Cutting through the C550 rumours...

[Guest Pondrew]

See the front page story on CoolSmartPhone about the compatibity.. and lack of flash...

AGH!!! That chuffing rotating advert at the top of modaco is getting on my nips... ;)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I didn't see the bit about programs/games not working in that article? Does that mean there's hope the emulator is just wrong?

[Guest Raven001]

This "update" to the C500 is a COMPLETE LETDOWN!! How long has it been in the making.. a year or two?

To recap: The camera and screen are the only worthwhile additions... everything else (media buttons, joystick) is a downgrade!! And no EDGE? Are they joking??

Color me extremely dissapointed....

[Guest drblow]

See the front page story on CoolSmartPhone about the compatibity.. and lack of flash...

AGH!!! That chuffing rotating advert at the top of modaco is getting on my nips... ;)

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Cheers Gears! :D At least that article contained some specifics!

Now then, plugins anybody?? ;)

[Guest guanche]

I know I have already asked this, but can anybody who has used one of these phones please post about the apps/games that work on it.  I can't understand why this hasn;t been discussed as it is going to be the single most important factor in my decision as to whther or not to get one.

Also, could we get a bit of info about the homescreen.  Will it still use xml, plugins etc?  And will 3rd party plugins work with the new screen size?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Regarding to the homescreens:

This document is from the Developer Resources for Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition.

I don't know what it will do with the pugins but could it be possible that the unsupported plugin's will also be emulated at +36% pixels?

QVGA Backgrounds

On classic Smartphone, the display is 200 pixels tall, with a 20 pixel area for the soft key buttons. On QVGA Smartphone, the soft key area is expanded to 27 pixels, which leaves 293 vertical pixels for the Home Screen. Therefore, you need to resize your background images to 240 x 293 pixels in order to target QVGA Smartphone.

In addition to re-authoring your background image, you need to add the following attributes to the Default tag in the Home Screen XML file:

Legacy Support

If QVGA Smartphone cannot find these property values in the Home Screen XML file, it will assume that the home screen was authored for classic Smartphone, and will emulate a classic Smartphone display by scaling all layout coordinates and graphics upwards by 36%.

As you can see from the following calculations, this scaling factor fits a 240 x 293 screen horizontally, but not vertically:

Width:  176 pixels x 1.363 = 240 pixels

Height: 200 pixels x 1.363 = 273 pixels

As a result, there will be 20 pixels at the bottom of the QVGA Smartphone screen which will be unused.  Smartphone will fill this area with the COLOR_BTNFACE color.

Edited June 9, 2005 by guanche

[Guest Paul [MVP]]

So in conclusion, original Smartphone homescreens are going to look rubbish on QVGA right?

/me makes a mental note to install one (such as MSN) on the QVGA SE emulator and take a screenshot...

P

[Guest drblow]

Paul - could you try that with a 3rd party plugin aswell? Please? ;)

[Guest Xenzo1990]

I may have missed something, but where is that annoying LED?

[Guest badgerarc]

Hmm...My Orange contract is up at the end of this month. I was rather tempted by the SE K750i, but the imminent release of the C550 is making me think again.......Anyone reckon over theC500 and K750i which I should go for - or wait for something else? I'm currently on an SPV E200 which has been cool, but is a bit dated now.

[Guest morpheus2702]

The SE K750i is a very nice well-featured mobile, but the thing that struck me about it was just how tiny the screen was!

Edited June 22, 2005 by morpheus2702

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

Here it is:

http://shop.orange.co.uk/shop/show/handset/spv_c550/detail

(no mention of wifi though ;p)

M500 on there too if you look at all Orange branded devices...