Work supplied me with HTC Trophy which runs Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) as it’s core operating system. I have been using this phone for a few weeks now as my main mobile and I would like to go through my thoughts on how it pans out as an all-in-one smartphone. The phone has no form of memory card slot and comes supplied with 8GIG Storage, you cannot increase this in any form (rather like the iPhone) but it does come with Microsoft Skydrive which allows an extra 25GIG worth of stuff ‘in the cloud’.

Setting up the phone

The first thing you need to do is install Microsoft Zune software and I am not sure what you would do if you only had an Apple computer of for that matter a Linux PC? Once the software is installed, it detected the phone and Windows went through its normal steps of finding hardware many times. It found an update, I left it installing and this went on for hours on end, by the time I was finished my phone was now running Mango (7.5) and all my data was intact.

Choosing what the Sync 

  The first thing I noticed was how unresponsive the software was, I am clicking Phone but nothing happens, it is doing something in the background you see (finding my music for example).

As you can see from the screen shot above, you can control how to sync the various items.  This works best for me as it gives me more control over what is on there. Talking of finding music and so forth, it operates on ‘Watched folders’ and in my case the music is stored on a NAS box, once I had added the folders (which took a bit of stabbing around on how to do this), off it went and added all my music collection. As I stated it was a watched folder, so anything new in there is added without any further effort from me, I just wish iTunes would do the same thing.

The phone itself

The Snapdragon 1GHz CPU is plenty fast for anything I have chucked at it so far which includes games. Mango operates on Two screen, the first been the tiles and the second screen is the complete list of apps installed on the phone.

Tiles provide a very quick way to display information, I can see at a glance on mine if I have any emails from my Google or Work email account, what is coming up in my calender and so forth. The three buttons on the bottom of the phone provide me with back, Windows Key (home) and Search. A long press of the back button shows a list of running applications and easy to get back to them.

Market Place

A Smartphone lives and dies by the number of applications a person can get there hands on and I was surprised by the large number of choices I did have. I can either use the zune software to find and install software or the phone itself. The way I rate any phone + Applications is how many free one’s you can get, it’s all very well been able to buy stuff.

There is no Skype for the phone, they claim they are making one and that will be great. Flash to my knowledge is not supported but there is a trick you can do and this involves telling the settings to do desktop mode on the browser and this allows some sites to show flash. I tested this with Justin.TV but there was no way to get it to run. Twitter is another example, it would have been ideal to have a live tile showing latest tweets but again this is not supported as of yet and Twitter is not buried deep enough so I can share things via it and so forth.

Battery life

At a guess I would say with phone calls and using the phone for various tasks gives you about 2 days worth of charge. The way I use the phone anyhow is having it plugged into my computer via USB (which charges it – yet iPhone does not) or I plug it into the wall at night when I sleep due to the fact I use it as an alarm clock. Like any Smartphone, battery life will be an issue due to how much it is doing, so nothing that bothered me in that sense.

Customisation 

 You can set the Wallpaper for the Lock Screen, you cannot set any wallpaper for the Tiles screen but you can change the colours in the settings menu. Rings tones are easy enough to set and you can set a ring tone per person if you really wanted to. I have for example set up one ring tone for work people, another for family and finally a different one for the wife, this way I can tell who is calling just by the ring tone alone.

Some odd things

I do like the compass application and how it overlays a map of where you are underneath, this is a nice touch and most other phones just show you a compass. Scanning Bar codes seemed to be a lot slower than any other phone I have tried, it took a long time to finally work out what it was and in some cases got the product wrong. I scanned some Champagne and it told me it was a box of coloured ribbons while the iPhone not only got the bar code in seconds but also got the right product.

Camera and video recording

You can check the quality of the camera at this site and I have attached a video as well showing it is capable of 720p.

The specs are 5MP 2560×1920 and it has a flash built in which was the major issue I used to have with my HTC Hero (as in it had no flash). It has a dedicated camera button and I personally prefer this over having to press the screen (as you do with the iPhone). Of course it is not as good as the latest iPhone 4S but it’s good enough I guess. It has no front facing camera and this alone would make it hard for Skype should it come along to video chat.

