MobileViews Blog

Author: todd

  • Phoenix HyperSpace Hybrid & Dual Editions vs. Atom N270, N520, & N530 Processors

    Brad: There are two versions of HyperSpace: Hybrid & Dual. Hybrid requires a CPU that supports Intel VT-x hardware virtualization assist. The Atom N270 is most netbooks does not support VT-x. So, you probably saw the HyperSpace Dual version running which is not quite as slick as the Hybrid edition. The Atom Z530 in the high end Dell mini 12 supports VT-x and should be able to run HyperSpace Hybrid. I’m guessing Asus will use the Z530 in newer netbooks. BTW, the lower end Mini 12s use the Z520 which does not support VT-x. I have a brief item about HyperSpace and netbook processors on my MobileAppsToday.com blog at: http://bit.ly/TiN1

    Originally posted as a comment by Todd Ogasawara on Liliputing using Disqus.

  • Windows 7 Beta Device Stage Supports Nokia, Sony Ericsson, but NOT Windows Mobile Smarpthones

    Interesting that the list of supported devices listed in…

    Windows 7 Beta devices supported by Device Stage

    …includes smartphones from Nokia and Sony Ericsson but does NOT list any Windows Mobile smartphones.

  • Missing Sync for BlackBerry 2.0 Beta Preview

    I’m not a BlackBerry user, but if you want to use one with a Mac, check out this comment by Devin from my MobileAppsToday blog:

    Check out the Missing Sync for BlackBerry 2.0 beta preview. This has numerous fixes and added features like syncing itunes playlist, proximity sync, and bluetooth connectivity.

    http://forums.markspace.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&…

    http://www.markspace.com/testing/index.html

    Originally posted as a comment by devin on mediabistro.com: MobileAppsToday using Disqus.

  • Microsoft Windows Mobile: Faceless Platform for Non-Techies; Alienating to Power Users?

    I started the Windows Mobile Back to Basics blog series a month ago. Its purpose was to highlight the things about Windows Mobile that works. Why? Because it has been seriously outshadowed from a software point of view by both the iPhone and Google Android. And, I think aspects of hardware from Nokia have seriously passed by Windows Mobile (most notably in the area of digital photos and video).

    Years ago Microsoft decided to abandon the consumer market leaving hardware manufacturers to try to figure out how to appeal to that group on their own. By focusing specifically on enterprises running Exchange Server, Microsoft also alienated power users not in an enterprise environment with Exchange Server. The comment below was made on the entry I wrote to kick off the Windows Mobile Back to Basics series. Can’t say I disagree with anything Mr. Moore says. I probably wouldn’t even have felt the need to point out Windows Mobile’s hidden strengths if Microsoft had kept developing Windows Mobile past their last significant release: Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition.

    After 10 years of development the Windows Mobile platform is still in last place in the smartphone market. It’s behind Nokia, behind iphone, and now google has come out and is kicking Microsoft in the rear. Why? Because Microsoft never set out to make a great phone – they set out to extend the Windows desktop on the phone. Their charter within the company was to sell more exchange seats, not to make a great phone. The browser sucks, but they won’t put Opera on their phones for political reasons. The reality is that the Windows Mobile platform works good with exchange, but nothing else. IMAP support sucks, the browser sucks, the navigation is difficult and battery life is still less than good. Ironically, had the company been broken up years ago by the justice department, I think they may have been able to make a good phone….

    Originally posted as a comment by Scott Moore on mediabistro.com: MobileAppsToday using Disqus.

  • 21.5 Hours Without Power: Which Phone Got Used the Most?

    The area I live in lost power last night at 6:30pm. Power wasn’t restored until 3pm this afternoon (21.5 hours later).

    My landline stayed up, of course. So, communications was not a huge problem. My neighbor’s cable TV provide voice phone went down right away (also “of course”).

    T-Mobile data services stayed up for a little while (under an hour perhaps?) but went down and stayed down until after power was restored. Since all my Windows Mobile smartphones and the Nokia N96 I’m using at the moment are on that service (1 SIM card that moves from device to device), that left the iPhone on AT&T Wireless’ service.

    I didn’t have a chance to recharge the iPhone before the power outage started. But, fortunately, I had a pretty good charge. I turned off WiFi (GPS & Bluetooth were already turned off) to conserve the battery’s charge. I only used the iPhone sparingly over the next 21.5 hours often setting it to flight mode to maximize battery life.

    More in my MobileAppsToday blog on this topic later.

  • Atom Z530 Used in Dell Mini 12 Support Intel VT-x Hardware Virtualization Assist

    I was just taking a look at the specs for the Dell Mini 12 netbook and noticed it uses the newer Atom Z530 processor instead of the N270 used in most of the popular netbooks that preceded it. While looking at its specs on Intel’s site…

    Intel® Atom™ Processor Z530 (512K Cache, 1.60 GHz, 533 MHz FSB)

    …I noticed that the box for the Intel® Virtualization Technology was checked for this processor. The N270 does not support hardware virtualization assist. This might mean that virtualization hypervisors, like Microsoft Virtual PC and VirtualBox, that support hardware virtualization assist may get a performance boost when run on Z530 based netbooks.

    If you only have 1GB of RAM, you will need to choose Guest OS platforms carefully. But, you should be able to run lightweight OSes like Puppy Linux, Xubuntu, Windows 98SE, and Windows 2000 easily in Guest OS with 256MB RAM allocated to it.

    I’m planning to buy a new netbook for Windows 7 Beta testing. So, I’m definitely going to look for netbooks with the Z530 processor now.