Hugo: Many thanks, I have yet to watched the video but I am sure it will be up to your usual (high) standard! :-) One thing I cannot find anywhere (or anywhere that I trust, to be precise) is the screen resolution HTC Shift will have. Is it 800x480, 1024x600 or something else? This is a key question for me as 800x480 just is not enough for what I need. If Shift offers higher resolution I will pre-order it now! If you can shed some light on this, it will be much appreciated.

Well done.
Downloading video.
1024x600 (please please!)

Well done.
Downloading video.
1024x600? (please please!)

Hello Hugo.Excellent review of the unit,I also consider HTC Shift the most promising UMPC out there.
My question is now that this is basicly the first UMPC with Pocket PC OS,considering the fact that you can surf the net,write on your blogs,watch movies,listen to music using just the Pocket PC how much do you actually need Windows Vista?

I always wondered if devices this small need a full powered OS when there is absolutely no gaming support going out for them plus the screen is just too small for any demanding applications(Image editing,video editing etc.)

Hi Everyone,

It is 4am in Sydney and I am off to bed! I know this will be a popular post so I apologies for the fact that my replies will be a few hour late (after this one).

Good news! The screen resolution is 800 x 480 AND 1024 x 600 (with 640 x 480 using Pockt PC!) The first two resolutions are achieved via Microsoft Origami interpolation of pixels - better news still is that you can force 1024 x 768!

Will answer more when I wake! How good is the device!!!

Do I get a prize for guessing right what you had in common with Steve Ballmer?
I left a comment saying I bet its a HTC Shift in the post

http://www.gottabemobile.com/WhatDoHugoOrtegaAndSteveBallmerHaveInCommon.aspx

Maybe a HTC Shift is the prize? Is was a competition , right ? :)

Well done, the blogs will go crazy for this.

Does this mean the U1010 review is going to be delayed?

Hugo: Thanks, but I am not sure if I understand. What is the NATIVE resolution of Shift's screen?

There's still confusion about the native res.

I have a huge a number of questions now.!
Will put them together on a post.

Steve.
UMPCPOrtal.

Nice review. Two questions. Fist question is that if you have both OS on, but say you stay on the PocketPC, will the Vista running at the back drain the battery? Second question regarding the power up back from sleep mode during the 9:30 min in the video, it took close to 3 min to boot it back up. (Only 10sec on my Sony UX-27 to get out of sleep mode and 40 sec for hibernate mode) Since the "Windows is resuming" screen was up, could it be the fact that the machine was in hibernate mode as it usually don't pop when you come out of sleep? Just my guess.

Rob - Great! No I've not got a splotch and would love one! I've just emailed you with my real email

Nice review. Two questions. Fist question is that if you have both OS on, but say you stay on the PocketPC, will the Vista running at the back drain the battery? Second question regarding the power up back from sleep mode during the 9:30 min in the video, it took close to 3 min to boot it back up. (Only 10sec on my Sony UX-27 to get out of sleep mode and 40 sec for hibernate mode) Since the "Windows is resuming" screen was up, could it be the fact that the machine was in hibernate mode as it usually don't pop when you come out of sleep? Just my guess.

Great job Hugo! This is a very promising device!

Estimated US Release Date?

Estimated price?

Included accessories?

Optional accessories from HTC?

Does the PocketPC side have full access to all HDD contents or is it limited in some way? For instance, what if I wanted to search my archived emails? Am I limited to what I have synched like with any standard PPC or is there some additional functionality available given that both versions are present in one box?

Jeff

You must have access to alien technology! a brit mag as done a brief article about my interests outside of my work, I have mentioned you Hugo the undisputed king of gadgets, although I have on average bought a new umpc, ultra mobule, smartphone, every 3 weeks for the last 12 months and I still cant keep up with the gadgets you get. I think you are either have access to some roswell type alien devive or you are indeed an ailen!!!

You must have access to alien technology! a brit mag as done a brief article about my interests outside of my work, I have mentioned you Hugo the undisputed king of gadgets, although I have on average bought a new umpc, ultra mobule, smartphone, every 3 weeks for the last 12 months and I still cant keep up with the gadgets you get. I think you are either have access to some roswell type alien device or you are indeed an alien!!!