Overall

To round this review up then, I do like what Microsoft have done with the operating system, it suits a mobile phone well indeed. There is many applications I would want missing from the market place such as Skype and Justin.TV type of thing. It is no iPhone killer and it cannot compete with the sheer might that is Google (Android) but I am happy with it and saves me having to buy an iPhone for now.

The three main smartphone’s out there at the moment are Android, Apple and Windows Phone 7, of course there is a lot of makers of these phones (apart from the iPhone, only Apple make them). It just so happens that I have to hand three phones to compare, this been the HTC Hero (Running Android 2.1), a slow and small phone by today’s standards but it does give me a chance to compare. The wife has the iPhone 4S and I got a new work phone, the HTC Trophy, A Windows 7.5 phone. Is there a clear winner here? Will the iPhone wipe the floor with the rest? Onward to battle.

HTC Hero

Before we continue, this phone is well below the specs of the other two. The screen size of 320×480 and the fact it is only running from a 528 MHz ARM 11 means it is slow. One of the great beauty in my eyes of the Android OS is the fact you can find pretty much any type of program you need and normally for free. You can side load any program just by putting in a memory card and installing it that way.

While not relevant on this phone, you can get Skype and many streaming type applications to broadcast anywhere. The other fact is you do not need to sync this phone (you can if you want) to a computer, just put what you need on a memory card and you are good to go. It can do all the major function such as Sat Nav, Mapping, act as a camera, a music player and a whole lot more besides. My main gripe though was how fragmented Android got and for this I see this platform as a failure for now.

iPhone 4S

There must be very little I can write that people do not already know but my first and foremost thought on this phone is the fact that while many applications are free, most cost money. You have to Sync the phone initially with a computer running iTunes and if you own a Mac and a Windows Box, you cannot just plug into any, you have to sync with the computer you choose at the start.

While not important to me, the things that mattered on this phone was the ability to be easy to use (it is – it has one main button to press), notifications (just added with ios5) and be easy to type on. Siri to me (and my wife) seems to be a fun gadget to use but once the 5 minute of playing has been done, it is back to the keyboard.

HTC Trophy 

Recently I swapped my Windows Mobile 6.5 phone (HTC mini) for this model and it came running version 7. It seems you need Zune software to do anything with the phone and updating to latest (7.5) took many hours indeed. It reminded me of Windows actually, doing one update, rebooting then finding another update.

The speed of the phone is very fast indeed, the Metro OS is easy to use and has live updating tiles. There is no dedicated phone button so calling someone means you have to press one of the tiles, I made sure this was placed right at the top. I like the fact I can see if I have any emails, messages and upcoming appointments. The App Store (Market place) has quite a lot of programs, I was surprised as to how many there was.

What was missing though was the programs I might need such as Skype, any sort of Streaming type application and others. It has voice input (rather like Siri) and on my testing it worked better than I expected and I guess it has to do with accents. Siri for example got some things wrong as did this phone but at least when I search for Pizza, this phone actually brings the goods (Not working on Apple in the UK as of yet).

Thoughts?

The iPhone and the Windows Phone both have fixed storage which means I have to micro manage what I put on there. They also both need a program to sync things which means I have to use the one fixed computer. I much prefer the flexibility of have a SD Card to shove on what I want, increase the storage and so forth. I actually find the Windows 7.5 phone very functional indeed and much better than I thought it would be, it sort of does multitasking but only in the fact it suspends applications. It has no Front facing Camera on the HTC Trophy and the quality is not as good as the iPhone.

If I had to choose one phone out of them all from this list then? The answer of course would be the Apple iPhone but the windows phone comes a very close runner up for now.

Before I jump into the story, let me tell you a bit of background. I only have a paypal account as I sold some items on eBay many years ago and recently I used this method I think to buy something from eBay. As a general rule I do not log into my PayPal account, I have no funds on there and I honestly thought it was safe. Yet more background – my passwords are so hard (Uppercase, Lowercase, Numbers – no real words, longer than 12 characters in length) that I have to write them in a book which is secure. I would like to say that maybe Chrome saves my passwords but in the case of Paypal and the fact I had not logged into it for so long, it was not stored on this computer.

So what is the Hack you may ask? Well let me go through a sequence of events which all took place today and I am glad I carry a phone that shows my emails as they come in.

