For Windows Mobile 6.5, the OS is only (and thankfully) half the story. Microsoft left plenty up to the carriers and handset manufacturers, and with the Imagio, Verizon and HTC have at least created something interesting.

The Gadget

Verizon’s HTC Imagio is a touchscreen Windows Mobile 6.5 handset, or “Windows Phone,” with a healthy, if expected, spec set, iiiiinnncluding!: a 3.6-inch WVGA screen, Wi-Fi, GPS, a 5-megapixel camera, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and microSD storage expansion (but sadly, no included card). It’s also the first smartphone with V CAST Mobile TV, which is a Flo TV-based live streaming TV service that looks and feels a bit like digital cable, phone-ified. Accordingly, it has an adorable kickstand.

The Price

$200 on contract with Verizon, after a $100 rebate

The Hardware

HTC is the Taco Bell of the handset world—they’ve only got a few ingredients that they put into their long menu of products, but the results are consistently pretty good, if not spectacular. Of the bulging ranks of 528MHz-Qualcomm-based touchscreen handsets, this is one of my favorite permutations. For its size, the Imagio is respectably thin—about as thick as an iPhone, but with a noticeably larger screen—and pleasantly rounded in the rear, with a subdued two-tone backplate accented with a shiny camera bezel and a chrome kickstand.

The front of the device is framed by a perforated grille, which looks and feels pleasantly knobbly, giving the handset a little friction, and a secure feeling in your hand. The bottom row of buttons—call, V CAST, Windows Start Menu, back and end call—are placed a little low to be comfortable to press, but anyone who’s used to HTC handset designs won’t have any trouble getting around this piece.

Performance is adequate, but since this is the same Qualcomm processor we’ve been complaining about for months now, and the 256MB of RAM isn’t overly generous, it’s nothing better than what we’ve already seen in the likes of the HTC Touch Pro2. HTC’s done plenty of work to make TouchFLO run nice’n’smooth, sure, but it really wouldn’t hurt to not just make a handset with speedier hardware, but to actually release it in the US.

The Software

I was pretty hard on Windows Mobile 6.5 in my review, but guess what? HTC likes it even less. TouchFLO 3D reaches deeper into the operating system than ever before, to the point that during casual use you can’t even tell you’re using a Windows Mobile phone.

The Titanium homescreen? Replaced. The new, larger contextual menus? How about prettier HTC versions instead? Mobile Internet Explorer 6? Replaced with Opera Mobile. Virtually every other piece of software that HTC had time to revamp or cover up? Out of sight, out of mind. And for one final kick in the nuts, the new Start Menu, which Microsoft even went so far as to require 6.5 phones to have a dedicated button for? Replaced with a slightly better HTC variant. That, right there, is a better review of Windows Mobile 6.5 than anyone could ever write.

V CAST TV

Based on Flo TV, which probably doesn’t mean much to most people, V CAST is a categorically impressive technology. The best way to describe it is that it’s like having a digital cable box, complete with live broadcasts of familiar basic cable stations (Comedy Central, CNN, the like), and a familiar program guide interface. Video quality is fair, but definitely watchable, and the experience of flipping through live channels is pretty novel.

As interesting as the underlying technology is, there are a few serious problems. Watching TV is neat and all, but on a mobile device, video on demand would be infinitely more useful. And at $12 or $15 a month, I don’t think people will be satisfied with the somewhat anemic channel selection (full listings here).

Moreover, I don’t really understand how Verizon expects people to use this. You can’t use it on a plane or a subway, so what, trains? During your lunch break at work? There center part in the Venn diagram of times where you might want to watch video content but don’t have a computer or TV and times when you can realistically use V CAST is small, as far as I can tell. But if live, basic-cable-esque TV on your phone is something you can see yourself using, this implementation is actually pretty good.

The (Mild) Tragedy

This has been the story for a few years now, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to change with Windows Mobile 6.5: Handset manufacturers will continue to make the OS bearable to use, and carrier will occasionally grant handsets interesting—if not always useful—services to keep customers’ attention. That’s exactly what the Imagio does, bonding pleasant hardware design with a heroic salvaging of the phone’s interface. At $200 after rebate, it’s not a best value by a long shot, but in Verizon’s sickly smartphone line, it’s not a horrible choice.

I would’ve liked to end this review on that happy note, but while I was writing it Verizon sabotaged my plan, those scoundrels: Two Android phones will be announced for the network “within weeks,” which means that unless you’re bound to Windows Mobile either by software, your employer, or, er, extreme loyalty, you’d be best advised to wait a little while. [Verizon]

It’s got an appealing design, large screen and minimal branding

Kickstand! Ha!

HTC’s done a hell of a job sprucing up Windows Mobile, as always

V CAST TV is technologically interesting, but it’s expensive and I’m not really sure how people will use it

Windows Mobile 6.5, y’all

Specs could use a bump; namely the aging 528MHz processor and included storage

$200 isn’t a great bargain, and Verizon’ got some Android handsets coming down the pike.

