A lot of questions are coming in now on the HTC Shift. Thanks. Nice to see so many people interested. I’m actually tracking questions on this forum thread and pulling them out into an FAQ so please continue to ask even the simplest questions.
Since doing the unboxing and live session, I’ve been testing, videoing, doing a new photo-set and breaking the HTC Shift. Yes, no-one tests like Chippy tests! I appear to have messed up SnapVue and have lost the home screen leaving it pretty much useless (although email is still running in the background and giving me notifications which is pretty much all it does anyway!)
[more after the jump]
The big question that I keep asking myself, in between thinking ‘grrr, battery life’ or ‘grrr, only 13GB of disk space’ is ‘How much better is it than 2006 UMPCs?’ When I look over the desk to the Q1b I think ‘Wow’ The Shift is a mini notebook device with a better slate mode than the Q1 and yet its smaller and lighter. Its also well-priced and comes with HSDPA! Incredible. One thing I am disappointed with though is using it as a slider device. Its not that good. Slightly too heavy, pointer positioned in the wrong place, keyboard slightly too wide. Its not the 3-way device I imagined and the OQO remains king of that hill.
A new gallery of ‘clinical’ shots is also available.
Anyway, i’ll stop there and leave you with some ‘media’ The first is an image of a Windows Mobile game that I installed by mailing myself a CAB. It installed which opens the door for some nice enhancements although you have to remember that I appear to have a beta version of the SnapVue software. HTCs debug utilities are included and the file manager is there. They might close that back-door off although I’m sure that someone is going to find a way in through the virtual COM port that exists under Vista for the purpose of inter-device communications. (Mobile device center doesn’t be able to build an activesync connection through this though.)
Secondly, here’s a short video of the WM Solitaire application I found in the WM filesystem.
Finally, here’s a video showing how efficient the keyboard is. Its not a touch typing keyboard but its much better than, say, the HTC Advantage. The video also goes through three battery life scenarios. Typing, browsing and video usage.
Reminder, the unboxing video is available either on YouTube (part 1 and part 2) or at Blip.TV. in various formats.
The galleries are all here and finally, all the specs and news links are summarised and updated on this page. You can also track new HTC Shift news, both from UMPCPortal and from other sites via this RSS feed.
Subscribe to the HTC Shift link feed
The HTC Shift is on loan to UMPCPortal from Expansys who should have their first shipment in the 2nd week of December. I hear that there are already pre-orders in so get in quickly before the first shipment gets booked out! They are also offering Internet access bundling deals in the UK which can net you a nice discount on the cost of the device. [umpcportal news]