The flood of emails

The first email came in at 14:22, it read:

Dear Thomas,

You have initiated a PayPal Mobile payment for $1,080.00 USD to tommy1988tommy@yahoo.com. This payment will be completed once the recipient has accepted the payment.

It may take a few moments for this transaction to appear in the Recent Activity list on your Account Overview.

Currency conversion: £712.48 GBP = $1,117.02 USD

The exchange rate for this purchase is 1 GBP = 1.56779USD

Payment details

Amount: $1,080.00 USD
Transaction Date: 15 February 2011
Transaction ID: XXXXXXXXXXXXX (Not real)

Message:
I have recieved this virtual item will not charge back . Sent using the PayPal Mobile application.

As I get loads of these fake emails, I headed to my work computer to check it out, I got another email though at 14:27

Dear Thomas,

This Apple® mobile digital device was removed from your PayPal account: Owner’s iPod.

The next time you log in to PayPal on this device, it will link to your account again.

I do not own an iPod – this was swiflty followed at 14:43:

Your account has been limited until we hear from you

Dear Thomas,

We need your help resolving an issue with your account. To give us time to work together on this, we’ve temporarily limited what you can do with your account until the issue is resolved.

You can see the sequence of events taken place, somebody managed to somehow make a payment from my account via an iPod using the Mobile paying service and PayPal locked the doors quickly as they suspected something.

Checking the real PayPal

I was not sure if these emails were even real, never click on any links in an email in such a case and always just go to the site in question and log in to check it out instead – which is what I did. The first thing that annoyed me was it stated that this had gone through and would be taken from the credit card on my account. I would not be a happy bunny if $1000 left my credit card, I filed a fraud claim and I called them up. They assured me it will be dealt with and said no money will leave any account plus they will look into IP’s that logged in and so forth.

Security

When I did go to the page, it made me not only change all my details but also to confirm via phone various items and on top of this I have now switched on the SMS function that requires me having my mobile with me. On top of this I have removed any credit cards on there and my bank details.

Thoughts on this

My Password to my knowledge was secure and not easy to guess and why did PayPal lock my account down straight away after the transaction? Why do I not have access to see what IP’s address logged into my account?

I do know that once this is sorted, I am closing down my PayPal account. I have just checked with my credit card people and in fact they tried to take 3 x $1000, the 2nd two got denied and thus why my PayPal account got locked down I guess. The transaction is authorised but has not been collected from Paypal – this means while my account might show me as been £712 down, it has not physically entered into the other persons bank. If Paypal do not come up with the goods I shall have to go to the credit card side and get the money back this way.

My Advice since this happened? If you do use Paypal, make sure you remove the credit card after you have used it for the proper purpose.

** Update 16 Feb 2011 **

I got an email first thing this morning:-

We’ve finished reviewing your unauthorised activity claim and you’ll receive a refund for the transaction amount. It may take up to five working days for the funds to appear in your account.

Any portion of the payment that was funded with your credit card will be refunded directly to your credit card. You will see this in your transaction log as two entries. The first is the refund to your PayPal account and the second is the credit to your credit card. Credits to a credit card generally take two to three working days to clear, and may not

be immediately reflected in the card’s balance.

This is great news – but later tonight, I thought I better check Paypal and low and behond:

A Cancellation fee of $37.02 has been placed on my account – I reach for the phone. They said that a Fee for any transaction returned is paybale by the person of the account. My point here was that the account was used fraudulently (i.e. a crime had been committed) and yet PayPal felt the need to charge me for the fact? They explained that the money will be returned once it is all sorted and she could not put me though to anybody else as all the other departments were closed. There is no credit card assigned to that account now – will they try and take it off the card that was registered before?

I wrote another email and my plan of attack is as follows:

• Call the Credit Card company on Friday to verify that the money has gone back on.
• Get them to issue a new set of cards so no more money can be taken no matter what.
• Close the Paypal Account once this is all sorted once and for all.

*** Update 17 Feb 2011 ***

This now sort of concludes, I emailed them and they replied:

Thank you for contacting PayPal in relation to the unauthorized payment that was taken out from your account. I can sense the importance of this matter so please let me get to the bottom of this.

