Toshiba 550G review (French)

[marlof]

<a href="http://www.ourpocketviews.net/direct.php?article=genio%20e550G">http://www.ourpocketviews.net/direct.php?article=genio%20e550G</a><br /><br />How multilingual can we get? A Dutch guy posting in English, on a site run by a Canadian, about the French site <a href="http://www.ourpocketviews.net">OurPocketViews.NET</a>, reviewing the Japanese version of the Toshiba 550G. Pocket PC enthusiasm is global. ;) The 550G is the Xscale device with a big 4" screen <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=983">I told you about</a> before. As I know many of you don't speak French, and I at least understand it a little, I'll try to translate the good and the bad points in the review for you. Add the pictures to that, and you might get the drift. <br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/ipaq_550G_comp.jpg" /><br /><br />Good points:<br />• the reviewer likes the response of the directional pad; it also allows diagonal directions, and survived Mario Kart on PocketSnes<br />• the buttons feel good<br />• the 550G contains in good top of the class Toshiba tradition both an SD and a CFII slot<br />• there's a USB slot in the Toshiba cradle<br />• the 550G outperforms the iPAQ in battery life ( internet connectivity of 3 hours with a PHS CF card in stead of 1:30 hour on an iPAQ in similar conditions); these results aren't final, as the reviewer only had the 550G for a few days when writing the review<br />• good accessories to be had ( PCMCIA expansion, Bluetooth SD card, Extended battery )<br /><br />Bad points:<br />• the reviewer has mixed feelings on the screen quality, and finds it a bit dark, especially outside<br />• the directional pad can be painful on your finger<br />• the reviewer dislikes the stylus it comes with<br />• the software contains in bad Toshiba tradition not too much extras<br />but the main one being:<br />• the Xscale underperforms in graphical intense applications, less fps than an iPAQ in PocketTV, which the reviewer contributes to the lack of optimized code.<br /><br />My French is rusty, so if I misunderstood some things, please tell me in your comments, and I'll make the necessary adjustments. If I didn't make any mistakes, I just made my French teacher proud. The main thing seems to be that our hopes for miracles with the new Xscale processor should not be too high, just like <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1632">Jason predicted</a> a few days ago.

[JonnoB]

[quote="Marlof Bregonje"]• the Xscale underperforms in graphical intense applications, less fps than an iPAQ in PocketTV, which the reviewer contributes to the lack of optimized code.
quote]

Now this is a total turn-off! I do think the 4" screen is sexy however. I would buy one if I could update the ROM with English OS.

[Charles Pickrell]

It is very unlikely that this will ever be release int eh USA or Canada as Toshiba USA already has an X-Scale Pocket PC on offer here. Your best be would be to buy one from the UK or other English-speaking european country.

Charles

[medic119]

It is very unlikely that this will ever be release int eh USA or Canada as Toshiba USA already has an X-Scale Pocket PC on offer here. Your best be would be to buy one from the UK or other English-speaking european country.

Charles

Guess you were proved wrong with the post right above this on the frontpage.. :)

Anyway, This is the device I am waiting for. It looks MUCH better than the current 740 et al, and will probably fit the hand better too. Too bad it will be Q4 before it gets here.

This round I plan on witing for all manf to release thier Xscales before I upgrade (but thats what I always say)

[Venturello]

wow WOW WOW WOW!!

What more can I say???

Guys, maybe this is not the PERFECT pda, but it marks the beginning of a new trend, it gives new life to the market and makes competition HARDER.

As for me, I still hold my old iPaq, but in this PDA, the 4" screen is just a KILLER feature and I love it... plus, compact flash and SD? WOW!

I am just waiting a few monthes to see what new PDA I am going to buy. Of course 400Mhz, but now that I see this, I will wait for a 4" screen with wireless built in.

How cool!! Amazing, where will we be in 3 or 4 years? 1 Ghz?

[T-Will]

I wish they could up the resolution on that screen though...and what about built-in wireless?

[Jason Dunn]

How cool!! Amazing, where will we be in 3 or 4 years? 1 Ghz?

We should see 1 Ghz CPUs by the end of 2003. 8)

[Duncan]

This is very welcome news because it can only help the Pocket PC market BUT after all of the Bluetooth/WiFi wars - are we now going to have the big screen vs. small screen discussions start up? Will there be civil war in the Toshiba camp? Where will it all end...! :?

[Jonathan1]

This is very welcome news because it can only help the Pocket PC market BUT after all of the Bluetooth/WiFi wars - are we now going to have the big screen vs. small screen discussions start up? Will there be civil war in the Toshiba camp? Where will it all end...! :?

Where will it end?

