a. First, let’s start with the, in my opinion, most important news item: as you may have heard (see related PPCT thread HERE), Sony may only release the XPERIA X1, without doubt the most revolutionary Windows Mobile phone to be released this year, only next year in February. This, in the meantime, has been refined: the device is officially stated to be released H2 this year. The reason for the 2009 release date given in the official product page is as follows: “The only reason for the mysterious “10th of February release” is the fact that Sony Ericsson (or should I say Microsoft) has yet to decide on when to publicly announce the operating system and technical specifications of the X1, and thereby also a precise release date”

Indeed it’d be pretty much suicidal for Sony-Ericsson to wait almost a year with the release. It’s NOW that there aren’t any decent high-resolution (W)VGA devices on the market, not a year later, when

1. there would be at least E-TEN (now: Acer) to offer the V900 and Gigabyte the MS808, which both have a digital TV tuner compatible with both handheld and standard terrestrial broadcasts and also have really decent specs. Also, BlackBerry and the Symbian / feature phone folks should not be underestimated either: S60 Touch is promised for this year (the just-announced Nokia N96 may pale in comparison to it if it's true what Nokia predicts - that is, at least something like that of Nvidia's really-really excellent GUI) and there are rumors of a touchscreen BlackBerry too. Other manufacturers may also come up with Android and LiMo-based, “killer” devices and, speaking of Linux, there’re rumors of a new Nokia Internet Tablet, this time incorporating WiMax support (one of the biggest and most frequently uttered buzzwords of this year’s MWC).
2. the current hardware (particularly the Qualcomm MSM7200A chipset), assuming it isn’t changed / updated, becomes outdated in a year. Not only because of the Samsung S3C6410, which MAY be shipping then or the also way better and more powerful TI OMAP 3, which is available even now, but also because of Qualcomm’s own, new announcements (most importantly, the QST1105), which may also become available (and even shipped with some new models!) this year for industry-wide deployment.

b. Let’s go on with the HP iPAQ 210. I have some good news for you.

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Architecture-wise, it’s without doubt Samsung’s MWC announcement of a brand new, high-end chipset (also having a CPU), the S3C6410 (and its budget version, the S3C6430), that may be the most interesting to Windows Mobile users.

As you may already know, Samsung’s SC3244x (for example, the SC32442 used in the HTC P6300 (HTC Panda), E-Ten’s late 2007/early 2008 models like the X650 and the M800 etc – see the complete list HERE and HERE for the SC32442 and the SC32440, respectively), the chipset used in several current(!) Windows Mobile devices, is REALLY outdated. I’ve shown numerous examples and proofs of this (see for example THIS) - for example, the very bad CPU usage of A2DP (about 50% at 400 MHz) and the complete lack of advanced multimedia (MP3 / AAC) en/decoding support (this is why you can’t, for example, use the high-quality Resco audio codec pack with (old) Samsung CPU’s, as has also been pointed out HERE). These two tasks are all far better handled by any other, current CPU’s like Intel XScales (even the “old” PXA-2XX ones) and TI OMAP’s (again, even the oldest ones used in Windows Mobile 5+ devices). The only real advantage of the SC3244x is the CPU usage-independent power consumption – the other two, above-mentioned architectures can’t boast with this. (See the bottom section of THIS article for a proof.)

Before MWC, as far as their newer chipsets are concerned, only the S3C6400 was known. For example, E-Ten’s brand new, high-end, feature-packed V900 (to be released in April) will have this chipset. (Currently, there’re no other existing/announced devices (see THIS) with this CPU.)

This chipset is the base (the direct predecessor, parent) of the new S3C6410/ S3C6430 models. In this respect, it’s pretty much comparable to the Marvell XScale PXA270 as opposed to the PXA310, let alone the even more feature-rich PXA320.

The just-announced S3C6410, which is an even more advanced version of the S3C6400 , is even better; for example, it supports hardware 3D acceleration. Again, it’s like the PXA310 or the PXA320 compared to the PXA270. Unfortunately, currently, no future devices are known to have it.