Hugo - one feature that you did not show or mention was screen rotation. Does it rotate?

How does it perform relative to your Everun?

Hi Hugo. I have a huge ream of questions. You're going to hate me!

Native screen res? 800x480 or 1024x600?
A whole bunch of questions about PocketPC. E.g. WM version, operation and sharing devices.
.Did you say Qualcomm chipset in the video? It sounded like you where referring to the PocketPC cpu but i'm not sure. If its qualcomm HSDPA then are there import into US issues?
.VGA out (does it work in windows mobile mode?)
.SD card slot (does it go all the way in for readyboost users. How fast is it?) headset (or is it a headphone-only like Q1) socket,
.1Gb RAM (expandable?)
.Screen brightness. Better than Everun/Q1 Ultra? Gloss or anti-glare?
.Case, accessories in the box. Extended battery available?
.Availability?
.Price!!
.HSDPA chipset details (is it quad band?) Can you get these from device manager for us?
.Hibernation took 3 min's in the video. I assume this is a problem and not normal. I saw it on my i7210 once. Painfully slow!
. XP Tablet version available?
. Available through carriers?

All questions covered in detail in my post.

Thanks matey.
Steve.

... and actual size and wight of the it?

This story is on Digg now. Can i politely suggest that everyone Diggs it up. A new day in the life of the UMPC just started!

HTC Shift on Digg

Lets push it up into mainstream.

Steve.

You just like making decisions difficult!?

Here I am pretty much decided on the Samsung Q1 Ultra and then you demo the HTC Shift! Although I must admit that the HSDPA functionality and hidden keyboard pretty much put the Q1U choice in doubt now! Just a couple of questions...

1. Do you know what the Australian price will be and how will this be sold (i.e. through the mobile phone shops and/or Tegatech?)?

2. I remember the Everun demo you briefly mentioned that your HSDPA was through 3 (?), will the Shift support Telstra's NextG configuration?

3. How soon in Australia will the Shift be released?

4. Have there been any mention of a higher capacity battery option?

Thanks for the great reviews!
Jammer

Hi Hugo,

I am a Pocket PC user wanting to move into UMPC land. The questions I am most curious about, that have not already been asked, are:

* Can we rotate portait/landscape in both Vista and Pocket PC - I did not see you do this in the video

* Is the Pocket PC running WM5 or WM6?

* Does Vista and the Pocket PC share the HDD so that it can read the same files from both?

Thanks in advance...

Did HTC happen to say if this stuff is optional? :\ I don't need HSDPA, WebCam, Biometics, or this Windows Mobile stuff... its going to send the price into the roof. :\

Where's the microphone?

WM6 everyone, Because if you notice the little beach ball? That is exclusive to WM6 :) Hugo, I am one jealous man.

Why hasn't Hugo woken up yet and answered these questions?!?! :-)

HUGO!!! WAKE UP!!! No more sleeping on the job! Geeks around the world are staying up to hear your answers.... ok, well, one geek at least is staying up to hear your answers! ;-)

One more question: It looks like a proprietary power connector. Is this so? Can one use an external battery for extended use?

Aren't you glad you got some sleep?
(Sorry that's two questions :) )

Wow, now you can carry around a UMPC with the features of a Pocket-PC.
Why would anybody want to do that, thats like running Windows-3.11 on a Tablet-PC.

Oh yes it gives you more battery-life (certainly not days with the screen on) but if you have the choice between a real umPC and a PocketPC, what will you most likely choose? Always?
And now you even have to sync two devices that are actually just one.
The Pocket-PC is not even using the full screen.

Sounds like a joke to me, sorry.

Make that two Stephen. :)

I don't believe it was mentioned in the video, but is that circular thing on the back of the HTC Shift another camera lens (similar to that of the Q1 Ultra where you can take pictures and use a web cam) ? Also, the specs above say 40 GB HDD, but the video said 60 GB ? Which one is the real disk size ?

Seriously...no voice support on the Windows Mobile 6? guess it's the Everun or the Advantage for me.

