No don't worry, its not a report on the latest JJ Abrahams re-make, but more a way to breath new life into an old device.

I have an old HTC StrTrk flip Windows Mobile phone laying around here, which, in its day was a pretty good device, in fact even now it still stands up against the competition. It may not have 3g and only have a 1.3 mp camera but it compares well to things like the Centro or Treo 500 and the HTC620/720 and is probably the smallest WM phone out there. The really outstanding feature is the price, Sim free from expansys at £60 in its iMate guise, and even at £99 for the HTC version, its a bargain.

Yes it only comes with WM5 but thats where the clever bit comes in. Those wonderful people over at XDA Developers have managed to create a ROM of Windows Mobil 6 that runs perfectly on the StrTrk, the re- flashing instructions are simple to follow, and within 15 minutes you can have virtually a new device. In fact, there is a version of WM6.1 complete with the latest flashy homescreen and Office mobile apps. This is the version I installed, and so far everything works perfectly. I now have a super slim upto date revitalised phone that before was sitting idle on my desk. Cool.

As a way of getting your hands on a WM6.1 device to play with, this can't be beaten, and don't worry about re-flashing the ROM, the download file tells you everything you need to know and it really is simple.

Thanks to Steve Litchfield for pointing this out in the latest Smartphone Show...... David

The HP iPAQ 614c is the latest smartphone release from HP, and it is one that takes the Windows Mobile market in a few new directions without really aiming for one in particular. The specifications are impressive-

Windows Mobile 6 Professional
Marvell PXA270 Processor 520 MHz
UMTS (3G)/HSDPA connection
Single-handed use with smart touch wheel
MicroSD Slot
3 Megapixel, autofocus, 4X digital zoom
Image file formats: GIF, JPEG, BMP, PNG
128 MB SDRAM
256 MB flash ROM
Integrated Quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, Tri Band HSPDA
Integrated WiFi – 802.11 b/g with WPA2 security
Integrated Bluetooth v2.0 with EDR
Integrated GPS navigation ( Assisted GPS)
HP Exclusive Applications –
HP iPAQ Data Connect; HP VoiceReply; HP Voice Commander7; HP iPAQ Device Connect; MMS Composer, Bluetooth
Manager, Certificate Enroller, HP Photosmart Mobile, iPAQ Wireless Manager, Pocket Panel Lite, HP Help and Support, HPQuickStart Tour, HP Enterprise Mobility Agent.
Weight (with battery)–  145g (5.1 oz)
Dimensions– 117 x 60.3 x 17.5mm (4.6 x 2.37 x 0.69 in)
Price- £364.25 (minus £50 cashback if purchased during March 2008)

There is little more you can add to a smartphone, and the specs easily rival the likes of the TyTN II and all of the other top end smartphones available today. On top of the above, there is a 1590mAh battery and a decent range of bundled software not seen on many other Windows Mobile devices. Let’s start off by looking at the hardware and design-

Design & Practicality

In the marketing images the 614c looks quite small, but the footprint is actually larger than the TyTN II. It is, however, thinner and much lighter so it is a difficult choice deciding which one wins in the design stakes. The 614c looks and feels more like a phone, which is a bonus, and the screen is identical to the TyTN’s at 2.8 inches and QVGA. The TyTN II is a good smartphone to compare the 614c to because their specifications are very similar, yet there is close to £100 difference in price.

First impressions are of a corporate looking phone that makes no attempt to stand out in any given situation. The outer covering is dark grey and slightly soft to the touch and around the edges is a ring of matt silver, which adds to a slightly plastic feel in the construction. It does feel well built, but the materials used almost seem to want to tell a different story.

The keyboard is a standard 1-0 affair, but with an impressive variety of shortcut keys which make this one of the most one-handed Windows Mobile smartphones I have seen. You get call start/end buttons, power on/off, return, c, OK, Windows and a screen switch (portrait / landscape key) which works extremely well. The navigational touches do not end there though because there is a JOG dial on the left hand side and the unique smart touch wheel. The smart touch wheel is indeed a strange little addition which initially seems to just move the screen selection up and down, but you can zoom in and out of maps as well. It is an unusual addition, but not one that I personally can see much benefit with- give me more time to play with it though.

The screen is of course also navigated with the included stylus, and it is one of the better made telescopic models I have seen to date. However, it is housed in the bottom left hand corner of the 614c, which is the worst possible place for a right handed person to remove it from. It’s not a deal breaker, but a strange design decision to say the least.

HP has also taken one of the iconic features of the Palm Treo, and now includes a mute button on the top edge. This may seem like a small addition, but is actually one that will save you lots of time when you need to mute your phone quickly. Hopefully this feature will start to arrive in many other smartphone in the near future.

Rounding off the exterior buttons are a camera key on the right side, voice record and OK keys flanking the left sided JOG dial and a soft reset button at the bottom. The 614c is synchronised and powered via miniUSB, which is fast becoming standard in most smartphones, and there is also a lanyard slot for those strange people that attach a lanyard to a smartphone...

The SIM and microSD slots are under the battery (grrrrrrr!) which is slightly painful for people who swap SD cards frequently, so best to invest in a big one which the 614c will be compatible with.

In the next instalment I will look at the general performance of the 614c, but first impressions are of a phone that speeds along very nicely and the battery life is extremely impressive straight from the first charge. So, it’s not small but it’s got a big heart and this does lead me to wonder why HP did not choose to include a QWERTY keyboard. There is easily enough space for a half decent full keyboard below the screen, but I suspect that honour has been reserved for the upcoming 914c.

