (e.g. Load up TomTom in 5 sec, GPS signal in 10 sec, route planning in 7 sec).
After all, will you suggest me to move all my app to MD?

wu5262 said:
Hey faisal, nice to hear you enjoy your device so much, me too here ! just wonder when you say you install all app on Micro drive, do you come across any problem at all? any more battery drain? And also when you say TomTom on MD is much faster, how much faster is it? I have install mine on SD and it seems really fast as well. (e.g. Load up TomTom in 5 sec, GPS signal in 10 sec, route planning in 7 sec).
After all, will you suggest me to move all my app to MD?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wu5262 (got it right this time.) I have not had any issues yet running software from MD, even spb shell, which should be installed on main memory works perfectly installed to MD. In regards to TT6, you will notice the difference when switch to browsing the map, play about with the zoom and pull the map up and down, you will notice it redraws much quicker when run from MD compared to SD. As virtually everything runs from MD there is more drain. Average usage (I use HSDPA a lot, do a lot of browsing with opera and use Sling box viewer an average of 2 hours a day so thats streaming TV via HSDPA, an average of around 10-15 txt and at least a total of 45min worth of calls (not all at once)) with 100% charge at the start of the day by the time I get back from work around 6.30 7.00 pm, my battery indicator is between 50-60%. I have not found it an issue yet where I get worried that i may not have enough charge to last till the end of the day. For back up I use WM5storrage to mount the drive and then run a Robocopy script which does differential copies, so I do a backup every day of my MD which takes on average less than 2 minutes every day.

faisal.husain said:
Wu5262 (got it right this time.) I have not had any issues yet running software from MD, even spb shell, which should be installed on main memory works perfectly installed to MD. In regards to TT6, you will notice the difference when switch to browsing the map, play about with the zoom and pull the map up and down, you will notice it redraws much quicker when run from MD compared to SD. As virtually everything runs from MD there is more drain. Average usage (I use HSDPA a lot, do a lot of browsing with opera and use Sling box viewer an average of 2 hours a day so thats streaming TV via HSDPA, an average of around 10-15 txt and at least a total of 45min worth of calls (not all at once)) with 100% charge at the start of the day by the time I get back from work around 6.30 7.00 pm, my battery indicator is between 50-60%. I have not found it an issue yet where I get worried that i may not have enough charge to last till the end of the day. For back up I use WM5storrage to mount the drive and then run a Robocopy script which does differential copies, so I do a backup every day of my MD which takes on average less than 2 minutes every day.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the info, i will keep that in mind, maybe next time when i upgrade i will install everything to MD.
One more question, do you have any issue with spb mobile shell? does your spb menu load up correctly? mine one don't load up straight away, i need to point here and there to get it to work. when it finally loads up, all my sound is gone.
I have heard other people having the same issue as well, might to do with landscape VGA. Anyway, i have disable the spb Menu to load up from startup folder and only use the mobile shell plugin.
Your one working with spb menu?

wu5262 said:
thanks for the info, i will keep that in mind, maybe next time when i upgrade i will install everything to MD.
One more question, do you have any issue with spb mobile shell? does your spb menu load up correctly? mine one don't load up straight away, i need to point here and there to get it to work. when it finally loads up, all my sound is gone.
I have heard other people having the same issue as well, might to do with landscape VGA. Anyway, i have disable the spb Menu to load up from startup folder and only use the mobile shell plugin.
Your one working with spb menu?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, got the same problem with spb menu.

I have the same problem with SPB shell, how do you disable the sob menu from the start up menu? which files do i delete?
thanks

faisal how do you install SPB mobile shell to the MD as when i install it it doessn't give me a choice where to install and only installs on the main memory.
thanks

bashi007 said:
faisal how do you install SPB mobile shell to the MD as when i install it it doessn't give me a choice where to install and only installs on the main memory.
thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm weird, I will test it again, but am certain it gives me a choice

bashi007 said:
I have the same problem with SPB shell, how do you disable the sob menu from the start up menu? which files do i delete?
thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
go to windows/startup and delete the spb menu there

Hi faisal, when you installed your Tomtom did you let it auto start from the SD card and then copy everything over to your MD or did you use Activesync to move all the setup files to your MD first?

Yes, I have to agree U1000 is so damn stable. It's probably the most stable and the most problem free out of many PDA's that I have used before. It's much more stable than Universal. And that's for sure. All my softwares are indeed working flawlessly. Bugs problems that I used to experience under Universal WM5 seemed to have already been ironed out completely. It's the most mature WM5, which is very impressive IMO.
At the moment, I'm reluctant to upgrade to WM6 in June unless they offer similar stability which I doubt it after knowing Microsoft for a long time.
Well I was having a lot of problems with Universal WM6 and Vista, Office 2007, WDMC. Synchronization problems, Slow Word processing problems, partnership problems, Contact notes disappearance and many others...
I'm so happy that I bought U1000 after so many considerations.
faisal.husain said:
I have virtually every device that HTC have made; So far the Athena (My one is a dopod U1000) is the best so far. It is by far the most usable that i have come across. The screen is Wow and best of all the phone is so dam stable. BT works across all profiles, all my software works,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Me too agree...just superb...