Size comparison to the p1610 please!! One thing I absolutely need!!

Logan,

For a size comparison of the HTC Shift vs. the Fujitsu P1610, check this article: http://www.umpcportal.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=811

It also includes the Fujitsu U1010 UMPC, the Raon Everun and the Nokia E90 for comparison purposes.

Let’s see if I can gather some of my thoughts and inquiries:
- It DID look painstakingly slow for the device to come out of sleep/hibernate mode. Any thoughts as to why? It wasn’t necessarily the greatest first impression.
- I wish more devices where like my Q1p with two USB connections. As a constant user of thumb drives, it’s always nice to have an extra USB handy. Which leads me to the next question: Does the HTC have any cradle options of any kind? DVI port, extra USBs, Ethernet?
- KUDOS to HTC for thinking outside of the box on the design. It’s not only amazing that you have two operating systems at your disposal, but the way they have seamless integration is quite astonishing! Having said that, it makes absolutely no sense to me that the UMPC has Windows Mobile/SIM/HSDPA integrated, but no voice. After the Everun came into the market, I started giving some thought to the concept of using an UMPC as a mobile phone, specially if you combine it with a Bluetooth with Caller ID or Whisper Technology (that way you don’t have to take the device out of the holster every time it rings, or God-forbid, have to hold the device up to your ear in public! Jejeje). But seriously… Why would they omit voice if the device already had all the right tools? As my gadget-friendly brain kept wondering about the possibilities of getting rid of multiple devices and just carrying one, I began to think that voice could be the one thing that could provide UMPCs an increasing sense of indispensability. It would be hard to leave my UMPC at home if it carries all my mobility options.
- The touch pad/ right and left buttons are not ergonomically aligned. Does it become cumbersome after long term use?, and finally
- If you’re working/creating a Word document in Windows Mobile, how does the Vista side of the computer read the document? Are there any compatibility issues?
As always, I could not help but drool all over the keyboard watching the podcast. Great work and thank you Hugo and GBM team for keeping us informed and educated. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it, heh?
And as a last note, I know Hugo is leaving on vacation soon, and I would like to take the liberty to speak on behalf of the rest of the GBM readers out there, and see if you can film a remake of the “what’s in your gadget bag” now that you’re going to be off for a couple of months. We’re intrigued!

Hi Hugo,

Greeting from Tokyo

How does the shift handle the 3g. connection ?

Is it handled via the WM6 or Vista ?

The reason why I'm asking is that only way I can get all you can eat data plan
In Tokyo is by using a PDA (since the password is scrambled in the registry )

Thanks

Rob

First question:
Hugo, was that a baby in the background? I hope someone was tending to it.
Second question:
What's with the screen while inking? You mentioned it wasn't designed for inking..what's with that? It looked really grainy.

I think I heard a woman's voice in the background, Joe, which should mean someone was there for the young'un while Hugo was working. If ya pick those kiddies up as soon as they start crying, they'll own ya, or so I've heard.

What is the highest res of the VGA out? Just wondering if you could get more screen real estate if ya plugged into a monitor.

So how does it seem to be performing speed wise? I'm looking to sell my OQO 01+ and upgrade to either the Q1U or the Shift.

Also, price? And when will it be released?

Great video, Hugo, I'm totally jealous!

So, from what I can gather from the video and the comments here, the native resolution on the screen is 640x480? And the Pocket PC side of things is running Windows Mobile 6?

Here are a couple of few questions...

1. Does it do portrait mode? If so, in Vista or Mobile or both?

2. Do the Vista and Mobile sides synchronize with each other over ActiveSync/Windows Mobile Device Center?

3. Can the Pocket PC access the entire hard drive? What about the USB host ports? Does it have USB client ports to sync the Pocket PC to a desktop PC?

Thanks for the great work!

Could someone from GottabeMobile please remove the embeded video, us Aussies don't have unlimited downloads (7gb a month!). :\

Is it indoor/outdoor screen (sunlight readability)?

