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View Full Version : Toshiba Launches A Pair Of Snapdragon Handsets


Nurhisham Hussein
02-17-2010, 08:00 AM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://en.akihabaranews.com/34377/phone/toshiba-drops-2-new-handset-running-windows-mobile-6-5-with-the-tg02-and-k01' target='_blank'>http://en.akihabaranews.com/34377/p...he-tg02-and-k01</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"Disappointed by the bad sales performance of its first Snapdragon powered Windows Phone the TG01, Toshiba decided to kick of this 2010 MWC with a shiny new TG02. Like most handset nowadays our TG02 features a capacitive screen with a 4.1" size and the usual VGA resolution and the same old 1GHz snapdragon. Running Windows 6.5 the TG02 also features a new fancy 3D Menu desperately trying to catch up with HTC UI...Now if you prefer devices with a full QWERTY keyboard, well you are in luck and behold the Toshiba K01. Beside its new OLED screen and keyboard, specs of the K01 are in fact pretty much similar to the TG02."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/wpt/auto/1266376019.usr14226.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></p><p>There's been a slew of new devices introduced at this year's Mobile World Congress, but most have been overshadowed by the Windows Phone 7 Series launch. Almost lost in the shuffle are Toshiba's gorgeous updates of last year's ground-breaking, but ultimately less than successful TG01. The TG02 (slate) and K01 (which includes a hardware QWERTY keyboard) are almost identical to the TG01, but make up for one of its most glaring omissions - both feature 4.1" capacitive screens, and the K01's screen is OLED to boot. Toshiba's&nbsp;proprietary&nbsp;panel UI also seems to have been dropped in favor of the latest version of SPB's Mobile Shell (good move if you ask me). Check out the link for the press release or drop by on <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/15/toshiba-tg02-hands-on/" target="_blank">Engadget's hands-on video and photo gallery</a>. You might not see these in North America (the TG01 never made it), but you never know.</p>

Gerard
02-17-2010, 10:26 PM
According to lots of old news, and a few sites where I checked the TG02's specs again today, the thing is to be rated at least 'splashproof.' That's a feature I've long missed having in a phone/PDA, since it's often raining in Vancouver, and also since I work with wood and my devices tend to get a fair bit dusty in everyday use. Water resistance = dust resistance, better still if I can give the thing a quick rinse. So the TG02 is definitely still my preference... though my recent acquisition of a very lightly used HTC Kaiser, now running WM6.5.3 very happily, will certainly hold off any pressing new cellphone needs for a while.

But the K01 brings with it a quandary, not for some I know, but certainly for me, a non-slider sort of user prior to the Kaiser entering my life about 10 days ago. I've always hated the very idea of sliding keyboards. I know how easily a ribbon cable can wear out - my Sanyo waterproof videocam (VPC-CA65, 6Mp, very handy little camera shooting fantastic video with awesome stereo sound) stopped working after a little more than a year, the camera still able to shoot, but the screen showing less and less over about a day until it showed only patches of static. I figured that all the times I'd flipped open the viewfinder screen had worn a ribbon cable. Opening the thing up, sure enough, there was a slight crimp right in the middle of the very complicated swivel/flip joint, and several traces were cracked. If I turned the swivel just right, to the position of least bending in the cable, it sort of worked... so I scraped the traces clean, solder-bridged them, reassembled the joint, tested - and YEAH, it worked! - and then built up around the joint with epoxy putty. Works a charm, and best of all it's still waterproof. A bit awkward to carry though, no longer fitting in any sort of pocket... Anyway, my point is that ribbon cables break, and sliding keyboards rely on ribbon cables being durable, which they are not. Better than they used to be, sure, and always improving, but still rather a weak link. I've seen them break on many other devices, though usually because of user carelessness in disassembly.

So I would rather do without that weak link. Further, my preference is for onscreen input, not thumb typing. I am trying to do a bit with the Kaiser, but it's just painfully small, and being a fast touch typist it's really not satisfying to use only two digits. My stylus input with Letter Recognizer is more than twice as fast as with the thumb keyboard, so I only use it now when entering passwords.

