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NEW: The HTC Wizard Communicator

HTC Wizard: early photos and specs [ 02:00 ]
Source: http://www.pocketpcitalia.com/
The web site Pocket PC Italia has posted early photos and specs of HTC Wizard communicator, which is positioned to replace HTC Magician(the model known as T-Mobile MD Compact, I-Mate Jam or QTek S100 depending on the operator). The communicator is powered by Windows Mobile 5.0. Its QWERTY-keyboard is pulled out from one side in an unusual manner. Besides HTC Wizard has stereo speakers and a 2.1-megapixel camera with the flash. As this info appeared before the official release, the specs can still be changed.
The specs of HTC Wizard:
* GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
* EDGE
* Processor OMAP 850 by Texas Instruments
* Memory - 128 MB ROM, 64 MB RAM
* Screen – 2.8” TFT, QVGA
* Interface - Mini USB, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi 802.11b and IrDA
* Expansion slot for Mini SD cards

That'll be a shame if it only has a MiniSD hole. I'm sure the 4 & 8GB SD cards will start being available when the Wizard is released. You would have though 128MB too.
Oh well, fingers crossed

Here is the actual link -> http://www.pocketpcitalia.com/cms3/templates/PPC-NEWS.ASP?articleid=2222&zoneid=1

The Processoer seams nice:
http://focus.ti.com/general/docs/wt...00&path=templatedata/cm/product/data/omap_850
Hope it also uses the complete 802.11a/b/g Functions and not only b.
The chip has also USB-Host!
Both together with Windows Mobile 5.0 and 128MB Rom would be enough for me to switch from my MDA compact to this baby.
But would prefer it without keyboard...

Not sure about the processor - max speed of 200MHz puts me off.

The IPAQ 6340 has a similar Processor (OMAP1510) also with only 200MHz.
In the OMAP1510 is a ARM925 integrated
In the OMAP850 its a ARM926
Only found this benchmarks:
http://www.ppcreviews.net/news_8130.html
But the OMAP1510 runs only at 168MHz so [email protected] should be a bit faster
XScale MHz != OMAP MHz

XScale MHz != OMAP MHz
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ti seems to be pushing this mode of thinking, after all the processor has multiple cores dedicated to separate functions.
However in real life situations, OMAP MHz are exactly XScale MHz, look at the benchmarks. You won't be running FPSCE on OMAP any time soon. Just because it has separate cores for DSP doesn't mean that other devices do their radio DSP in software on the main processor, I can't think of one that does. The only special thing that the OMAP can do is parallel video/audio decoding, but then who runs something processor intensive at the same time as watching video? A 400MHz XScale makes a better job of it in S/W, and is not tied to specific codecs; plus many video chipsets/cores offer some form of video helper functions in hardware too (although it seems certain chipset manufacturers don't want developers to use the features )
The only advantage I can see for OMAP is the cost to manufacture, which of course isn't passed on to us consumers...

rough release date
How long do they usually take to release these things after the public find out about them?

Another link
Here's another link I found on the Italian website. This should also be the new HTC phone, but doesn't look exactly as the previous posted link?!? (By the way I don't speak Italian. So can't really understand anything else than HTC and the specs.) :?
http://www.pocketpcitalia.com/anteprima_htc_universal.asp
http://www.pocketpcitalia.com/cms3/templates/PPC-NEWS.ASP?articleid=2221&zoneid=1

thats because they arent the same phone...
The universal was announced a ickle while back

The bottom link is not the universal....That's a different version of this "wizard"

http://www.pocketpcitalia.com/cms3/templates/PPC-NEWS.ASP?articleid=2349&zoneid=1
Name in italy is Qtek 9000
commercialize in italy 20-30 december 2005 (20/12/2005)
T-mobile name is MDA Pro
price in italy is 900 Euro
Sorry for my bad english.
Byez

HTC Wizard - Real Photos
See: http://www.windowsmobile.no/modules...e=article&sid=443&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
or get a little bit of it in english at Engadget.com
:shock:

Re: HTC Wizard - Real Photos
aamp said:
See: http://www.windowsmobile.no/modules...e=article&sid=443&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And take a real good look at my fingers :lol:
Øystein

C'mon - where the transalation!
It's a real pitty Google doesn't have a Norwegian to English converter!
How about a few details Oystein. How does it compare with the Magician and have the buttons been moved to better locations (camera, recorded and 'other' (above the volume slider). I need to know!!!!!!!