Thanks for the update Rob, I will stop checking back every 30 minutes :)

Hey Hugo,

Thanks for the review,

I was looking forward for this device is replacing my notebook and my dopod d810, however the inability to support voice calls may be a downfall as I prefer to have an all in 1 unit.

However, judging by the pictures (and for those who were wondering what Windows Mobile OS it was), it appears that it was either running WM5, this however could be a good thing, as there may be some people namely those in xda developers who would be able to tweak the WM OS to support phone feature (I am not sure if it is software or hardware) I don't know if anyone saw, but in the bottom left corner of the device you can see 2 holes, which may appear to be mic's?

However 'if' the production device does support voice, or if someone was to tweak this device so that it supports voice + video calls then I will jump on this device like a dog on cat.

Sorry for the long message, just like to brag! cheers mate!

Hey, Hugo. Unbiased much?

Yeah, he is giggling with excitement and a loss for words sometimes in the video, isn't he. Like a kid in a candy store, it's must be overwhelming.

We will soon find out if this thing which looks like an overgrown version of HTC's many sliding keyboard WM PDA phones is worth all this attention it's been getting.

I think Hugo's teasing the international audience as tension mounts in huge anticipation of his review follow up, heheh.

Great video -- these in depth demos on screen are very helpful (even if they raise even more questions as the comments above suggest)! As a longtime user of Windows Mobile devices I'm intrigued by the UMPC "world" -- have gone through a UX390N, OQO 02 and now a Q1 Ultra..... obviously, I love gadgets ..... but I'm still not fully onboard the UMPC "train" -- even the Shift seems like it will mostly a smaller/lighter version of my laptop, but having less power and capabilities, so not a real replacement. I have been using an Advantage X7500 for more than 6 weeks (have WM6 on it) and find it to be a really great improvement for my use as a phone/pda and pocketable computer. It's limited by the WM6 limitations, but still seems to be a better choice for a companion to my laptop than any of the UMPCs. Don't get me wrong -- I really like the UMPC form factor and look forward to seeing these products evolve -- someday I hope I'll have a UMPC that "does everything" and fits my pocket too!

Great video Hugo. Some things you may want to change about the specs you posted: The Santa Rosa is an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, not the Intel A110 clocked at 1.2Ghz which is code-named the Stealey. It also only has a 40GB 1.8 inch EIDE hard drive but a 60GB 1.8 inch drive will fit in the chassis. Another useful detail is that the ROM on the WM6PPCPE portion of the Shift is 128MB of which only a fraction is available for use depending on the ROM package. I also find it disturbing that the device is 800x480 native resolution which does cause eye strain. The screen is very readable on 1024x600 but I believe that the P1610 does a much better job using its 1280x768 native resolution. You should have put the screen rotation function in your video review since the unit is great for that. The WM6PPCPE interface doesn't fill the screen but Vista does. For those WoW addicts out there, the Shift is capable of running the app but expect to run it in Maximized Windowed mode in 800x600 and a lot of slow graphics processing as well as lower battery life. UMPCs are just not adequate for gaming but it is great for office applications.

whtrbt7, you might want to check your own facts before you correct someone else. The A110 runs at 800 Mhz, not 1.2 Ghz, (it is based on the original Pentium M architecture, not Core 2 Duo, as you said). And I don't know what you mean about only a fraction of the 128 MB of ROM being available for use, I think you mean the RAM, where yes, only a fraction is available for use by either programs or storage (although I don't see why you would use any of the 64 MB of RAM for storage, with the huge hard drive available.

Can we get a crystal report?

The A110 is not Santa Rosa. A Santa Rosa platform must have a Core 2 Duo with appropiate Intel chipsets and wifi.

Summary of Intel PR ( http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20070417corp_a.htm ):

Santa Rosa processor technology is comprised of:
-Intel Core 2 Duo processor
-Mobile Intel 965 Express chipset
-Intel Next-Gen Wireless-N Network Connection
-Intel 82566MM and 82566MC Gigabit Network Connection
-optional Intel Turbo memory

Intel Ultra Mobile platform 2007 is based on:
-Intel processor A100 and A110
-Intel 945GU Express Chipset
-Intel ICH7U I/O Controller Hub

Also see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrino#Santa_Rosa_platform_.282007.29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_microprocessors
http://www.intel.com/design/mobile/datashts/316908.htm
http://www.america.htc.com/about/pressroom/04-18-2007.html

But Santa Rosa on the Shift would be very nice.

