Guest Paul [MVP] Posted February 24, 2004 Report Posted February 24, 2004 Bitstream Thunderhawk has now entered public beta here. Details follow: Bitstream ThunderHawk SmartPhone Edition makes the Internet truly wireless, connecting you anytime, anywhere with a readable Web browser for cellular phones. ThunderHawk is a wireless Web browser that displays full Web pages that are easy to read on your cellular phone. Pages appear just as they do in your deskop browser. Images are full and crisp, and text is clear and easy to read. Some browsers reformat the page so you can read information quickly, but you have to scroll through several pages of text before you can find what you need. With ThunderHawk, you can find information fast and read it quickly. The split screen view shows you exactly where you are on the Web page. ThunderHawk formats text columns so you can read them in one column, without having to scroll left or right. Switch to the full screen view to see a large portion of the page in an easy-to-read format. ThunderHawk is javascript compliant, which means that you can use complex forms on your cell phone that you can't use with ordinary cell phone browsers. It supports rich, full-featured web pages with a high degree of compliance with open HTML standards. This removes the need for separate simplified content for wireless devices. Save your favorite websites to ThunderHawk for easy recall later, or use the address bar history to cycle through websites you've been to before. There is no need to relearn new Web browsing techniques. Point to and click links just like in your desktop browser. If you can use a desktop browser, you can use ThunderHawk. Looks promising... I'm off to download it :) P
Guest mattscholey Posted February 24, 2004 Report Posted February 24, 2004 Is it free? Will the non-beta be free? Been looking forward to this one. Matt
Guest nickcornaglia Posted February 24, 2004 Report Posted February 24, 2004 I dont read the site but the PPC version has a 30 day trial then was $45.00 or so a year. I would guess this will be the same. Well worth it if you do alot of surfing on regular sites. Going to download now.
Guest Paul [MVP] Posted February 24, 2004 Report Posted February 24, 2004 Keep us posted encece, didn't want to work on my phone :) P
Guest mwille Posted February 24, 2004 Report Posted February 24, 2004 This did indeed look very promising. I am however having some trouble with it. According to the manual if i choose "menu" "Go to" I should get an address bar to enter a url.. Not happening though. It just shows the bit selected in fullscreen. Tried it in every mode, no luck. Anybody have this ?
Guest stevewright Posted February 24, 2004 Report Posted February 24, 2004 Nope. Works ok for me! Thoughts so far: - There's no quit - The back key doesn't work to exit a menu - The scrolling is a bit too slow (I'm using an SPV1), which kinda defeats the point :roll:
Guest Skitals Posted February 24, 2004 Report Posted February 24, 2004 Not only does it look promising, but it delivers! This is so amazing. I have used this software on Pocket PC before... but it is so much more useful with the even smaller screen on a smartphone. Its about 10 thousand times faster then Pocket IE... i guess since it compresses everything on their servers or something but it doesnt strip anything out and it looks just like if you were browsing on your PC. This is really must have smartphone software... the only must-have i have installed to date.
Guest Paul [MVP] Posted February 24, 2004 Report Posted February 24, 2004 Doesn't work on the e200, so it looks like it really DOES work on 2002 only (as suggested on the website) :-( P
Guest abatis Posted February 24, 2004 Report Posted February 24, 2004 I have been using the beta for awhile. It works great on the MPX200. I could never connect to my company web email through the IE that came with the phone. This program allows me fully functional web browsing and secure web email. I like it.
Guest XRay Posted February 25, 2004 Report Posted February 25, 2004 I can't seem to download it. I've submitted my info several times, but the website just times out.
Guest zeta101 Posted February 25, 2004 Report Posted February 25, 2004 yup i have just been trying and had the same problem, there must be a temporary problem with thier site
Guest ClintEastman Posted February 25, 2004 Report Posted February 25, 2004 I can't seem to download it. Â I've submitted my info several times, but the website just times out. Same here! :)
Guest nickcornaglia Posted February 25, 2004 Report Posted February 25, 2004 Same Here....just tried 3 times...was just going to post when I saw yours.
