Category: Windows Mobile

The…

ThinkOutside Stowaway Bluetooth Keyboard for PDA

…has been around since December 29, 2004 according to Amazon.  But, having had disappointing experiences with various other Stowaway keyboards (I have a bunch piled up including iPAQ and Jornada specific ones as well as the infrared versions), I avoided buying the Bluetooth version until this past week. The one I bought is the older Universal model (larger than the Sierra model). Its price had dropped to around $85 and I felt the urge to write using a Windows Mobile Pocket PC or Smartphone. So, it seemed like the right time to try another near full-size keyboard.

It arrived today and I paired it with an HTC Advantage 7500 (Windows Mobile 5) Pocket PC Phone Edition after downloading the latest drivers from the Thinkoutside (iGo) website. The software installation and Bluetooth pairing went surprisingly smoothly. I say “surprising” because I remember how the infrared keyboard’s drivers had messed up a Pocket PC so badly that I had to perform a hard reset to get it working again. Testing it with Word Mobile went well. The keyboard feels pretty comfortable. And, the keyboard has all the right keys (Windows key, OK key, etc.) to work with a Pocket PC.

So, I’m nearly three years late to the Bluetooth keyboard game. But, I figured one or two other people might be in the same boat as me and find whatever I note in the next week or two useful. More later on this BT keyboard testing.

Every now and then I toy with the idea of catching up with the rest of the world and starting a podcast. But, being a mobile geek, I would, of course, prefer to record it using a Windows Mobile Pocket PC or Smartphone. The question is: Would the sound quality be good enough for podcasting? So, I created two audio recordings to help me decide. If you visit my new alternate multimedia blogging site, you can listen to a 30 second test recording found at the link below…

Audio Recording Test

This web site has a built in audio player. So, you don’t need to download anything to hear the test recording.

The recording consists of two pieces. I recorded the first part using a Microsoft LifeChat LX-3000 USB headset/microphone. The second part was recorded using a Windows Mobile 6 Pocket PC. Both recordings were made in the same room with a large Voronado fan blowing in the background to simulate a noisy environment. Both recordings were made using 16-bit 44KHz mono setttings.

Only two transformations were applied to the recording. First, the combined audio file was sent through the GigaVox Levelator to even out the volume differences between the two recordings (the Pocket PC recording was much louder than the headset recording). Second, the resulting WAV file was transcoded to a MPG audio file to reduce its size.

The USB headset recording is much quieter (you don’t hear the fan as much) than the Pocket PC recording. But, I think the overall Pocket PC sound quality is decent enough to use for short podcast recordings. And, the ambient sound might even add a bit of real-life to the recordings (vs. a somewhat sterile but quieter USB headset recording).

Ever notice that Word Mobile truncates file names it creates from the first line of text? Word automatically creates a filename based on the first line of text. Unfortunately, it truncates the name to the first 21 characters of the line (and adds a .doc suffix). This may seem like a lot compared to the good ol’ 8 character DOS file name length, but seems pretty short for a 21st century system. You can, of course, change the filename to avoid name collision. But, I would have preferred having at least 64 or even 128 character file names since I do a lot of writing using Word Mobile which is later copied over to my desktop.

I was just reading Jason Langridge’s blog (Microsoft’s Mr. Mobile) about a bunch of devices that have had announcements about the availability of an upgrade from Windows Mobile 5 to 6. One of the announcements was for the very cool HTC TyTn. But, apparently the upgrade is only available to HTC e-Club members who claimed someplace in or around the EU as their homebase. If you joined as a US-based member, no update is available. I’m guessing it has something to do with FCC clearances or some other such red-tape type reason. Fair enough.

But, it made me wonder what people think about regarding Windows Mobile devices and whether or not an upgrade is available. For example, I bought a T-Mobile Dash after the WM6 upgrade was announced for it. But, there is little hope for a WM6 upgrade for my i-Mate K-JAM. And, there is no hope for an upgrade for my T-Mobile SDA. Dell used to be pretty good about providing an upgrade path for at least one generation. HP was pretty spotty. For example, the iPAQ 2215 (the last iPAQ I bought with no plans to ever buy another HP iPAQ device) never had an upgrade path.

If your device is less than, say 24 months from its release (not necessarily when you purchased it), do you expect an upgrade path for it? Just wondering.

Try this on a Windows Mobile 6 Smartphone or Pocket PC (Standard or Professional Editions). Bring up your Call History list. Navigate to a call to/from a person who you know to have multiple phone numbers in your Contacts list. Then press the Left or Right navigation. It should rotate through the phone numbers for that contact. You can settle on one of the alternate numbers and call it instead of the number originally called from.

It worked on WM6 devices but did not seem to work on a WM5 Pocket PC Phone Edition.