Sprint and Samsung have launched the Intrepid, a Windows Mobile 6.5 world smartphone that hooks into Sprint’s EV-DO Rev A data network here in the states and GSM networks overseas.

Aside from the new OS, the Samsung Intrepid is fairly pedestrian. It’s a rather modest update to its mediocre predecessor, the Samsung Ace–and has nothing on today’s powerful Windows Mobile 6.5 handset introductions like the HTC Imagio (on Verizon) and HTC Pure (on AT&T).

The Intrepid features a 2.5-inch touch screen with a now old-hat 320-by-240-pixel resolution and a hardware QWERTY keyboard. There’s a 3.2-megapixel camera, GPS, a microSD card slot, quick access to social networking sites (including Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter), and built-in Wi-Fi.

The Intrepid also features Sprint’s usual bevy of streamed multimedia services, including Sprint TV, Sprint NFL Mobile Live, and NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile. It will hit stores and Sprint’s Web site on Sunday, October 11th for a rather high $149.99 with a two-year service agreement and after various rebates.

AT&T and HTC have unveiled the HTC Tilt 2 and the HTC Pure, two Windows Mobile 6.5 smartphones that could potentially signal a comeback for Microsoft’s eroding market share in the wireless industry.

The HTC Pure is essentially a successor to the Touch Diamond, but with a larger, higher-resolution (480-by-800-pixel) screen and a 5-megapixel camera. The Tilt 2, meanwhile, is a spiritual successor to the popular, two-generations-old QWERTY-equipped AT&T Tilt–which HTC had also built, although it wasn’t branded as such, along with last year’s Fuze. The Tilt 2 now includes a 3.6-inch touch screen and a 3.2-megapixel camera.

Both devices feature HTC’s TouchFLO 3D interface, which offers a smooth interface for basic tasks like browsing the Web, managing contacts, and listening to music. Windows Mobile 6.5 itself is a significant update, with direct access to the new Windows Marketplace for Mobile app store and Microsoft’s My Phone service. Its refreshed interface is largely irrelevant with these two devices, though, since HTC grafted TouchFLO 3D on top.

The HTC Pure will be available online today and in AT&T stores for $149.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate and with a two-year contract. The Tilt 2 will cost $299.99 after mail-in rebate and with contract when it arrives in the next several weeks.

Flash 10 already supports HD video on the desktop, but 10.1 — announced this week at Adobe’s MAX conference in Los Angeles — is being billed the first to really reap the full benefits of the Open Screen Project by unifying feature sets across a wide variety of platforms on the desktop, the laptop, and the pocket. As usual, Windows, Mac, and Linux will all get hooked up with the latest release, but public betas of 10.1 for Windows Mobile and webOS will be hitting before the end of the year as well followed by Android and Symbian in “early” 2010. RIM’s also gotten official with its rumored membership in the Open Screen Project, though the lack of a timeline for 10.1 support in BlackBerry OS is a stark reminder of the long technical road that lies ahead for Waterloo as it tries to match the smartphone competition tit-for-tat in the multimedia space. At the end of the day, mobile Flash means nothing without the horsepower to properly drive it, so let’s hope that Tegra, Snapdragon, and next-generation architectures like OMAP4 start to come on board en masse just as these builds come out of beta.

Speaking of fast chipsets, the other big news out of the show is that Flash 10.1 will take advantage of GPU acceleration on a number of key mobile platforms, including both nVidia’s Tegra and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon alongside ION for smooth (well, theoretically smooth) 720p and 1080p video on the latest generation of netbooks and smartbooks.

Update: Added video of the Palm Pre running three instances of Flash in parallel after the break.

Read – Flash 10.1 announcement
Read – RIM joins the OSP

Continue reading Flash 10.1 announced for just about anything with a screen, webOS and WinMo betas this year (update: Pre video!)

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A ton of good news about Adobe Flash 10.1: Full Flash is coming to Android, BlackBerry, Symbian, WebOS and Windows Mobile. and it’ll be actually GPU accelerated, meaning you can play back YouTube in HD perfectly. But the bad news?

Nothing for the iPhone. “Still a closed device and not much progress there,” Adobe told us as they gleefully detailed that Flash was invading basically every other smartphone. Also, we gotta wait until mid-2010 for the full rollout.

But, betas for Windows Mobile and WebOS are coming this year, with Android and Symbian early next, meaning you can get your mobile Hulu on before then. BlackBerry will be a bit longer, since RIM just joined Adobe’s Open Screen project. Supposedly, Flash won’t run like total garbage on phones, either, like Flash Lite. Fingers crossed, guys!