Any update on this..

looks like the morons on the engadget website aren't being nice to Hugo :-(

Rob

I have been waiting to see more about this before my next purchase, so I appreciate the review. I think this is an intriguing device. I think having the pocket pc functionality to quickly (is it instant on or almost?) pull up email or calendar without draining your battery could be very handy. If it only had palm rejection technology it would be nearly perfect! Because of that, I think I'll have to pass on it for now and get one that does have palm rejection or is simply an active digitizer.

folks at dynamism are listing the SHIFT interstingly with a VIA processor of 1.2GHZ and 30Gb HDD, but still no pricing yet....

correction: dynamism listed the VIA processor at the SHIFt main page but when i clicked at the specs button it came up with the intel A110 processor and 30 GB HDD.....interesting.

All I want to know is how syncing works. Can you sync the pocket pc side of things with the vista side of things??

Wow !!! a 2month vacation he's not French is he ;-) ...

The HTC Shift is up on the HTC Website.

22 hours on a plane? Must have flown half way around the world. Any longer he would have been flying back towards his point of departure.

Australia to America is halfway around the world.

Except that he went to EUROPE.

Hugo, Just want to say that I really appreciate your video reviews, like many of the guys who follow your bloggs, If I am not in my work, I am with the Kids and my wife, I dont get much time to relax and I find your bloggs very interseting and of great value. Hugo, you may find as you become increasingly popular in this area, you will discover that people's envy will trancend into childish insults as seen on some of the pathetic posts on engadget. Without revealing to much about my occupation, I work in the media and have had similar situations arise.

I am sure that I speak for thousands of people who love tech gadgets, you are a real credit to the tech industry and like myself and many others who go out and buy loads of devices and then have to explain it to our wives, I feel you are the embassidor and spokes person that makes it easier for us to get away with it.

Finally I work and have worked with many people who are very successful and some famous (at least in the UK), These rising stars had negative press such as "they could not act and they could not sing,"

In my experience the people who proport these views are often feeling so unhappy and insignificant, the only way they can gain any feeling of self worth is if they try and pull down the successful people around them.

kind regards

Dean

Hugo,

Great review! I know you have a billion questions, so I'll make sure not to waist your time with mine. I been really thinking about this ever since I heard about this device. I mean, the Shift, wow! So, I'll try not to waist anymore time.

My question is:

Train A(With HTC Shifts aboard), traveling 70 miles per hour (mph), leaves Westford heading toward Eastford, 260 miles away. At the same time Train B(With MORE HTC Shifts aboard), traveling 60 mph, leaves Eastford heading toward Westford. When do the two trains meet? How far from each city do they meet?

Thanks!!!!!!

Hello, may I say, excellent review.
I know this is a kinda stupid question, but what purpose does the SIM card actually serve? Can you make SMS’s from the “Slide”?
Thanks for the review.
Luke Gardiner.
Melbourne Australia

Hi People, I got so enthusiastic about this device, that I dediced to make a dedicated HTC Shift user community for it.

I hope to attrackt many people who are just as fond of this device as I will be soon :) please HTC, SHIP!!!!

checkout the new HTC Shift Community for tips, tricks, software, tweaks and more..

HTTP://HTC-SHIFT.INFO

see you there, hopefully :)

So when is Hugo going to answer all of these questions? On Sunday we were told "tomorrow". I keep checking back and there's still nothing.

* What is the native resolution?
* How is the viewing angle? (You stated that there was a comparison to be made with the U810 -- and then didn't make it!!)
* Does it always take that long to come out of hibernation or was that a fluke?
* Does it have a microphone (or two)?
* Is the memory user-accessible (and therefore upgradeable)?

And then some you may not be able to answer:
* Accessories? Extended battery available?
* Does it come with a case?
* When will it be released?
* Will there be different versions? (30gb, 60gb, etc.)
* XP Tablet version available?
* Discount by signing up for data service from a cell carrier?