Mr. Hill, having reviewed your account it shows that indeed the transaction was proven to be fraudulent thus refunding you the amount that was taken from your card.

When a transaction was initiated PayPal will charge a corresponding fee and this will be paid by either the seller or the buyer which in this case was charged on your account. Since the transaction was cancelled, the payment fee of $37.02 USD has been cancelled as well. So therefore, PayPal did not take any charge on the said transaction and refunded you the full amount of £712.48 that was the amount originally taken from your card.

I hope I was able to address your concern today and should you need further assistance please don’t hesitate to contact us again.

I understand that you have been patient and understanding about this matter and it is very much appreciated.

I did call them up to ask why was my account comprised – they searched the records and could not come up with any answers. They suggested all of the following (Shifting the blame to me):

• I Clicked a link in a false email from Paypal and my account was stolen.
• There is a virus on my computer which stole the password.
• My Password was in fact very simple to guess.
• A Friend may have used my account (which of course I gave the password to).
• They plain just guessed the password.

Needless to say – I do not feel at all safe using paypal period and I will tell my story to all that will listen, I was lucky and got my money back quickly, you may not be so lucky.

Before the iPhone was even thought of, there was a phone that was doing video conferencing way back in 2003. The phone in Question was the NEC e808 as pictured above and I was part of the trail to see how the phone worked out as well as video conferencing. At the timne given the size of the thing, many people thought the phone was in fact a PDA and I remember getting some very strange looks at the train station when talking to people video video as well as voice.

Specifications

The size of the thing was 105x80x23mm – so quite a big phone and it weighed 200g.

It had a TFT which could do 65K colours producing 162×132 Pixels with 8 lines of text.

The camera could only do 352×288 pixels on a CIF image.

Why did I have it?

My Nephew worked at a company called ‘3’ and the offered they phone to him plus family and friends, I managed to get two of these I think. It was a free phone with a free contract and I had unlimited use to test it on all aspects. I spent most of the time while travelling home on trains testing it with my nephew and I remember the call dropping a lot. Quality of the video back then was quite good and I still have this phone somewhere but of cours eit has no service and is of no use now.

At work I got a replacement phone, the current model they hand out now is the HTC HD Mini which runs on Windows Mobile 6.5 and has a sense UI bolted on front to give it a Android type look. What HTC did was take the HTC HD2 and shrink it down to a more manageable size – of course going down in size means they had to cut back on some items such as screen size and processor speed.

Phone specifications

The CPU is a 600Mhz Model, this falls well under the 1ghz seen on newer and better phones and probably means games and such will be slow. It has 512MB ROM and 384MB RAM along with a Micro SD slot that takes up to 32GB cards. It runs Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional with HTC Sense bolted on the front. The camera is 5 megapixels with auto focus but no flash and has built in G-Sensor, Proximity sensor and finally Ambient Light sensor. Battery life (Quoted) is 400 Minutes Talk time and 500 Hours Standby time along with 12 hours of Audio Playback time.

The screen is Capacitive and runs at 320×480 HVGA – the phone weighs 3.88 ounces (110 Grams). Size wise – its 103.8mm in height, 57.7mm width and 11.7mm thick.

The Initial Setup

The Boot up time seem to take a long time indeed compared to many other phones I have seen such as my HTC Hero and the iPhone. It takes you through setting up any email accounts you may have and then moves onto the likes of Facebook and Youtube. Now while I managed to sign into facebook, no matter how much I tried, it did not seem to want to log into Youtube via the setup wizard.

The Various Screens

The first screen is the Home Screen and you can see that it displays the time and the weather (animated), if you now swipe up on the part that says Call History – it takes you to your Quick launch applications (which you can customise).

The next Screen is along is contacts – here you can add people so you can quick dial them, if they have no picture, it lets you select one or use any part of a large image for example. Finally we have the SMS Screen which you can swipe to read and reply to if needed.

The internet part is a choice of Opera Mobile 8 or Internet explorer (not sure what version). You get to add two main sites on the front screen and unlike the Android – it does not show a preview of the site. I have opened up my site as you can see and for most part it displays this just fine. I tired the various flash sites and this is were it fell over straight away. I tried to get Skyfire for this but no such luck installing the software. You can see the Calendar and as this is a business phone – this gets it from my Outlook at work. I am not sure how this ties in with say Google Calendar which my ANdroid Phone does very well indeed.

