TyTN II slower than two-year-old Dopod 818 Pro?

We've recently been alerted to a new Web site named HTCClassAction.org through a user and our Taiwan-based blogger Jonathan Gardner. According to the creator of the site, the TyTN II and other HTC devices which use the new Qualcomm processors are not performing up to scratch, with some older devices running faster than them during some specific operations.
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Asus M930 landing in Singapore in March

So it's true. Everything that's said about the Asus M930 has turned out to be right, except that it isn't a Windows Mobile 6 Professional device. Instead, it's the Standard edition running the show. The quadband clamshell will ship with HSDPA and your usual wardrobe of connectivity options such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and Blackberry support. Other features include a 400MHz TI 2431 processor, 512MB flash memory, 64MB RAM and a 2-megapixel camera.

Most of that look fine on paper, but we can't help worry for Asus that the M930 may end up looking like a second-class citizen. Its passing resemblance to a certain Nokia device aside, the 400 x 240-pixel WQVGA LCD seems like an awful waste of space. Granted that it may not be intentional and is probably a limitation of the OS, but that's no excuse for not trying to utilize the real estate.

So on the one hand, people are going to compare the M930 with the Nokia E90. On the other, some will wonder, why not go for the HTC S730 with a similar form factor, but smaller and sans the wide-aspect ratio LCD? It's not a big loss to us. I guess it's going to be a tough fight for Asus this time. More impressions when the smart phone launches in March.

HTC Touch Cruise debuts

First announced last year in Europe, the Touch Cruise is HTC's third model (fourth, if you consider the upgraded HTC Touch to be a new product. We don’t.) in its Touch series of PDA-phones. There's quite a bit of anticipation for this one because it comes with the full suite of connectivity options including GPS for navigation. This is the one area we were critical of in the previous models; lack of essential features--HSDPA in the Touch, and Wi-Fi in the Touch Dual.

As with the other Touch handhelds, the Cruise comes with HTC's TouchFLO interface. This means it has bigger icons for finger tapping and a modified interface which makes performing certain tasks more convenient. Check out our latest video of this device on CNET Asia TV. We'll be putting up a full review soon, so look out for that, too.

The HTC Touch Cruise will available across Asia Pacific from early February. It will cost S$1,198 and come with navigation software and one free map for your country.

Still no sight of 3G iPhone

The whole world may have descended on Macworld in San Francisco, but one thing's for sure: The 3G iPhone didn't show up. What Steve Jobs gave to a crowd of hopefuls was a software update that brings multiple-recipient messaging, Google Maps with location service, customizable home screen, etc., to the current-gen iPhone. These upgrades may be great, but there are still missing features like Bluetooth stereo A2DP, MMS, and video recording. That said, we are only two weeks into 2008 with 50 more to go, and Apple won't stay quiet throughout for sure.

In Singapore, the three telco operators told CNET Asia that they are in talks with Apple, but were unable to provide any more specific details. Expected local launch? A good window of 50 weeks.

TryPhone makes cell phone shopping easier

If you want to try out a mobile phone before buying it, you have a few options. One of them is to borrow a friend's, though you need to have a friend with the model you want. Another is to swing by a shop to fiddle with it while under the uncomfortable scrutiny of a mobile phone salesman. If neither of those options appeals to you, perhaps TryPhone will.

This new Web site has virtual mobile phones which run like the actual devices. When you click on a phone model, an image of the device loads on your browser with buttons you can click on. You can then operate the image as if it were a real phone, going into menus, pretending to make a call. It operates only up to a few menu levels deep, so not everything works. But we found it good enough to get a decent feel of the interface.

The models listed are US-centric and aren't very plentiful. The homepage says more handsets will be added weekly. Some of the mobiles already available online are the Apple iPhone, BlackBerry Pearl and HTC Shadow.

It's a good idea, if you ask us. We were only a tad disappointed that it didn't show what's behind our LCD monitor when we hit the camera button on the virtual phone.

TryPhone | Via Cool Hunting

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