(the 3D performance demo of the brand new S3C6410; you can see the S3C6410 flier I’ve also made some shots of here)

(multimedia demo on the older S3C6400)

(HD AX audio decoding demo on the older S3C6400)

(this is how an imaginary device could house the S3C6400)

Note that, currently, the only available online information is the above-linked one. While it does explain the advantages of the new S3C6410 platform over the “old” S3C6400 one, it’s definitely worth checking out their offline brochure I’ve taken a shot of (with my Nokia N95 – man, it DOES have a very nice camera. Hear that, Windows Mobile ODM’s? We want something similar on WM too!) Also note that Samsung’s portal doesn’t have any information on the S3C6430 at all. Finally, note that none of the other portals reporting on MWC have anything else on the new CPU than the above-linked press release (see for example MobileBurn, electronista.com, techon - these are the sites mentioning S3C6410 I could find via Google). That is, it’s in by me that you get a full rundown of the differences between the new CPU’s and the “old” S3C6400.

(again, click the pictures to get a full-resolution, readable one!)

As can clearly be seen, the S3C6410 is a much more advanced version of the S3C6400: it uses 65 nm technology instead of the 90 nm one (most probably resulting in major power and size savings), it has advanced 2D capabilities (for example, H.264 hardware decoding – as is also explained in the online version) and even 3D hardware acceleration. The “budget” S3C6430 seems to be exactly the same as the S3C6410; the only difference seems to be the complete lack of 3D hardware acceleration. Hope we’ll still see the latter (that is, the S3C6410) with proper (!) 3D drivers.

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If you are a user of this fine Windows launcher, you might want to get your upgrade as soon as possible. One of the new features added is the integration with other VITO applications. If you are using SMS-Chat and FunContact, tapping on text messaging icon or the call log will bring you to the respective programs. It seems that you will be experiencing the Windows Mobile interface and less which is not really a bad thing. There are other changes as well included so do download and check it out for yourself. [via VITO Press Release]

MSN Direct Is Only For Windows Standard

If you read yesterday’s news, you might have heard about MSN Direct. Thanks to spmwinkel’s comment, he has rightly pointed out that the application is only made for Windows Standard. Then again, it is a Technology Preview application so support for Windows Professional might come at a later time.

Samsung Integrates 3D Graphics Acceleration

Thinks might be looking up for Eten who uses the Samsung chip in its devices because the upcoming S3C6410 will now come with 3D acceleration and hardware support for the H.264 and MPEG4 codecs, among many others of course. Clocked at 667MHz (which is the same as the one in the upcoming Glofiish V900), no word yet has been released as to when this chip will hit the market but when it does, VGA slowdown on Glofiish devices would be a thing of the past. [via Engadget]

Bluetooth To Work With WiFi

I am not sure exactly how this would function and if it would be a winner or just cause more problems though the potential does seem promising. I am not really much of a Bluetooth user, being my only interaction with it is when I used a bluetooth headset and my iGo keyboard. But I guess for users out thee who rely heavily on this technology for data transfer, this might be really great news.

T-Mobile Lowers HotSpot@Home Prices

Now just that they have lowered the price from $19.99 to $9.99, but they have also renamed it to HotSpot@Home Talk Forever. For those in the dark, using your T-Mobile phone, you will be able to make unlimited calls at home or at any T-Mobile hotspot, be it day or night. Are you signing on? [via Engadget]

T-Mobile US To Turn On 3G

Still on T-Mobile and this time, it’s something that I have been waiting for: 3G. T-Mobile has already rolled out 10 000 base stations for 3G (no idea where they are) and will be rolling out another 15 000 middle of the year. If this all goes according to plan (and I hope it does), then T-Mobile (US) would have the best 3G coverage in US. Now the only question is when will they turn it on? [via MoDaCo]

HTC S710 Vox ROM Update

If you are HTC S710 user, this update it for you. Head over to the e-club to grab your copy for installation. No word as to what got improved/added but any upgrade is well worth trying out if you are facing problems with the current setup. [via WMExperts]

PocketSelect Having A 15% Off Sale

For the whole month of Februrary, Pocket Select will be offering 15% off all Pocket PC Applications and Games. If you have been holding back your purchases due to price, this discount would really go a long way if you are going to be buying a lot of software. Head over to PocketSelect to make your selection. [via PocketPC Addict]

P.S. If you are looking for PhoneWeaver at an insanely low price of $8.22, check it out here.

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