TamsPPC - the PocketPC Blog

Nowadays, having an MP3 player running in the background is a no-brainer for the average workstation or laptop. Unfortunately, PDA processors aren’t as fast - decoding a fat, high-bit rate ogg file slows my Treo down quite a bit.

The folks at SmartphoneMag’s now did a comparison of CPU usages - amusingly, Resco Audio Recorder came out leading the pack. Windows Media Player was among the worst products, beaten only by HTC Audio Manager and two small apps from mostly unknown developers.

As CPU usage also indicates power drain, a program that needs less processor power will lead to longer battery life while playing MP3’s with the screen turned off.

Their full list is available at the link below - give it a click when it comes to choosing your favorite media player:
http://www.pocketpcmag.com/cms/blog/9/audio-player-cpu-and-therefore-power-usage-benchmark-update

This one will make all those of you who recently updated to Windows Mobile 6.1 very happy: Skype has just released a WM 6.1-compatible version of its name-giving product for PocketPC devices.

Version 2.2.0.45 is explicitly designated as Windows Mobile 6.1-compatible and can be downloaded from the Skype web site for free.

As for Windows Mobile Smartphones: as of now, no WM 6.1-compatible version has been released for them,. However, I believe that it is only a matter of a few days until an update will become available…

A forum member of xda-developers.com has found out that HTC’s new smartphone called “Diamond” (also known as T-Mobile MDA Touch Diamond) - which is almost identical to another new phone, HTC Raphael (T-Mobile MDA Vario IV) - has USB host capabilities. (link to forum thread)

After building a special cable which allows to connect USB devices to the Diamond’s connector and has a separate power supply, he did a reset which allows to flash another firmware into the device. Then he connected a USB stick (mass storage) to the Diamond and the firmware was loaded from the stick.

Nevertheless, this seems to be just a tool for a repairing service - the stick does not appear in the file explorer. And even if it worked, maybe with a driver from another Windows Mobile PDA, it would probably need an own power supply. But perhaps, there will be further news on this topic in the next weeks …