The email screen allows you to swipe you way through the emails as well as manage them from this screen, if you double tap on one email, it opens up in full screen. If you have many accounts, it displays various envelopes to show un-read messages in each.

The Music player looks quite good, you can quickly get to your library stored on the phone or the memory card. What I could not find though was a way to link to my NAS Box and play the music across the network. The Pictures slide shows both pictures and video’s and you can swipe through them, play them and so forth.

How did I get the screenshots?

Finally the Settings Screen, this is the button that looks like the Windows Flag – this allows you to get to installed programs and various settings of the phone.

I went to the market and installed a program (which was free) called Wifi Remote Access and this sets up either by wireless or USB a connection and a password. You then go over to your computer, bring up a web browser and insert the IP Address the phone has got, the phone will prompt you if you want to allow this computer to connect. You can now browse the phone contents, FTP into the phone (using any FTP client) and as you can see, look at the phone screen in almost real time (minus animations) and even control the phone from that web page.

Wi-Fi Router

As you can see on that screen above – you can use the phone as a 3G router, this is as simple as setting up a WEP key and such and away you go. You would of course need to make sure your data plan could withstand such a thing as the computer will be pulling a lot more data then using the phone. This could be very handy, say in a hotel to access your work and check the internet type thing.

My thoughts on the phone itself

I was never really a fan of Windows Mobile 6.5 and even plastering on Sense UI does not hide that this is not in fact an android. The market place for example has hardly any applications listed compared to Android and Apple. I could not find Skype, seems that Skype has pulled the only version they had and now concentrating on Windows Phone 7. I could not find a VNC Application, animated wallpapers and so forth.

What is more worrying is that the phone has no method for updating itself it seems, surely Microsoft has been updating windows for some time now yet struggled with 6.5? In the end I had to go off to HTC Main site, spent ages trying to enter my serial number and finally getting an updated ROM. The ROM Update actually failed twice before I finally managed to get it installed and my phone was back to Day 1, I had to set it up all over again.

The screen may well be Capacitive and I can pinch and zoom with the best of them but no matter how much I stabbed at that screen, more often then not it either picked a different row on the keyboard or never responded to my stabbing action. Every time I place the phone down, the dialler seems to come up – am I pressing a button by accident or is the phone sensing that by placing the phone on my desk I might want to ring somebody?

If I had a choice between an Android phone and a Windows Mobile 6.5 – i would choose Android every single time. It feels snappier than my HTC Hero on some parts but harder to understand on some other parts. Its nice and small, its provided by work and it’s free – so I should not grumble. 

This is by no means a ‘new’ phone and in fact I am sure you would be hard pushed to buy one today but it was a phone I got given to use at work and I thought it would be fun to write a review of this today age of touch screen phones running Android and such. I want to add that for a work phone, there is a few things I need this to do – given that I already carry about a HTC Hero Android phone running V2.1 – of course if I was offered one of the latest Android phones or the iPhone 4, I would not turn them down by any means. You can read more about the Palm Treo Pro on the Wiki Page for the technical specifications

The Size and looks

• Mobile phone, CDMA model with 800/1900-MHz bands, with EV-DO Rev.A data. Unlocked GSM model also available
• Built-in GPS with both Assisted and Standalone modes
• Qualcomm Dual-Core MSM7501A at 528MHz processor (400 MHz Qualcomm on GSM networks)
• 300 MB user-available non-volatile storage (105 MB on GSM networks)
• 128 MB DDR RAM (approximately 65 MB user-available on GSM, 45 MB user-available on CDMA)
• Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
• 2.36 in (W) x 4.49 in (L) x 0.53 in (D)
• 4.69 ounces
• 320×320 TFT flush touchscreen display
• Supports MicroSD and MicroSDHC cards up to 32 GB
• Built-In Bluetooth 2.0 EDR with stereo support
• 2 Megapixel digital camera
• Built-in 802.11b/g Wi-Fi
• 1500mAh Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery.
• Infrared port
• Current CDMA Firmware: Version 1.04

I would estimate it is about the same size as the iPhone 3G and even looks like one with the rounded corners but this is about the only thing it has in common. It is the same dimensions as my HTC Hero – maybe slightly bigger on the sides.