The GPU acceleration for Flash is the real deal, for sure, though—I watched a Star Trek trailer on YouTube HD on an Nvidia Ion-powered HP Mini 311 output to an external monitor, even, and it ran flawlessly. Which, if you’ve ever tried to play an HD Flash clip, even on full-fledged systems it molests CPU cycles, so just working on a $400 netbook very nearly deserves applause.

Flash 10.1 has a few other tricks too with full support for multitouch, gestures and accelerometer input—meaning it’d be perfect on the iPhone, if Apple would ever let it through. And make no mistake, Apple is the roadblock there, since Adobe said engineering work has continued (10,000 years later). The fact that full Flash will be on basically every single smartphone platform also makes that pretty clear.

If you want to spin that positively (my coffee cup is half-full, after all) the iPhone is now basically the only place you can go to flee from Flash, which basically covers everything like a pulsating squid thing with icky tentacles and stuff, ceaselessly stretching out to ensnare more. There is no escape. Except the iPhone. (Which kinda makes no Flash a feature, right?)

Oh, and the new Adobe AIR—TweetDeck, the NY Times Reader and other software runs on top of it—will slightly be less abominable, gobbling less memory and acting more like a real application, with USB mass storage support, multitouch and gesture input, and p2p powers for stuff like Skype and gaming.

Bottom line, It’s a Flashy world, we just live in it.

Adobe Unveils First Full Flash Player for Mobile Devices and PCs

Close to 50 Open Screen Project Participants Support New Browser Runtime for Multiple Platforms

LOS ANGELES – Oct. 5, 2009 – Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today unveiled Adobe® Flash® Player 10.1 software for smartphones, smartbooks, netbooks, PCs and other Internet-connected devices, allowing content created using the Adobe Flash Platform to reach users wherever they are. A public developer beta of the browser-based runtime is expected to be available for Windows® Mobile, Palm® webOS and desktop operating systems including Windows, Macintosh and Linux later this year. Public betas for Google® Android™ and Symbian® OS are expected to be available in
early 2010.

In addition, Adobe and RIM announced a joint collaboration to bring Flash Player to Blackberry® smartphones, and Google joined close to 50 other industry players in the Open Screen Project initiative.
Flash Player 10.1 is the first consistent runtime release of the Open Screen Project that enables uncompromised Web browsing of expressive applications, content and high definition (HD) videos across devices. Using the productive Web programming model of the Flash Platform, the browser-based runtime enables millions of designers and developers to reuse code and assets and reduce the cost of creating, testing and deploying content across different operating systems and browsers. Flash Player 10.1 is easily updateable across all supported platforms to ensure rapid adoption of new innovations that move the Web forward.

The browser-based runtime leverages the power of the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) for accelerated video and graphics while conserving battery life and minimizing resource utilization. New mobile-ready features that take advantage of native device capabilities include support for multi-touch, gestures, mobile input models, accelerometer and screen orientation bringing unprecedented creative control and expressiveness to the mobile browsing experience. Flash Player 10.1 will also take advantage of media delivery with HTTP streaming, including integration of content protection powered by Adobe® Flash® Access 2.0. This effort, code-named Zeri, will be an open format based on industry standards and will
provide content publishers, distributors and partners the tools they need to utilize HTTP infrastructures for high-quality media delivery in Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe® AIR® 2.0 software.

“With Flash Player moving to new mobile platforms, users will be able to experience virtually all Flash technology based Web content and applications wherever they are,” said David Wadhwani, general manager and vice president, Platform Business Unit at Adobe. “We are excited about the broad collaboration of close to 50 industry leaders in the Open Screen Project and the ongoing collaboration with 19 out of the top 20 handset manufacturers worldwide. It will be great to see first devices ship with full Flash Player in the first half of next year.”

“We are excited to join Adobe and other industry leaders in the Open Screen Project,” said Sundar Pichai, vice president of Product Management at Google. “This initiative supports our common goal to move the Web forward as a platform and to spur innovation in the industry through technology such as Adobe Flash.”

“Adobe Flash technology provides a key experience on new Windows phones, enabling people to enjoy rich Flash based games, videos and other interactive Web content on the go,” said Stephanie Ferguson, general manager, Product Management, Microsoft Corp. “We look forward to bringing in the new capabilities of Adobe Flash Player 10.1 to the Windows phone browser when it becomes available.”

“Motorola is excited to be one of the first handset manufacturers to ship Android based devices with Flash Player support early next year,” said Christy Wyatt, vice president of software applications and ecosystem at Motorola. “As the No.1 platform for video on the Web, uncompromised browsing of Flash technology based content is essential for a rich mobile experience and something users expect from Motorola today.”

“As a longtime partner of Adobe, and more than 400 million Nokia phones shipped with existing Flash technology to date, we are excited to see Flash Player becoming a reality for mobile phones and other mobile devices,” said Purnima Kochikar, vice president, Forum Nokia. “Nokia is excited about full Flash Player coming to devices and we are committed to supporting Flash Player 10.1 on mobile devices in 2010.”

[Adobe]