HTC "Omni" to take torch from Universal?
by Chris Ziegler 
posted Sep 11th 2006 at 1:37PM
Amidst a flurry of recent product announcements (and leaks) out of the HTC camp, their king-of-the-hill Universal (pictured) kinda got lost in all the hubbub. What's next for the psuedo-laptop of the Windows Mobile world? MoDaCo is reporting that the "Omni" will serve as the Hermes to the Universal's Wizard (if you will) by taking the Universal form factor, tacking on an HSDPA radio, and swapping out the Intel processor for a speedier Samsung core. As an added bonus, the Omni should be a bit slimmer than the model it replaces and rock Windows Mobile 5 AKU3, giving hope that the device will have VGA out capability. If HTC can finalize the specs in short order, we could allegedly see this thing as early as the end of this year, though 1H 2007 seems the more likely target.[Via Pocket PC Thoughts]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
hesh @ Sep 11th 2006 3:49PM
Make this mofo a phone and I'll pass on the TyTN for it.
Brian C @ Sep 11th 2006 6:28PM
Wouldn't it be great if there can be some sort of mini-USB to VGA adapter. with that I can take my PDA phone to a meeting and with the adapter plug my PDA to a data projector and present my Powerpoint slides. That would make the PDA truly a mobile office.
u07ch @ Sep 12th 2006 7:18AM
Nokia do a vga converter for their communicators which let you do presentations from them; imo they are easier to make a call on too (thinner = less hand strain)
We love the battle of the bricks at work
Uwe S. @ Sep 12th 2006 8:50AM
Where are the small, light phone devices with a 3,5 " display? Big displays are great with a pocket information manager! But the universal was to heavy.
And: Please save the sd-card slot!
Lina @ Sep 12th 2006 9:34AM
Does this mean it will have a 2700G GPU, or just something worse (for example, ATI ImageOn?) It'd be GREAT!
I also hope it'll already offer seamless conversation recording-capable hardware, unlike all the HTC models released so far.
The other stuff (more hardware buttons, HSDPA) seem to be cool, but why there is no external LCD to, at least, display the caller's number/name? The Universal is so less usable than the Wizard or other, non-mini-laptop PPC PE devices when not used with an advanced BT headset...
boe @ Sep 12th 2006 12:07PM
I'd love to have a full PPC WM5 phone (not smartphone) that had a VGA screen. However the Universal is yet another HTC brick. If you think that a THIN full WM5 phone isn't possible, check out this -
http://www.engadget.com/2006/08/23/tech-faith-wireless-sells-501-under-ubiquio-brand/
If they dropped the bottom half of the Universal it would be a GREAT phone. Granted, it wouldn't have the keyboard but I'd gladly toss that to get it down to a reasonable thickness. If they made the 501 without a keyboard but put in the full VGA screen, I'd drop my 6700 like the brick that it is!
I have no loyaltly to HTC even though I've had the 6600 and 6700 because HTC just keeps making their PPC phones thicker and they never bother to improve the BT on these things. They change the version of BT but the BT in the phone has the worst distance/strength even compared to phones 1/10 the volume!
Brian C @ Sep 14th 2006 4:51AM
I hope they would retain the SD, instead of going with miniSD or microSD. There are far more expansion options with SD. Like SDIO-GPS, SDIO-based DVB-H mobile TV that Philips has demo-ed recently. Unless of course if GPS and DVB-H are already built-in the device.
Jasper Janssen @ Nov 15th 2006 6:08PM
That thing may be a reasonable thickness, but it's either extremely large or the screen is damn small. Dropping the keyboard and the flip-hinge from the Universal would only save maybe 2-3 mm in thickness, and that would get rid of the keyboard.