Keyboard?

This phone was made in the day when the Blackberry was the ‘thing’ to have and this means it has a tiny little keyboard underneath the screen. While this may look like it is easier to type stuff on, say passwords for example – this is not the case at all. To get to Uppercase, you press the key with the Up Arrow / Spy Glass. This is a one off operation and the next press will be lowercase. Numbers are even more fun, you hit the white key and this allows for one of the white numbers to be pressed, pressing a number again will result in a letter.

The Screen supports 320×320, while watching a video on this (Streamed), it looked grainy to be honest and it is not the biggest screen ever. It is a touch screen but good luck on actually hitting what you need. I calibrated this a few times and it seemed not to make a difference. There is an included Stylus on the bottom right – this did not make selecting stuff on the screen any easier.

Buttons

On the top we have a mute switched, this is very handy indeed if you are going into a meeting and such and along with this we have the power button. No Amount of me pressing that power button or holding it down switched the phone off – maybe a setting I need to change or something but odd none the less. On the side we have the volume switch and a camera button while on the opposite side is the wireless on/off switch.

The Camera

Much like the Camera built into the HTC Hero, there is no Flash to speak of and this translates into bad quality pictures and pointless if you wanted to take a picture at night – for example while out drinking or something. As it is only 2MP – this is only handy for the odd snap.

The Operating System

This phone runs Windows Mobile 6.1 and I need to state that this is a very bad OS for a phone. Why do I need a Start Button after all? I miss the back button and ended off quitting the program instead of going back to the main email list for example. I tried running some programs and it told me it could not as another was running (Windows Media Streaming) and the only way I fixed this was to reboot the phone (removing the battery) or go to the task manager.

Works Phone

As a work’s phone though, I need to know that an Email has come in, what tasks I am doing that day, reading off messages, taking calls and the phone lasting me the full day at the very least. I tried the Google Maps and the speed of it coming up was very slow indeed – this is probably due to the very low speed of the CPU and Ram. I could have reached my destination by the time the map had refreshed to be honest.

Hacking the phone

I had a quick look at it is possible to flash upgrade this phone to Windows Mobile 6.5 and add a lot of very nice features. Of course I do not want to brick the phone as it is not mine and I can live without the flashy bits for now.

If your a Fan of Firefox and own a Android or a Nokia N900 Phone – then your in Luck, there is a Beta version for you to try today. You can find out more HERE as well as download the latest nightly build. I shall be trying this and giving a much fuller report later but for now – you can check out the app yourself and report back your findings.

Ever needed to convert a movie file from one format to another, which includes FLV and you are sick to death of installing what they say is free but in fact is a demo? Well Look no further – Format Factory is a 100% Free Utility that will do the job you need.

Format Factory is a multifunctional media converter.
Provides functions below:
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All to MP3/WMA/AMR/OGG/AAC/WAV.
All to JPG/BMP/PNG/TIF/ICO/GIF/TGA.
Rip DVD to video file , Rip Music CD to audio file.
MP4 files support iPod/iPhone/PSP/BlackBerry format.
Supports RMVB,Watermark, AV Mux.

Format Factory’s Feature:
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2 Repair damaged video and audio file.
3 Reducing Multimedia file size.
4 Support iphone,ipod multimedia file formats.
5 Picture converting supports Zoom,Rotate/Flip,tags.
6 DVD Ripper.
7 Supports 56 languages

The smartphone war is well and truly underway, the big players including Apple, HTC, RIM, Samsung and Nokia are all vying for position in an already saturated mobile handset market.

Smartphone vendors are releasing handsets like never before but is it the best way to  increase the all-important revenue stream that keeps these companies in business?

To me, there are some fundamental mistakes that smartphone vendors are making when bringing their products to market and I believe they can be amended. All is explained after the jump.

1. Make All Smartphones Carrier Independent

When new smartphone handsets are launched, most are only available via one mobile carrier. A lone mobile carrier is quick to offer new handsets at lower prices, subsidizing the cost of the phone with a longer contract length in order to recoup some of the money invested in acquiring the phone.