What is it with emulators?

I know that the Ameo throttles the CPU back (but I'm not happy with having PHM installed all the time, as I don't trust it to properly slow the machine down), but why do so many emulators fail on the Ameo?
Pocket Plus/4 is really, really choppy and unreliable.
Pocket Atari seems to work sometimes, but at other times I get speaker popping and no functional emulator.
Pocket C64 is just useless and doesn't support the keyboard, it seems; and setting up the controls seems to cause fuss for the sound, too.
This is supposed to be a fast machine, so I'm baffled by the apparent slowness when it does run an emulator. Pocket Plus/4 especially drops to 4% speed; I thought the CPU was supposed to catch up to the demand!

And tried with PHM anyway, still no better.
I just tried the exact same installation of Pocket Atari on the Universal with WM6 installed. It's working quite well; I'm currently playing Rescue on Fractalus (XEGS ROM).
Is it a memory management thing, or Microdrive, or something else?

RichardKAthena said:
And tried with PHM anyway, still no better.
I just tried the exact same installation of Pocket Atari on the Universal with WM6 installed. It's working quite well; I'm currently playing Rescue on Fractalus (XEGS ROM).
Is it a memory management thing, or Microdrive, or something else?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On the Universal you probably installed it to the SD? If so, have you tested it on the SD of the Athena? I also noticed a few slow downs on my Athena and I have a Universal also to compare to. I have to redo my Universal because it's running very slow so I can't compare at the moment. I have read on the forums that users have noticed a performance increase with some WM6 installs. This could be a factor but I also think that the SD card is faster than the microDrive. Try it on the SD if you already haven't and see how it goes.

ltxda said:
On the Universal you probably installed it to the SD? If so, have you tested it on the SD of the Athena? I also noticed a few slow downs on my Athena and I have a Universal also to compare to. I have to redo my Universal because it's running very slow so I can't compare at the moment. I have read on the forums that users have noticed a performance increase with some WM6 installs. This could be a factor but I also think that the SD card is faster than the microDrive. Try it on the SD if you already haven't and see how it goes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't have a miniSD, I tried it on internal memory (which I'd expect to be fast) with exactly the same results.
Broken Sword demo runs beautifully from Microdrive; maybe a bit of lag on audio. PocketAtari should be less reliant on the Microdrive than any large game.
I definitely think WM6 feels snappier (though my machine did get sluggish; perhaps the memory leak issue mentioned), but there are some WEIRD glitches going on here. One of the most telling things was when messaging popped up; directly before corrupting PocketAtari's screen with a notification, the messaging application's "activation" caused PocketAtari to run at full speed.
I think there must be some CPU "optimisation" going on within the WM5 build on the Ameo, and I don't think PHM actually cured it for me (I tried forcing the CPU fast for PocketAtari, and just forcing the CPU fast overall).

RichardKAthena said:
I don't have a miniSD, I tried it on internal memory (which I'd expect to be fast) with exactly the same results.
Broken Sword demo runs beautifully from Microdrive; maybe a bit of lag on audio. PocketAtari should be less reliant on the Microdrive than any large game.
I definitely think WM6 feels snappier (though my machine did get sluggish; perhaps the memory leak issue mentioned), but there are some WEIRD glitches going on here. One of the most telling things was when messaging popped up; directly before corrupting PocketAtari's screen with a notification, the messaging application's "activation" caused PocketAtari to run at full speed.
I think there must be some CPU "optimisation" going on within the WM5 build on the Ameo, and I don't think PHM actually cured it for me (I tried forcing the CPU fast for PocketAtari, and just forcing the CPU fast overall).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow, sounds like it's a CPU scaling issue indeed. Have you tried to disable the internal scaling using something like PHM? Not allowing it to manage the speeds but just disable the internal system and see what happens.

ltxda said:
Wow, sounds like it's a CPU scaling issue indeed. Have you tried to disable the internal scaling using something like PHM? Not allowing it to manage the speeds but just disable the internal system and see what happens.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, still choppy as anything. Thing is it appears that if I disable scaling and leave it at that (and don't let Scale Engine run), then it stays at 104MHz! But even running at 624MHz - surely plenty for a 1MHz 6502 machine to be emulated - it's running at 4% speed!