Good Things come to those who wait. Besides, if I had just left on my two month vacation to far and away places, responding to a blog would not be my first priority.

I'm sure Hugo will get to all of our inquiries, but we also have to respect his priorities.

tick





















tock






























tick
































tock
^_^

I can't help it; I keep refreshing.

Have you tried phoning Hugo and letting him dictate his answers to these questions?

I am interested in further information on the windows mobile side. What are the exacts specs there and does it have access to the hard drive. SD cards are cheap enough now but it would be nice to have direct access to the drive. If there is no direct access, can you transfer information from the hard drive to the sd, probably from Vista? The Shift may replace my Advantage, but not if functionality of Windows Mobile is vastly reduced. I would hardly need Vista, but it would certainly be nice to have it ready if I did.

Hugo or anyone who can answer:
1. Can it operate Itunes to run movies/videos downloaded from Apples Itunes store? (A simple measure of how strong the processor is in real world, if it can handle Itunes videos. Probably not capable for running Adobe Photoshop with any real speed, though I'd love to know.)
2. Can the HDD be replaced with a Flash Drive like the 64GB SSD drives projected for release from SanDisk? (If so, this would be a real boom to sales of this umpc - webpage: check SanDisk home page and search for SSD (Solid State Drive) It'll make the pc lighter, run cooler and boot faster - no I don't work for SanDisk, I just like fast, powerful, small computers).
3. Why no audio or line-in ports? (This is a nice feature on all other computers).
4. When Hugo was comparing the size against the other computers it appeared that the HTC had a dimmer screen than all of them. Is that true? (If so, then that's a bummer).

Since Hugo really liked the HTC he should have been given one to take with him; a real mobile test. What does HTC stand for? Lastly, since keyboard size is such a player in the UMPC/small computer market, why doesn't some engineer design one that expands at the press of a button? It could start out compact and covered just like the HTC or any of many pc's. When the computer is opened the user can either type on it as is, or, press a button and have it expand in all directions giving that needed extra space to make it comfortable to type (hum, just a thought). Whoever can do this properly will probably make a lot of money...I only wish I was hardware engineer.

Also wondering how/if ActiveSync works between the Vista on the one side and Windows Mobile on the other?

I can't sleep, I can't eat, please Hugo come back and rescue me!

Rob,

The Problem is that no-one has the specs for this. Chippy has asked HTC and drawn a blank. The only person that we know has used the Shift outside HTC is Hugo.

So you can understand the frustration at Hugo going MIA. That being said we should all chill and wait for Hugo to reply.

Let face it 22 hours in a plane with kids is enough to drive anyone insane.

Rob

The PocketPC calendar and contacts was so slow!
Waking up the Vista was slow too.

And yet Hugo's soo in love with it... maybe it's because other UMPCs suck even more. I dunno. I'm sick and tired of mobile devices with laggy UI's.
Ideally, we need tomorrow's hardware running yesterday's software.

What we need is scalable OSes that are written with some degree of optimization rather than haphazard beginner's OOP ;)

I hope Hugo manages to swing by an internet cafe and answer these questions, if just because I'm ready to be done with people hypothesizing over particulars like the native screen resolution when we simply don't know.

However, I also hope he's having an excellent trip. :D

cheers

So i don't get it, i though that this was going to be a mobile phone, and at one point (min 11:45) he said that it will NOT be a mobile phone.

Hugo?? Knock Knock. Lol not to be rude, and I know you are on your vacation, but could you please set aside like an hour and just answer at least SOME of the questions?

Hi to all,

First nice review Hugo ;)

I've noticed that in PDA mode it isn't fullscreen, is there anyway of putting it in fullscreen?

Hi to all,

First nice review Hugo ;)

I've noticed that in PDA mode it isn't fullscreen, is there anyway of putting it in fullscreen?

