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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
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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
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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

Qtek S200 - sweden

9100 is great, little big to carry around, but nice with w-lan and everything else. WM2005, didn´t like it in the beginning but now after 1 week I like it.. as all the other windows-based things u can do whatever u want
But now it´s confirmed, S200 is coming to sweden in the beginning of 2006. The size is like s100, s110 unbeatable......
http://babelfish.altavista.com/babe...obile-review.com/pda/review/htc-prophet.shtml

The problem with S200 is that it uses the same SLOW processor like K-JAM and it only drops the keyboard, adds WiFi 801.1g and a decent 2 MPixel camera. BUT IT IS SLOW! I will go for ETEN M600 with the 400MHz samsung processor instead of the awful 200MHz TI OMAP that S200 will have!

unless i am mistaken, there is no flash on the s200?

I think the point of the slower processor is to improve the functionality of the phone features ie talk time, mp3 time, etc. From other posts and reviews that I've read it doesnt seem to be a huge issue except for real power users. The biggest difference i see between the prophet and wizard is the keyboard and 2mp camera.
In mid 2006 there will be the hermes, a 3g version of the wizard with a 400mhz processor, perhaps worth waiting for!

Mogwai said:
I think the point of the slower processor is to improve the functionality of the phone features ie talk time, mp3 time, etc. From other posts and reviews that I've read it doesnt seem to be a huge issue except for real power users. The biggest difference i see between the prophet and wizard is the keyboard and 2mp camera.
In mid 2006 there will be the hermes, a 3g version of the wizard with a 400mhz processor, perhaps worth waiting for!
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I'll be waiting for the next incarnation of the jam with a faster processor and 3g for Skype. Alternatively the O2 Atom is going to be released in Dec. with 400mhz processor, WiFi, edge, 2 mp camera, front firing stereo speakers and it is smaller than the jam. I think if I didn't already have the Jam I'd be getting the Atom...maybe I will get it anyway

magician to wizard? Good idea?!!

hello, I've got a magician but I would like to change it for the wizard because of his sliding keybaord and wifi and wm5 and his design but...the processor between those models are different : Intel 416 Mhz for the magician and Oti Omap 200 Mhz for the wizard...Is it an important quality for the app for example? Thanks very much

orfe said:
hello, I've got a magician but I would like to change it for the wizard because of his sliding keybaord and wifi and wm5 and his design but...the processor between those models are different : Intel 416 Mhz for the magician and Oti Omap 200 Mhz for the wizard...Is it an important quality for the app for example? Thanks very much
Click to expand...
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The OMAP processor is dual core so for day to day tasks you will not notice the difference as each processor core takes up the work. On a single processor intesive task, say, watching video, then you will notice the slow down.

Or VOIP or navigation or video or ... or ... - the list is endless where OMAP not only is slower but feels a lot slower too. I tested the new wizard of my boss and my god does my magician fly compared to the wizards speed. What good is dual core if the software is not optimized.

Private-Cowboy said:
What good is dual core if the software is not optimized.
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I agree. I'm quite puzzled as to why HTC went down this route. :?

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)
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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.
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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...
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
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Click to collapse