RIP, Sierra Wireless Voq
One of my favorite things in life ceased to exist recently. That is to say, the world's cheapest windows mobile phone is no longer available for the low price of 84 dollars on tigerdirect. I'm typing of course about the less-than-venerable Sierra Wireless Voq. It was highly exclusive at the price of 650 dollars, but the fact that it is horribly ugly drove that down fast, and that's how I got one. I have loved the thing ever since, the fold out qwerty keypad (it's in there, look it up) is a godsend, and the oldest smartphone version of windows mobile is also the most hackable. I recommend finding yourself one on eBay or something, because this is weirdly enough one of the best devices I have ever used. I won't give the full specs, but I plan on releasing an entire site on it, because all you smartphone lovers should know your favorite gadget's heritage. And go get one, you'll drop your N95s for the old school goodness. And no GSM phone on earth gets better reception, as this thing is huge, by the way, there are two triband versions, one with 850 and one with 900. ----------------------------------------------------- New Hacking Fodder: I'm in the process of getting myself an Archos 604 wifi. This handy little PMP runs a proprietary Linux build done by Qtopia and has a supplied SDK. I think there is some hope I can hack a text editor onto it, at least in the command line. Also, the Qtopia PIM suite might be in sight and I think the universal Qtopia build from the more capable PMA430 could run on it. I can promise a text editor eventually. I will begin work on this with my friend Ockenbock. Screenshots of it working and a review not copied from CNET will be up soon. Also, if someone wants to write a GUI for this editor, I would be really, really happy. I was thinking I could bring something over from the MAEMO platform used by the Nokia Internet Tablet series. Please Note: This will be an adaptation of an existing editor. No Proprietary Stuff. It's that or I will find a solution through the browser (opera for devices) Update: I might just get a 605 and hack qtopia default onto it. In essence, never mind. Still, I have a freind with a 604 wifi and still may pursue this little endeavor. ----------------------------------------------------- Idea: I am hoping there is a way to get a small hard drive to work in the 9 pin sdio interface, so I was thinking a gutted pocketpc with bluetooth connected to one would make a replacement for the elusive bluonyx storage device. I want an expansion for my treo with wifi and one that goes beyond 4 gigs. So please email me at the bottom of this page if you have any intel, and I will make it a project of mine. A contact of mine says the Seagate DAVE (a similar device) will come out sometime in late summer, I can only hope this is not another case of my modding escapades being put on hold by vaporware. ----------------------------------------------------- New: REVIEWED: Motorola Headset H500
I just got this headset and I am satisfied so far. It performs well with the Voicesignal speech-to-text on my samsung t619 (Tmo) and has good sound quality. I also tested it with a bluetooth 2.0 adapter (the headset is 1.2) on my dell laptop on a skype call. The only place where sound quality suffered is with the volume too high while connected to a computer. A small surprise is that the actual device doesn't not appear as Motorola previews it. The real thing is glossy piano black, not matte black as in the stock photo. The features include a reversible ear hook, volume buttons on the top and bottom, a call answering and pairing button on the side and a mini usb charging port. One quirk is that it will only work, for some reason, with GSM phones. This seems a little odd to me, but I bet there are fixes for windows and palm devices. I have never heard of a CDMA symbian phone, so no worries there. Build quality is alright, as good as will ever be needed in a bluetooth headset and one complaint is that is does not feel very good in the hand. Still, I would not want a headset that is as bulky as it looks. Charging time is exelent, at a quoted 30 min. It took me 6 minutes of charging from the supplied charger to finish off both the tests and have time to spare for pairing with my Treo 650. I was considering a samsung wep200, but after looking at it at a best buy, I decided that it was not as comfy as it uses an earbud-shape thing rather than the earhook. I was able to find one wholesale on eBay for $20.89 (shipping from California included). Overall, this headset garners a 8.5 out of 10 for simply doing it's job well enough for you to forget it's there. ----------------------------------------------------- Here's An Idea:
----------------------------------------------------- Um... why should summerboard be needed? I'm just a little confused about this iphone interface mod, as it seems like it should have been there from the start, what with all these rumors about an sdk. Unless it's released in a firmware update, then what is apple doing, this could hit them really hard in the future, and I think the iphone dev team could soon be recieveing a large amount of money. NOT. Suckers. Also-I pledge that this is the last Iphone article I will ever write. Followup: They gone done it again. You will now be able to drag icons on the home screen. Whoop de wow. ----------------------------------------------------- | Here are a few things I think are of relevance to this site.
|