5 words.....Global from Earth Final Conflict 8O :D

If you’ve never see that prop used on that Sci-fi show what it basically is, is a PDA with a screen that rolls up into the base that the user holds. Think of old school scroll on its side. You roll it out and there is a lot of room there. You roll it back up and it takes up almost no space at all.

Knowing the history of anything Roddenberry related (The show is based on a Gene Roddenberry related idea.) I wouldn’t put money against something like this not showing up in a few years.

And if memory serves I saw some sort of announcement a while ago about a prototype flexible display sheet that is paper thin

[farnold]

As much as I like the idea of a bigger screen... there are certain disadvantages right now.

The XScale (un)performance is just a shame. How can INTEL bother us with this when there is no real advantage? When MS is not doing anything about it it will be a fast, be not used processor... as if you put a PORSCHE engine in a VW (oh sorry, the VW would run faster, wouldn't it :-))

No phone extension and no PocketPC phone version, no built-in Bluetooth. I'd rather wait for the LOOX then.

Any ideas if the screen supports higher resolutions (maybe using another operating system)?

[st63z]

That would be cool, if the wizards at Toshiba decide to thumb their noses at archrival Sony and bring out a 4" VGA screen. MS would need to do a major overhaul of the Pocket PC OS to move to VGA though :) Or maybe Toshiba can go at it like Sony by just making for sharper pics/text.

I wonder what the screen ergonomics are like with a 4" VGA (~200ppi if I recall correctly)? Maybe we won't quite be able to fit four times as much text on screen (given that the physical screen size isn't proportionally larger), but I would imagine we'd still get a *significant* increase... Maybe people who've tried those devices with 4" VGA screens can let us know?

Coupled with XScale (and optimized code), we'll be able to run desktop VGA games under emulation (like we can now with old DOS MCGA games)... maybe... I dunno.

[Sslixtis]

The XScale (un)performance is just a shame. How can INTEL bother us with this when there is no real advantage?

Let me ask this instead, How can we ever advance if no one is willing to step forward? WE CAN"T!!! If Intel waited to design a better chip AFTER MS had developed a better OS (that could predict the future hardware design architecture) how long would we have to wait? I think it would probably be just slightly under forever. Intel always pushes the envelope, and everyone crys that their is no software for it so what good is it? Then six months later the software starts coming and no one remembers to take back all the nasty, unfair things they said about the people who drove the hardware and software to the new heights that everyone loves. Then as the software starts taking advantage of every bit of hardware potential available people blame Intel and other chip makers again, this time for being too slow with the new chips! And what happens when they do deliver said chips??? The crying starts all over! And to use the car analogy, when cars first came out 25mph was insanly fast, should we have stopped improving cars because we could make a really good 25mph car? Just because it was faster than a horse, should that have been enough? Rant over. :twisted:

[TomB]

Hey guys before you get crazy take a look at the specs. The e550g LCD looks bigger than the e750 because it is positioned closer to the top. The measurements on the LCD are diagonal that means about an eighth of an inch wider and less than a quarter inch taller.

As far as performance issues not recoding for the media co-processor should have little effect on the speed of PocketTV and 400MHz should have brought it up to 30FPS. I would be careful buying anything at this point until someone pinpoints the problem if it's hardware you are stuck. Toshiba NEVER promoted any of these PDAs as multimedia units but as business tools!

Don't forget, NO ONE showed an XScale PPC at the Summit - that was for a reason...

[Sslixtis]

The e550g LCD looks bigger than the e750 because it is positioned closer to the top.

The e550G LCD looks bigger than the e740 because it is. The e740 is 3.5" diagonal (which is standard method of screen measurment) while the e550G is 4" Diagonal. That would be .5" or in English 1/2 Inch. I do agree with the Media assessment of these PDAs though. Although if you look at the Japanesse eGenio site they do show you A screen shot for a Soccer game running on WMP at 32 FPS. Hmmmm. They also have a screen comparison between 3.5" and 4". All the text is in Japanesse though.
http://www.genio-e.com/pda/products/pic.htm
http://genio-e.com/pda/products/550g.pdf

[bslenter]

I think it may be possible to run 640x480 on the unit, though i have no idea how.

See this link

http://www.pdagold.com/articles/detail.asp?ArticleID=62

and this photo
http://www.pdagold.com/img/articles/Toshiba_e550_08.jpg

Tell me what you think. Has anyone tried this???

[JonnoB]

I think it may be possible to run 640x480 on the unit, though i have no idea how.

See this link

http://www.pdagold.com/articles/detail.asp?ArticleID=62

and this photo
http://www.pdagold.com/img/articles/Toshiba_e550_08.jpg

Tell me what you think. Has anyone tried this???

If you look at the screenshot closely, the user is running JS Landscape whcih interpolates/emulates a 640x480 display... the LCD is still running at 320x240.