Hi Hugo,

First time I have visited your blog, and really only ended up here by searching for ref's on HTC Shift, which I have been trying to follow the progress of for the last few months. Nevertheless, great info! Probably the best spec report for the Shift I have seen / heard to date. Nice to know that this IS ACTUALLY available to Australians, as we seem to be decidedly left behind when it comes to other HTC devices, such as the Athena.

In your review you specifically mentioned the device will NOT be useable as a mobile phone ie voice calls. Really?? Like, at all? I can understand nobody wanting to hold such a large device up to their ear, and HTC having forseen this decided not to build in phone speaker or mic. in the obvious places. However, using a sim card AND being able to work on the NextG network (I checked the specs and, to all intents and purposes, this appears to be correct) one would have thought that a natural extension of that would be to build the "normal" phone functionality in. It also has Bluetooth functionality, which makes it a natural to connect a nice earpiece. So... what's the story morning glory? ; ))) A phone that isn't a phone? My next device was to be the Shift as it would just nicely encapsualte EVERYTHING for me... but if no voice phone, then I may as well just stick with my old O2 XDA2 PDA! Can you clarify if there really is NO normal phone function within the device? Please?

Cheers

Danny Liwszyc

The real test is to try one, but it looks to me like the HTC Shift keyboard has too many keys for real touch typing. I've been using an HP Jornada 720 for five years or so and can touch type pretty well with it. The Jornada and the HTC appear to have almost exactly the same size keyboards, but each has a different number of keys. The Shift has only five rows of keys, while the 720 has six. That would be a great improvement, but the Shift has fourteen keys across the QUERTY row while the 720 has only twelve (with a little space for the reset control), and the Shift has thirteen keys across the ZXCVB row while the 720 has only twelve. The narrower keys on the Shift will be fatal for touch typing in my opinion. If the keyboard was better, I'd order one over the 'Net, but with the keyboard they're showing now, I'm going to have to try one before I'll buy one, and I have my doubts that it will pass the test.

but in a pre order today. quoted an end of october delivery for the USA.

i am alittle confused on the whole pocket pc thing. isn't this just running windows vista sideshow and not pocket pc?

From what I understand Dean, the Shift has 2 processors: The Intel Santa Rosa A110, which is running Vista Business (hope I've got that right) and a Qualcomm @ 400MHz which, concurrently, is running Windows Mobile 6, the idea being you can use it as both a UMPC AND a Pocket PC. The gist of it is you use Vista and the high-end apps that you would normally associate with a PC or Laptop for Power-use e.g. if you are a sales rep on the road you have the functionality to do quotations or presentations on the fly by using the UMPC aspect. This eats up battery, and you wouldn't want to use it for everything anyway. Quite separately you have the Pocket PC aspect in the same device; hit a button and you flip to Windows Mobile 6 (Vista doesn't even need to be booted for this function to work). Bingo, you have your appointments, emails etc right there (as you expect from a PDA device) without the lengthy boot-up or processing power that is required for Vista. And you don't eat up the battery as fast. That's a kind of on-the-fly description. It has a lot of other nifty features about it that make it desirable, particularly for someone who has there life tied up in business meetings, appointments, presentations, agendas etc, and I think that is essentially the market that HTC is aiming for. Also good for the IT Manager as well. Since I am both, this is a great device for me. The only thing which bugs me a little (and I haven't been able to confirm this yet) is that, from what I can gather, it has NO NORMAL phone function in it ie, you can't make voice calls with it. This is annoying. If I am going to lug around this rather large brick to replace my laptop, Blackberry, Diary, notepad etc, then I would also like it to replace having to ALSO carry a mobile phone too! The Shift has Bluetooth functionality, which means you can pair it with a headset, and that solves having to hold it up to your ear. Someone like me who is driving a lot can't hold a phone anyway, and needs to use an earpiece. The device DOES take a sim card, works on NextG (that's the 3Gs for those not in the know) network, so having voice function doesn't seem like a huge leap to me. And for someone who doesn't want to use it as a phone, well they don't need to! Just use it as a UMPC / PDA with Internet capabilities, and have a phone quite separately if you choose it! Sorry to rabbit on, but this is bugging me a bit and I would like it confirmed or denied.

Cheers,

Danny Liwszyc