But the K01 has OLED! Oh man, that would be a treat. And a slim device to boot, at a mere 13mm or so! But there's no way it could be splash resistant, is there? Not with that sliding mechanism... So it's another difficult choice. Dammit. Pick water resistance and the tidy design of a tablet, or a brilliant, power-conserving OLED screen. How on earth is a guy supposed to choose?

Why, oh why, couldn't Toshiba have chosen OLED for the TG02? It'd be the natural culmination of the Pocket PC evolution, albeit on a dead-end branch of the family tree, thanks to the annoucement Microsoft made the other day effectively killing that genetic line. The Windows Phone 7 Series has some resemblance to the old family, but it's a social networking driven mutant with a taste for silliness, gaming and chatterboxing taking over the greater share of its admittedly very fine brain. It's also confined to a strict diet, from only a single plant, where the true Pocket PCs could forage far and wide, gobbling up tasty CAB nuts from all over the place, free or for a small fee... The new cousin has left such diversity behind in favour of purity and safety (yeah, right, Microsoft assures safe software... that'll be the day) via the Marketplace store. I'm not about to evolve with those guys. Quite happy to stay right here, and Windows Mobile 6.5.3 is positively delightful when used with SPB Mobile Shell, which takes its rightful place in these new Toshibas it seems.

So the choice for any hardcore, old school PPC user is clear enough. Buy Toshiba. Oh sure, there are other options, other models, but these are the height of achievement for our clan. I'm thinking maybe it's time to start a new piggybank, marked TG02/K01, and start dropping loonies and twoonies in the slot towards buying one of each. That way I could taste the best of both, see which one settles in as my everyday machine, and save the other for the inevitable day when the main one dies and second-best has to take over. Seems from the solid designs that such a plan could see me spending at least a few more years in Pocket PC nirvana. Maybe by the end of that, Android or something else might mature enough to make the jump. It defintely will NOT be a jump to Windows Phone 7 or its progeny, not for this Neanderthal. I prefer the hunter-gatherer lifestyle in terms of where I find my software, thanks anyway, Microsoft.

Nurhisham Hussein
02-18-2010, 04:56 AM
Gerard, my sentiments mostly matched yours - my first reaction to WP7S (what an acronym!) was mainly disappointment. I do want d**n PC in my pocket!

The only thing that's giving me pause with these Toshibas are a crappy camera (3MP is enough, but the image quality from the TG01 was substandard), as well as the lack of a 3.5mm headphone socket. Otherwise, I'd be all over the K01.

Gerard
02-18-2010, 06:57 AM
Yeah, what is up with these designers who think mini-USB makes a satisfactory solution for audio connections? Mini-USB disconnects FAR too easily. Have these people never actually tried to use a headset with these connectors? I've been cut off in mid-conversation too many times, so I no longer use a headset unless I'm sitting still. At least with 2.5mm the thing would stay in place through a whole conversation, even it it meant using less than favourite headphone brands, or grafting a 2.5mm jack to one's favourite pair as I did once. With the HTC Kaiser I'm now using the mini-USB jack is hardly used, and yet power connection for charging tends to be dicey, and audio just the same. It's just not a good jack, even with the custom HTC variant and their own phone headset with matching jack. Besides which, unless one has made the jump to magnetic inductive charging, there's no way to charge while using the headset. Makes for too many interruptions in use. I could understand going with a single charge/audio jack in the name of simplicity on a waterproof model, where minimizing seals is quite important, but that's plainly not the situation with the K01.

Isn't it great though, that through all their trials, Toshiba is sticking with a 4" or larger screen on their flagship models? That's some serious understanding right there, that for committed PPC users, 4" is a minimum. It's so confining, having to do everything on a 2.5" or 2.8" screen. Even 3.5" as I had for quite a while there with a Dell X5 just isn't quite enough.