C'mon - where the transalation!
It's a real pitty Google doesn't have a Norwegian to English converter!
How about a few details Oystein. How does it compare with the Magician and have the buttons been moved to better locations (camera, recorded and 'other' (above the volume slider). I need to know!!!!!!!

I've been walking around with one in my pocket for a few days, it feels kind of plastic, and the keyboard does not slide out in a nicely straight way, it can easily go crooked.
putting it in your pocket always gets it half slid out.
messing up the auto screen switch between landscape/portrait.
and it feels slow.
...
looked inside, it is actually just like the typhoon/sp3 smartphone, same rom layout, and same type of protections.
there is also a smartphone model coming out later this year, that is the same device, but as a smartphone. no touch screen, phone keyboard. 240x320 screen, with wifi.
that, for a smartphone is a really nice device.
willem

Once Again: Magician Or Wizard?

Hi There All!
Get back from a longer break, because my magician is in service.
My friend called me last day and offered a Wizard (T-mobile Vario) to me.
I have read that the Wizard has a slower processor, but it is a dual cored think or what....I heard it is like the processors in the laptop (ex.: centrino has 1.6 GHz but it is 2.x GHz.)
So all guys who have tried it, and magician too, please post the experiments.
I want to use it for/to:
- WiFi
- MP3 Playback
- Some video playback maybe
- Read E-books/ Adobe PDFs
- Play with some games (mainly high quality games such as Arvale, Everquest, Myst etc.)
- Take pictures/videos
So please post your opinions, about Wizard, and tells me which one of this will be slower, on Wizard.
Thanks, and Cheers

OK, so it's not dual core, hell no.
Well, OK, it is. But one core is for the radio stuff, and is not used in application processing.
It is a different /type/ of processor though, so it's not really fair to compare it to the X-scale in the magician (I think it's from Texas Instruments?). I hear it is a mite slower though, so I don't know.
Also: it has Windows Mobile 5, so you can get your A2DP on from any app, not just WMP.
Me, I'd go for it in a shot. Hell, if Orange UK did one I'd have one already, those odd kids.

bobgorila said:
OK, so it's not dual core, hell no.
Well, OK, it is. But one core is for the radio stuff, and is not used in application processing.
It is a different /type/ of processor though, so it's not really fair to compare it to the X-scale in the magician (I think it's from Texas Instruments?). I hear it is a mite slower though, so I don't know.
Also: it has Windows Mobile 5, so you can get your A2DP on from any app, not just WMP.
Me, I'd go for it in a shot. Hell, if Orange UK did one I'd have one already, those odd kids.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So you say OMAP is slower for multimedia (MP3, Video). And for the other ones?

Nope, I didn't. Though the wiki article on the Wizard certainly seems to suggest that.
I'd be interested to know how it fares with the sorts of files I view, and now that TCPMP is at 0.72 (the test were done with 0.50).
Certainly the implication is that it is not so hot for multi-tasking, which is a shame. My Magician seems to carry on almost as normal while I play music of various bitrates and codecs, if the Wizard did not then it would be a big minus.
Also: the Hermes has a 300Mhz Samsung chip, I wonder how it stacks up against these two? That thing certainly is looking like a dream phone right now.

The Omap 850 definately is slower than the XScale in the Magician. This is what many people state and what Benchmarks prove. Also the slow flash memory and WM5 makes a big difference. Don't expect the speed of a Magician with any of the HTC WM5 devices.
The Samsung CPU in the Hermes has about the performance as the XScale of the Magician.

