The year of 2008 has already gone. This was the year that once brought happiness to the users of Windows Mobile in which many manufacturers launched their unprecedented flagship products with advanced configurations. This was also a year that brought embarrassment to Microsofts Windows Mobile. Here our Mobile Phone Blog provied you the ultimate evaluation of 17 Windows Mobile Smartphones in 2008. Evaluation models, standards and involved software: HTC 3470 HTC TOUCH CRUISE HTC P5500 HTC Touch Viva HTC Touch HTC Touch Diamond HTC Touch Pro HTC Touch HD HTC Advantage X7510 LG KS20 O2 MWG Zinc II O2 MWG Atom V Palm Treo Pro Samsung i720 Samsung i780 Samsung i900 Omnia Sony Ericsson X1 Appearance workmanship (10 points); User interface (20 points ); Hardware configuration (20 points ); Performance test (10 points); Auxiliary functions (15 points); Connection function (10 points); Stand-by time (15 points). Pocket PC test software Spb Benchmark (version number 1.6.0, build 62 ) 1. Appearance and Workmanship - 10 points Of the "appearance and workmanship" items, the five editors all sang high praise of Sony Ericssons first Windows Mobile Smartphone - the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1, ranked first with 9.6 points, followed by Touch HD and HTC Touch Diaond. 2. User interface (20 points) The score of "user interface" has two parts: the operating system that the product adopts (WM6.0 or WM6.1) which takes up 8 points and the user interface added by the manufactures which takes up the other 12 points. Finally, Touch HD and Sony Ericsson X1 ranked first in this test item, as 20 points. 3. Hardware configuration - 20 points When marking for the hardware configuration, we separated the total 20 points into different small points according to the different importance of each part: 2 points for RAM, 1 point for GPS, 1 point for EXTRA FALSH MEMORY, 1 point for GRAVITY SENSOR, 2 point for CAMERA, 3 points for screen, 4 points for CPU, 1 points for practical RAM space, 1 point for GPS chip, 1 point for extra memory, 1 point for gravity sensor, 2 point for camera. In the end, HTC Touch HD got the first place with 17.5 points. 4. Performance test (10 points) According to their importance to users, we gave the "SPB" and "CPU" items 3 points and 4 points and the less important "File system" and "Graphics function" item 2 points and 1 point respectively. In this test, we have already amended the influence of test results to scores because performance test has not too much practical significance to our net friends, and some products with good user experience, such as Touch Diamond which possesses high-resolution screen, may be in an unfavorable situation in the graphics system test.Finally, O2 Mwg Atom V ranked first as 9 points with four Windows Mobile Smartphones from Samsung following it. 5. Auxiliary functions (15 points) This item mainly aims at testing the pre-positioned third-party software that is not automatically included in system. The HTC Touch Diamond and Samsung Omnia i900 all possessed various built-in applications, but the alarm clock, digital photo frame and Opera browser of Samsung i900 Omnia were very practical. We gave it one more point. Therefore, Samsung i900 Omnia won the first place in this auxiliary function test with 11 points. 6. Connection function (10 points) We set the following evaluation standard in accordance with the degree of importancedata line interface (3 points ), memory card type (2 points ), hot swap(0.5 point), Wi-Fi(2 points), earphone interface (2 points ), TV-OUT (0.5 points). Finally, HTC Touch HD, Palm Treo Pro and Sony Ericsson X1 which adopted miniUSB data interface and 3.5mm earphone jack and in favor of microSD hot swap and Wi-Fi ranked first with 9.5 points. Coincidentally, these 3 mobile phones are all the OEM products of HTC. 7. Stand-by Duration - 15 points We worked out the score of battery capacity according to the ratio of battery capacity of each smartphone to the average 1330 MAH and used this score as the substitute for the score of stand-by time. In this way, we fully and objectively demonstrated the stand-by function of a Windows Mobile Smartphone. According to the principles of statistics, HTC Advantage X7510 that possessed 2200 MAH battery and 5 inches big screen was ruled out from the 17 smart phones. As for the other types, we got the scores through dividing their battery capacity by 1305.83 and timing 10. In this test item, O2 Mwg Zinc II which possessed 1540 MAH lithium ion battery ranked first. Total score ranking: For the first time,there are so many Windows Mobile Smartphones competing with each other in one arena. The true hero could be seen at one glance when fighting with gloves off.Finally it comes the judgement time, and the top five winners are: Sony Ericssons first Windows Mobile Smartphone XPERIA X1 - Samsungs yearly flagship smart phone i900 Omnia and Samsung QWERTY full keyboard business mobile phonei780, HTCs slide cover phone Touch HD Diamond and yearly flagship product Touch HD. Outlook for this industry in 2009: 1. Further increase in the numbers of the end products: In 2009, there will be a further increase in the numbers of Windows Mobile Smartphone (including every grade and network mode). 2. Continuous progress in the hardware configuration At the hardware configuration aspect the basic frequency of CPU will be further improved; ASUS P565 adopted Marvell 800MHz CPU at the end of 2008. Qualcomm put forward its solution for 1GHz CPU long ago. HTC is very likely to release its flagship product with this platform in 2009. As to memory, there have been products with 16GB memory space. There should be products with 32GB that can compete with Nokia N97 in 2009. For RAM, there should have 288MB upgrade space. As for screen, I think WVGA (800480 pixels) has already been in high level for the Windows mobile phones. It will not be upgraded too much in 2009. There might appear AMOLED (Nokia N85) in the screen material. 3. Competition pressure will keep growing In 2009, the numbers of the products with Google Android will surely increase. Apple is very likely to release and market its next generation of products with iPhone. At the same time, Symbian, an inseparable part of Nokia, may become open source. They are all the close rivals of Windows mobile smartphone. In 2009, Windows mobile will experience more pressure and impact than those in 2008. 4. The launch time of Windows Mobile 7 will still be postponed In 2009, Windows Mobile 6.5 should come to the market. However, the upgrade will not be too obvious just like the version number from Windows Mobile 6.1 to 6.5. As for the legendary Windows Mobile 7, we estimated the launch time would be postponed to 2009 or even later. It seems that the loyal fans of Windows Mobile have to keep waiting patiently.
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About the Author:
Jerry Smith, the editor of http://www.mobilephoneonly.co.uk. An expert on mobile phone and an observer of UK telecommunication market. He writes reviews on latest mobile phones, and also suggests promotional deals and special offers from mobile phone retailers in UK.
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