Guest nickcornaglia Posted February 25, 2004 Report Posted February 25, 2004 Still cant download but look at the phone they have their screenshot on...on a different page. http://www.bitstream.com/wireless/index2.htmlsmartphone.jpg
Guest nickcornaglia Posted February 25, 2004 Report Posted February 25, 2004 The website was finally fixed. Downloaded and installed with no problems. When you initially start the program, it's about 10-20 seconds until you can use it because it immediately opens a connection and goes to the thunderhawk page. Navigating to most webpages averaged around 10 seconds depending on how long it takes the service to render the page then deliver it to you. And if your connection is still open between pages. For what you get back, I thought that was pretty good. It will render about a page and a half (on the pc)...if you scroll down far enough, it will need to render again. This is a good thing I think as it would take a long time for webpages that scroll down forever. Modaco.com looks pretty good, though it had a bit of trouble with the shadow on the ModacoDude overlapping the content in some areas, and it does ignore styling in some areas...but mostly pretty good. I was able to log in just fine. The program supports all text entry on the phone 123, abc & T9. I was even able to log into my company's Outlook WebMail, which uses frames, and use it to read/delete mail. I didnt try to respond but probably could. (This is the only way my company allows outside access to the exchange server mail.) Frames render pretty well in most cases. There is a cool feature that I dont remember in the PPC version and that's SPLIT SCREEN. You can either view full screen and scroll thru the page OR split the screen and you get a zoomed out webpage with a zoom window below (2/3 to 1/3 split). You can additionally use a zoom window or a curser that allows you to click on links or input fields. I just checked and MAN does this thing eat up KBs, explaning the lags at times. I didnt use my phone all day as I forgot to charge it last night. I just checked my data usage using All-Locations Traffic Counter and it said I used 744KB today. that was only viewing around 10 individual web pages. If you're on a limited data plan (I only have 8MB for $19.99/month under AT&T) then this may not be for you. It was a bit slow at times, and scrolling is a bit slow as well. But that's the price you pay to see virtually ANY webpage on your phone in a decent manner. ENCECE RATING: 3 out of 5 stars.ss002.jpgss000.jpg
Guest harriscohen Posted February 25, 2004 Report Posted February 25, 2004 Thunderhawk works very well on the Samsung i600. Though it does appear to coexist poorly with Xbar 1.0
Guest [email protected] Posted February 25, 2004 Report Posted February 25, 2004 Great review Encece, kudos.
Guest SmartphoneFrance Posted February 25, 2004 Report Posted February 25, 2004 This Beta Version is available here in CAB file format : - http://www.smartphonefrance.info/mobile/do...?ID=ThunderHawk
Guest flick556 Posted February 25, 2004 Report Posted February 25, 2004 I love this thing, it's the best app available for smartphone. Installed fine on i600 and web page loads times where more than cut in half for me, I have Vierizons high speed unlimited connection and I think most of the load time in IE was for reducing the size of images. The javascript support and frame support dramatically increase the sites I can go to, I definitely keeping this browser as my main one but there are a few problems. It crashes for me if If I try to go to the home screen or answer a call. The back button will go to home screen also and the program will need to be reloaded. I will still pay up to 20 bucks for this thing
Guest nedge2k Posted February 25, 2004 Report Posted February 25, 2004 Finally no more "this page cannot be viewed because your browser does not support frames" :) No ver for E200 thou :cry:
Guest justafeind Posted February 25, 2004 Report Posted February 25, 2004 it doesnt work on my spv it just comes up with screen saying THUNDERHAWK and stays on that any ideas???!!!1 :shock:
Guest nickcornaglia Posted February 25, 2004 Report Posted February 25, 2004 Works on pass-thru connections as well. You may want to test it there to see if there's a possible problem with your GPRS connection.
Guest pmerritt Posted February 25, 2004 Report Posted February 25, 2004 This program isn't gonna go anywhere. at 49.95 and $6/month or $50.00/yr i don't see many people picking this up. Or it will end up being cracked or something.
Guest nickcornaglia Posted February 25, 2004 Report Posted February 25, 2004 It's not likely that you'll find a crack (and we don't promote stealing software) as it's a service that you're paying for not just the program on the phone. The Thunderhawk servers render the page requested and deliver them to the phone. It's is a bit steep, but if you need the functionality... Plus the PPC version has been around for at least two years now, so there is more than just me using it (When I had a PPC).
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