Magician VS. Charmer - Processor

Hi Folks,
I need a new smartphone and I love the HTC devices.
I've been reading a lot of data charts lately and I'm really confused.
WHY IN THE WORLD did they cut magicians processor power in halfs when they built his successor charmer??
Magician has an Intel XScale Prozessor Bulverde with 416 MHz. That's about the power I'm looking for. But they downgraded Charmer to a Texas Instruments OMAP 850 Prozessor with ridiculously 206 MHz.
My old beloved Wallaby has almost more power!
Can anybody explain this decision?
I didn't find any benchmark tests of charmer on the internet. Magician's benchmarks are awesome for his size and high enough to play pocket quake or watch unconverted videos, but it seems nowbody is testing Charmer.
Any people here with a Charmer who want to run SPB benchmark (http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/products/benchmark/?en) for me and post the results? or just tell me how many fps unvonverted .avi movies give you.
THX!

Hey. The charmer has about 1000 SPB benchmark points, the Magician around 1600. That's a fact, also for the Wizard and the Prophet. A good alternative could be the Hermes which comes out soon and has the Samsung 400 MHz CPU.

There are Magician benchmark, which is approx 1,200 (I've got that from http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=54370&highlight=). ). As for the Charmer, it is way way way lower than that. See the chart
here
http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?p=313810#313810
The only thing Charmer is good at seems to be the graphics. But there is a benchmark on charmer regarding video playback, which is still not as good as the Magician, which I suspect because of the low bandwidth of the Charmer's file I/O.
Take a look here as well
http://www.modaco.com/Benchmark_results_of_MDA_Compact_II-t234674.html

Any idea why they sacrificed so much power?
the data charts don't really say something about great improvement in batery life due to the slower CPU, which appears to be the only logical reason to downgrade a CPU in a PDA.
why did they do that? the charmer seemed so promising perfect with WM 5, long batery life and small size....
is WM 5.0 less power hungery?

Most state that WM5 is slower. I suppose this is mainly due to the new memory layout of WM5.
Why did they include a slower CPU into the Charmer? Maybe due to the cheaper price and HTCs stupid management? If you want a faster WM5 device with phone edition, then look for the Eten M600 (very good benchmark results) or wait for the HTC Hermes which is soon to come and presumably will have better benchmark results as well.
The charmer is a rediculous device as the successor of the Magician.

Most state that WM5 is slower. I suppose this is mainly due to the new memory layout for WM5.
Why did they include a slower CPU into the Charmer? Maybe due to the cheaper price and a stupid management? If you want a faster WM5 device with phone edition, then look for the Eten M600 (very good benchmark results) or wait for the HTC Hermes which is soon to come and presumably will have better benchmark results as well.

Another probable reason for the lack in speed in Charmer probably due to the persistant flash memory (doesn't need battery to keep the data) which is usually slower than the non-persistant ones. Think of it as having SD as storage for the Charmer. Someone ought to do a test on Wizard and compare Charmer against Wizard.

I think they reduce the processor speed in order to increase the battery life... because most of the times, fast processor consumes battery life as well. we can see from iPAQ h6365 where it uses 168MHz processor. battery life was very good (apart from its 1800Mah battery, of course)

geoffrey23 said:
I think they reduce the processor speed in order to increase the battery life... because most of the times, fast processor consumes battery life as well. we can see from iPAQ h6365 where it uses 168MHz processor. battery life was very good (apart from its 1800Mah battery, of course)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
exactly
the charmer and the prophet are designed as fones with ppc capabilities.
ppc battery life is a day or less, the charmer et al several days.
all depends on what you want the device for really, sometimes the lack of speed frustrates me, but the ability to go days between charges doesnt

Any one knwos the battery life of the Magician? My Charmer last only like 3-4 days with average 1/2 hours of talk and some basic usage, 24 hours phone on - standby

MY MAGICIAN (o2 XDAII mini) can only last for maximum 2 days...
And it 's very unstable when battery is getting low ...
Thoughts: Slower CPU and higher capacity battery seems to be the only solution to extend the battery life.... I rather charge every day and have a faster device

Dandie said:
If you want a faster WM5 device with phone edition, then look for the Eten M600 (very good benchmark results) or wait for the HTC Hermes which is soon to come and presumably will have better benchmark results as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the tip with the eten m600. looks really nice.
do you know any company who sells them with contracts in germany? I have problems finding carriers outside england on google or ebay.
I guess hermes will take another month (or two).

moeph said:
thanks for the tip with the eten m600. looks really nice.
do you know any company who sells them with contracts in germany? I have problems finding carriers outside england on google or ebay.
I guess hermes will take another month (or two).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can get it for example here

Lets wait for the HTC Trinity
http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/01/htc-trinity-revealed/

Always waiting - I'm sick of it 8)
The Hermes has everything besides GPS that the Trinity will have. It doesn't feature normal SD cards as well, that may have been a reason for me to wait. Integrated GPS is useless in my opinion. The integrated reveivers have bad connection quality and all maps that you can get for navigation software are only working well for car navigation - my car has enough space for a Bluetooth GPS mouse. No need to wait if you ask me.