Available from Clove for £364.25 (minus £50 rebate)

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Gavin has sent in details of the LionKing800 smartphone, which seems to have impossible battery specifications. Not sure how they can get so much power in small battery like that...

Network  GSM900 / DCS1800
SIZE ( L × W × H )  120*65*20 mm
BATTERY  Lithium Batteries 16800mA 
color silver
STANDBY TIME  About 365 days
TALKING TIME  About 3-5 days

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Asustek Computer (2357.TW), the world's top maker of computer motherboards, said nearly two-thirds of its Eee PCs shipped this year will be Windows-based as consumers embrace the company's low-cost laptop models.
 
The Taiwan company's branded business last year launched a 7-inch child-friendly Linux-based personal computer priced as low as $200, and new models with Microsoft's (MSFT.O) Windows XP will be priced around $390 to $400.

"About 60 percent of them (Eee PCs) will have Windows XP operating system," Asustek Chairman Jonney Shih said at a news conference.

The Eee PC has won Asustek much recognition worldwide and Shih said his company was keeping its previous target of shipping 5 million units this year versus 300,000 units shipped in 2007.

Sales have been the strongest in Europe, followed by Asia Pacific and China, said Lillian Lin, Asustek's head of marketing. More at Yahoo.

CUPERTINO, California—March 12, 2008—Apple® today announced that more than 100,000 iPhone™ developers have downloaded the beta iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) in the first four days since its launch on March 6. The iPhone SDK provides developers with the same rich set of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and tools that Apple uses to create its native applications for iPhone and iPod® touch.

“Developer reaction to the iPhone SDK has been incredible with more than 100,000 downloads in the first four days,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Also, over one million people have watched the launch video on Apple.com, further demonstrating the incredible interest developers have in creating applications for the iPhone.”

Apple also previewed the new App Store, a breakthrough way for developers to wirelessly deliver their applications to every iPhone and iPod touch user. Developers set the price for their applications—including free—and retain 70 percent of all sales revenues. More at Apple. Thanks to Trevor.

AAS has reviewed Scratchy for Symbian- "Word puzzles are thin on the ground in the mobile space, so Fivedeer's new word finding game is a welcome addition to their leisure applications. The Java-based Scratchy may well mix up the metaphors of scratch cards and Scrabble, but it does have a very nice game underneath the polished graphics.

Given a 4x4 grid of letters, your simple goal is to make the longest word possible. No time limits, no nasty creatures or pressure, just you and the letters. It’s a very sedate pace, yet the mechanics of the game actually add just enough pressure to make it worthwhile.

This is because of the letters – whenever you complete a word, those letters are ‘scratched out’ and replaced with new letters. The rest of the grid stays exactly as it was. If you’re stuck with some awkward letters, there’s no magic wand to clear them. And you are going to need to be careful in your choice of words, as Scratchy has a propensity to throw the letters used least at you. Prepare to think of lots of words with X, Z’s and J’s!

As with pretty much every word game, the dictionary of allowed words needs to be of significant size to ensure that what you come up with is going to be accepted. One of Scrathy’s big gaps seems to be in plurals, alas.

Obviously there isn’t an option to say “no, this really is a word”, but sometimes this can get frustrating because of the relatively limited number of words which you are sure should be in the database, but aren’t.

But if you can put these quirks aside, there are touches of strategy that lift up Scratchy from being just an anagram game. The first, obviously, is that longer words mean more tile exchanges, and more fresh letters, giving you better options. But if, on a grid, you can get three three letter words, this turns over 9 letters, and is better than one seven letter word."

Michael has done some maths in Maybe it's possible to have too many developers- "I never thought I'd say that, but Apple's making me wonder. Apple says 100,000 developers have already downloaded the iPhone SDK (link). For comparison, it took Palm a couple of years of heavy evangelism to hit the same milestone. That's a deceptive comparison, though -- Palm was a small and relatively unknown company at the time, whereas Apple is a huge brand, with a large base of current Mac developers that it can bring over to the iPhone.

So the process was quite a bit easier for Apple. But still, criminey, 100k is a lot of SDK downloads in just four days. Apple has clearly struck a nerve.

In addition to the 100k statistic, the Apple press release included new endorsements from companies like Intuit, Namco, PopCap (Bejeweled, baby), and SixApart. It's a very interesting variety of companies."

Today's free eBook is The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate by Ted Chiang- "O MIGHTY CALIPH AND Commander of the Faithful, I am humbled to be in the splendor of your presence; a man can hope for no greater blessing as long as he lives. The story I have to tell is truly a strange one, and were the entirety to be tattooed at the corner of one's eye, the marvel of its presentation would not exceed that of the events recounted, for it is a warning to those who would be warned and a lesson to those who would learn.
   
My name is Fuwaad ibn Abbas, and I was born here in Baghdad, City of Peace. My father was a grain merchant, but for much of my life I have worked as a purveyor of fine fabrics, trading in silk from Damascus and linen from Egypt and scarves from Morocco that are embroidered with gold. I was prosperous, but my heart was troubled, and neither the purchase of luxuries nor the giving of alms was able to soothe it. Now I stand before you without a single dirham in my purse, but I am at peace.
   
Allah is the beginning of all things, but with Your Majesty's permission, I begin my story with the day I took a walk through the district of metalsmiths. I needed to purchase a gift for a man I had to do business with, and had been told he might appreciate a tray made of silver. After browsing for half an hour, I noticed that one of the largest shops in the market had been taken over by a new merchant. It was a prized location that must have been expensive to acquire, so I entered to peruse its wares."