Will New High-Spec Smartphones Overpower the iPhone, the G1 and Co.?
Will New High-Spec Smartphones Overpower the iPhone, the G1 and Co.?
by davepring on June 29, 2009 - 07:28.One of the first of a new class of high-powered smartphones, Toshiba’s TG01, has gone on sale on the Telefonica O2 networks in Spain and Germany. With a clock speed of 1GHz, the TG01’s application processor is approximately twice as fast as the processor in the first Android handset – T-Mobile’s G1.
Running Windows Mobile, the TG01 also boasts a 4.1-inch screen with a resolution of 800 by 480 pixels compared with the iPhone’s 3.5-inch display and 480 by 320 pixel resolution. The added horsepower and larger screen should mean the TG01 can display richer multimedia content and play more advanced apps and games than today’s smartphones, opening up more possibilities for developers.
You would expect such a fast processor and flashy screen to result in a significantly shorter battery life, but Toshiba’s specification sheet suggests the TG01 should be reasonably competitive in this respect. Although Toshiba doesn’t say how long you can surf the Internet on the TG01, it claims you get up to four hours of talk time on a 3G network compared with the five hours maximum Apple cites for iPhone 3G.
Although the TG01 is a little larger than the iPhone 3G S, it is actually slimmer and weighs slightly less. That suggests it will fit easily in a coat pocket or a handbag, but may be too bulky for most trouser pockets.
How will the TG01, which costs 150 euros on a contract in Germany, and other similarly high-spec smartphones fare in the marketplace? Should developers be getting excited?
No way.
The key is the user experience and aesthetics.
At the moment and for the foreseeable future Windows Mobile lags behind all of the iPhone OS, BlackBerry, WebOS and Android.
What's more, this 'phone is too tall and too wide. The optimal envelope is ~105 x 55-60 x 10mm. It's 130mm tall - nearly 25% too tall and 70mm wide, 15% wider than is optimal. Hey it's wider than a BlackBerry Bold, which has been panned as a porker.
Although hardware remains difficult, it does *not* differentiate, it can only disqualify.
Wrong UI, too big. It'll bomb.
The Toshiba device is based on Qualcomm's SnapDragon processor (MSM8XXX I believe). It is an optimized ARM processor based on technology Qualcomm purchased a few years back. One its key features besides performance is battery life. This processor, like all of Qualcomm's MSM series of processors are available to all device makers. It is openly available to Android and iPhone HW so it is the choice of the company not to use the processor for whatever product reasons. I've seen it run Linux and other mobile platforms firsthand. Still a bit slow for Unbuntu.
I played with this Toshiba device in MWC Barcelona and am excited to see this processor in the market and hope more smartphones use it in their design.
For my personal preferences, I would still not buy it, not because of the price (I bought the X1 for 1000.00 when it first came out.), it does not have a HW keyboard. For me, text input is still a bit tough on this touch device. Similary the Samsung i8910 Omnia HD is a great Symbian device, but having no HW keyboard makes it hard for me to use.