OK, but HTC Hermes is not HTC Magician form factor. It has a keyboard and is much heavier and thicker. It compares to the HTC Wizard.
The HTC Prophet I will skip, it is the same form factor as Magician, but has a slow CPU and no UMTS/HSDPA.
And to bring you up to date: in those new devices is an "A-GPS" which means "assisted GPS". This means, GPS data is supported by localization data from the mobile network. That results in a much quicker first satellite fix and equals out some disadvantages of these small GPS chips. However, if your mobile network provider does not support A-GPS, you have a weaker GPS reception than with state of the art GPS mouses.

esackbauer said:
OK, but HTC Hermes is not HTC Magician form factor. It has a keyboard and is much heavier and thicker. It compares to the HTC Wizard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mh, ok. I will see how much the difference is in my pocket. I think it weighs 30 grams more than the Magician and is about 5 mm thicker. I think I can live with that, especially because I'd like to have a keyboard and I don't want to wait anymore
esackbauer said:
And to bring you up to date: in those new devices is an "A-GPS" which means "assisted GPS". This means, GPS data is supported by localization data from the mobile network. That results in a much quicker first satellite fix and equals out some disadvantages of these small GPS chips. However, if your mobile network provider does not support A-GPS, you have a weaker GPS reception than with state of the art GPS mouses.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, you're right, assuming your provider supports A-GPS (additional costs?). But still there is the point with the standard navigation software which just isn't suited for navigation by foot or by bike. For the car, I can use a GPS mouse without any disadvantage (I already have one anyway). Personally, I don't see a good reason to wait for the Trinity.

omap 850 isn't slow!!! intel xscale is only 416 Mhz arm9 core while omap is an 195 mhz arm9 combined vith 67,5Mhz arm7 mcu(mcu speeds up the main core cause it controles ram instead of main core) so 195 mhz omap is aprox. or more 312 mhz of xscale, it also has 100 MHZ integer and floating point core and 2d accelator.....

So you say charmer is actually faster than magician? I'm having a dilema between these two, don't know which to buy? But would prefer faster...

of course no.

screen resolution for the Hermes

Is the Cingular 8525 a Hermes?
What is the screen resolution for this device? Is it considered VGA or qVGA.
I would like to know if it is worth the upgrade coming from a Wizard 8125.
Thanks
Love this site BTW

It is 240 x 320, QVGA.
Only 1 advantage point over 8125: 3G ability. Otherwise, there are mess: IR at the bottom(?!), USB charge/audio out combination.

HI
I add to Nghiem message, Hermes processor is 400 MHz and 2.0 MP camera and 8125 is 195 MHz processor and 1.3 MP camera. The speed difference is very important, I was a MDA user

You forgot to mention the camera's macro mode and also not to mention the ATi/AMD imageon chip...but does the chip actually get used properly?

daddy_yankee1980 the Cingular 8525 is a Hermes just relabelled and modified by Cingular (no front facing camera etc) but it is in the Hermes family.

there's another thread in xda about the 8525 having the housing and ribbon connection for the front camera, wish they had kept it. wth were they thinking. along with everything else, the 8525 also has ptt ability, and it's looks way BETTER.

