[Nurhisham Hussein]

Originally Posted by alese

That's dissapointing. Although you never know, maybe things will change, after all why would they sell only Advantage through carriers and not Shift, given that HTC has good relations with them.

They're selling the Advantage through Amazon in the US - which I find a bit intriguing. Instant retail network?

Originally Posted by Gen-M

And, while current systems using the VIA C7M chip do not run AERO, this machine evidently does - so HTC has figured out how to do it. Given that they are a sister company to VIA, if anyone can do it, they can.

From what Jason said at the CTIA blog, it appears they're using a non-VIA graphics solution (Intel would you believe?) - which explains the ability to run Aero. Now, if they'll only fix the resolution.

Originally Posted by Paul Kay

After 30+ years of eye-straining development, I can't read a screen anymore at resolutions greater than 800x480.

I typically raise the screen dpi on my PCs and laptops to account for that - but that forces even well-behaved dialogues off the screen.

[Nurhisham Hussein]

Originally Posted by alese

That's dissapointing. Although you never know, maybe things will change, after all why would they sell only Advantage through carriers and not Shift, given that HTC has good relations with them.

They're selling the Advantage through Amazon in the US - which I find a bit intriguing. Instant retail network?

Originally Posted by Gen-M

And, while current systems using the VIA C7M chip do not run AERO, this machine evidently does - so HTC has figured out how to do it. Given that they are a sister company to VIA, if anyone can do it, they can.

From what Jason said at the CTIA blog, it appears they're using a non-VIA graphics solution (Intel would you believe?) - which explains the ability to run Aero. Now, if they'll only fix the resolution.

Originally Posted by Paul Kay

After 30+ years of eye-straining development, I can't read a screen anymore at resolutions greater than 800x480.

I typically raise the screen dpi on my PCs and laptops to account for that - but that forces even well-behaved dialogues off the screen.

[jlp]

Originally Posted by Nurhisham Hussein

I typically raise the screen dpi on my PCs and laptops to account for that - but that forces even well-behaved dialogues off the screen.

How good is it to have a denser screen if:

1. you're gonna raise the screen dpi and end up with the same text density, only with crispier text; at that already very dense dpi rate (800x480 on 7") the improvement is virtually nill
2. how good is it, if it "forces even well-behaved dialogues off the screen. "
3. it makes the device much more expensive

All in all: virtually no advantage for 2 consequent disadvantages :evil:

[Jonathan1]

Originally Posted by ecsk2

So we are reaching the crossroads, now its devices like this that might kill PPC I'd think..

There's no "might" about it. It was\is simply a matter of time. The nanosecond Microsoft started talking up Windows Mobile instead of the Pocket PC and the Tablet PC I knew the days of the Pocket PC were numbered. At this point its simply a matter of getting the hardware to a advanced and mature enough state, and getting the price point down below 4 figures. IMHO we still aren't there yet. I'm still thinking 2010 though. By that time hopefully digital ink in color will be out and about, storage densities should be sky rocketing, and ULV CPU's should easily be able to fit in a PDA sized device while still performing well.
What we have here isn't a PDA sized device. Its a handheld PC sized device and I still believe that such a device is niche unless someone can get the world hooked on ebooks. (While I beleive could possibly be the kiler app for HHPC sized devices.
Like it or not Windows Mobile and the Pocket PC were always a stop gap on Microsoft's OS Roadmap.

[Nurhisham Hussein]

Originally Posted by jlp

How good is it to have a denser screen if:

1. you're gonna raise the screen dpi and end up with the same text density, only with crispier text; at that already very dense dpi rate (800x480 on 7") the improvement is virtually nill
2. how good is it, if it "forces even well-behaved dialogues off the screen. "
3. it makes the device much more expensive

All in all: virtually no advantage for 2 consequent disadvantages :evil:

Raising the dpi only increases the size of system text - everything else remains the same. My biggest concern is the screen height resolution more than anything else. I can (and have) lived with 800x600 on a 5" screen, 800x480 is IMHO a bit too restrictive - gimme 1024x600 and I'll be happy :wink:

[Menneisyys]

Originally Posted by Nurhisham Hussein

Raising the dpi only increases the size of system text - everything else remains the same. My biggest concern is the screen height resolution more than anything else. I can (and have) lived with 800x600 on a 5" screen, 800x480 is IMHO a bit too restrictive - gimme 1024x600 and I'll be happy :wink:

Yup, the Sony UMPC's use 1024x600 at 4.5". 800x480 will effectively kill Shift (along with the use of VIA if it'll be as slow as its other incarnations) - IMHO. It's even less DPI than current 15.4" WUXGA (or, 15" UXGA) screens - that is, surely far more pixels could be used in the Shift's screen.

And anyone with a high-resolution will agree it's very easy to make use of the extremely high DPI of, say,a 15" UXGA screen if you, for example, use Opera as the main browser. Then, you will almost never run into "the text is too small" problems.

[Nurhisham Hussein]

Originally Posted by Menneisyys

...(along with the use of VIA if it'll be as slow as its other incarnations)...

The latest news is that VIA is out of the picture - the Shift will use Intel's Ultra Mobile Platform 2007 (aka McCaslin). No worries about Aero-glass, though the A100/A110 processors appear to have fairly slow clock speeds (600MHz/800MHz). Time will tell if these are really up to any kind of intensive computing demands.