This is dangerous, especially in countries where there are significant differences in the quality of service offered by different mobile carriers. For example, Apple have been scrutinised for offering the iPhone exclusively via AT&T, a network that customers have said offers poor customer service, bad coverage and costly tariffs.

Internationally, Apple initially offered the iPhone exclusively to one network but have since liberated the device, the company recently adding eight new carriers to reach of total of 151 worldwide. Cnet report that “including hardware, accessories, and payments from carriers, Apple made $5.3 billion off of its smartphone” last quarter.

It’s a bold move for vendors, especially as it impacts the companies that distribute its handsets. The market will always demand a choice, a mobile carrier should be one of them.

2. Concentrate On Quality NOT Quantity

Driven by Moore’s Law, smartphones also fall prey to being superseded by the bigger, better, more powerful device on the block. Personally, I have been in the position where I spend weeks trying to decide on a device that I feel is the best smartphone on the market, purchase it, only for the smartphone manufacturer to decide to release a new model that has double the processing speed and a huge number of extra features than my device the week after.

Back in December 2009, numerous tech outlets caught wind of the codenames of some of HTC’s upcoming handsets; Bahamas, Bravo, DesireC, Dragon, Dream, Espresso, Halo, HeroCT, HeroC, Hero, Huangshan, Incredible, Legend, Liberty, Memphis, Paradise, PassionC, Passion, Sapphire and Supersonic. Some of these have been released, some are due to launch very soon (a couple have been renamed).

I’m in the fortunate position to know how the HTC Incredible (due April 29th) differs from the HTC Evo (formerly Supersonic, due Summer 2010) yet the average consumer would have a hard time differentiating. Both devices offer 1GHz processing power, 512MB RAM, 8MP camera and run on the Android operating system, so does this mean the Incredible is being released to plug the gap until the slightly fuller featured Evo launches later in the summer? To me they are both great phones, why not release one instead of both and capitalise on it’s unique feature set?

If a customer purchases a new HTC handset, are they likely to be downcast when they learn that a new handset called the HTC Evo is due to be launch in 3 months and will feature 4G capability, HD recording and a front facing camera? My guess is yes.

3. Regularly Update Supported Devices

Most modern smartphones receive regular updates but its dependant on the device you own as to what software/firmware upgrades you can expect to get. If you own a smartphone that runs a proprietary operating system – in this case RIM, Apple and Windows Phone 7 – you are generally at the whim of the manufacturer as to what features are added when you do update.

As an owner of an Apple iPhone and a HTC Hero, I have experienced two entirely separate approaches to keeping a device current and feature rich.

Apple has been chastised for their inability to include what many mobile users consider default features; copy and paste, MMS and multi-tasking to name a few. But they do release steady updates for their customers, pushing the capability both old and newer iPhone models forward.

HTC on the other hand are very hit and miss. Owning a Hero, I have yet to receive the proposed Android 2.1 ROM update which has been threatening to be released any time now. My device is still chugging along on it’s default 1.5 Android build, yet Android 2.2 could be pushed to owners of Google’s Nexus One device as soon as May 19th.

The issue isn’t HTC specific but it doesn’t stop it being frustrating.

4. Increase Battery Life

The life of a smartphone battery is a short one, especially if the handset is in continual use. Handset vendors are constantly researching ways to get more out of Lithium batteries but most devices are unable to last a full day before they need recharging.

There are a number of different technologies in development that will allow for longer lasting batteries but in the meantime it would be interesting to see technologies such as photovoltaic cells incorporated into handsets to allow a handset owner to partially charge their phone using solar radiation.

Owning an iPhone, Blackberry fanboys will always play the “I get 3 days between charges” trump card when comparing the two phones. If a smartphone owner can get more than a day of use out of their handset they would be more likely to stay with the same manufacturer.

Conclusion

Most smartphone vendors are in a difficult position because ultimately it isn’t the vendors who sell devices to the end user. Agreements have to be drawn up with different mobile carriers to market and sell the handsets and as the mobile industry continues to grow, it’s the carriers who hold more weight with consumers.

What do you think vendors could do to retain your custom? Is it as easy as lengthening battery life or would it take something special to stop you ditching your current phone for an Apple iPhone or HTC Evo?