Thanks for all the great info.
Now my next question is, is it a big step up from a 8125. Even with 2MP does it take very good pictures. I know the 400mhz proccessor will make things fly by. But I never know it came with some kind of ATI raedon chip. Is that their line of mobile integrated graphics just like Nvidia is working on. Do you actually see any benefits to this.

daddy_yankee1980 said:
Thanks for all the great info.
Now my next question is, is it a big step up from a 8125. Even with 2MP does it take very good pictures. I know the 400mhz proccessor will make things fly by. But I never know it came with some kind of ATI raedon chip. Is that their line of mobile integrated graphics just like Nvidia is working on. Do you actually see any benefits to this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't be deceived by the 400 MHz spec. The 8525 uses a different processor than the 8125 (Samsung 2442A instead of the TI OMAP) -- kinda like comparing an Intel Pentium to an IBM PowerPC. It is faster, but only marginally so. I used to be a Wizard owner before I got the Hermes, much prefer the Hermes even though it took a little getting used to.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the Hermes uses a microSD card, not the miniSD card that the Wizard does.
John

Here's a side-by-side comparison (pdadb.net) of Cingular 8125 and 8525.

johnburn said:
Don't be deceived by the 400 MHz spec. The 8525 uses a different processor than the 8125 (Samsung 2442A instead of the TI OMAP) -- kinda like comparing an Intel Pentium to an IBM PowerPC. It is faster, but only marginally so. I used to be a Wizard owner before I got the Hermes, much prefer the Hermes even though it took a little getting used to.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the Hermes uses a microSD card, not the miniSD card that the Wizard does.
John
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Damn, microSD. i heard about that form factor a while back. Is that what the Hermes uses. That means I gotta invest in another memory card. That kind of sucks in a way. Kinda of hesitating a little bit more. Do you know if there are any new devices that are going to be release that are , I guess revolutionary. I just dont like upgrading every year if I dont have to

If you don't mind waiting a bit and spending the money on a new product you can always wait for the HTC Kaiser http://pdadb.net/index.php?m=pdacomparer
daddy_yankee1980 said:
Is the Cingular 8525 a Hermes?
What is the screen resolution for this device? Is it considered VGA or qVGA.
I would like to know if it is worth the upgrade coming from a Wizard 8125.
Thanks
Love this site BTW
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Why niki is slow?

Why niki is slow?? This is my question... I have an older qtek 2020 and it's very faster than niki... why??

video drivers... install a rom with the s600 driver already on it, trust me, its wayyyy faster.
I recomend Mary v.02.

Yes I installed but it's not faster than a lot of other device uff.. It is very slow.,..

I can only compare it to my S110, its a little faster in certain things, but slower in games and emulation, not that much slower... just enought to be noticed.

yesterday I saw an iphone and it's very faster,..

Billokko said:
yesterday I saw an iphone and it's very faster,..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Diferent hardware and OS, you really cant compare...

Iphone's cpu is almost twice as fast as the dual's one
And it has proper hardware accaleration;p

ok but in comparison to others devices niki is very slow...

In that we agree... My S100 from 2003 is much faster than this, but because it was that old it had a lot of other problems, the battery was starting to fail, a side button was broken and couldnt be easily fixed, some newer programs werent wm2003 compatible, etc...
Its sad that most new phones are so below the old ones, and the few that are better are unreasonably expensive.
I can still buy a brand new S110 for about 100/150€ with 416mhz, 128 of ram and 128 of rom, and thanks to wm2003 i can have a wooping free ram of 90mb (depending if its the s100 or s110) and the video card works fine, so everything is smooth.
The design, sound and camera of the dual are obviously superior, plus it can have 3g internet, but it costs 4 times more than the S110.
Just sad...

soulcrusher said:
Iphone's cpu is almost twice as fast as the dual's one
And it has proper hardware accaleration;p
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Almost twice as fast, you mean 600mHz versus 400mHz ....
The Niki has proper hardware acceleration, its just the muppets at HTC that haven't bothered to use it in any way, shape or form.

Tought iphone was about 750 mhz
Anyways, a Niki doesnt have drivers wich we all know, but compare ANY wm5 or wm6 mobile to a wm2003 or even older(!) device, and the older one outperforms the newer one. WM2003 devices use sdram, and newer ones mostly flash memory, wich is way slower (because a wm2003 device couldnt be turned of because of the ram memory that loses it's storage). So every program that writes or reads often from the memory is considerable slower on wm6 than on wm2003. But if you compare a wizard to a nike, the nike's way faster because of it's cpu.