Toshiba TG01 with 4.1-inch WVGA touchscreen: a world's first Snapdragon
By Thomas Ricker 
posted February 3rd 2009 7:06AM
posted February 3rd 2009 7:06AM
Update: Oh man, the hands-on photo galleries from the London launch are coming up over at Pocket-Lint and Electricpig, the latter with head-to-head pics of the TG01 against the 12.3-mm iPhone 3G chubster and BlackBerry Bold. She's definitely a slim-lined beauty but we have our doubts about that stripey UI. Hey Tosh, where's the Android OS we saw running on Snapdragon at CES?
[Via Pocket-Lint and Stuff.TV]
damn, I chose the wrong time to buy a new phone...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJkw4Ffp2RY
Nice looking device but the inclusion of Windows Mobile makes this an automatic pass for me. *sigh*
In saying that, i WONT be switching to iPhone...its too "locked" and it doesnt have any turn by turn navigation software, so its out for me...but nobody can deny that Apple does have some good ideas...
@Richard Lai: I saw this post yesterday, http://wmpoweruser.com/?p=2683 , (isn't it sooo stimulating to be able to copy and paste 4rm a phone) and it should help with the video quality on the HTC Touch HD. As we know, SnapDragron was made to run on devices 4-10 in. So this is no longer a smartphone itz a freakin MID... but I'm luvin the 1ghz.... protential..... I wud like to see wat other companies cud do with this SnapDragon i.e. HTC, Apple, or an Android device(who wud care about the company dat made it).
burp
Ha, Apple is gonna rebrand it and sells it as iPhone... WITH Copy& Paste
I seriously dont understand the hassle people have with win-mo.....
i have used quite a few win mo devices n am currently using symbian. without being biased i would just say that after really using the iphone i'm still not impressed. the target audience just seem to be people who r not very keen on tech yet want something "higher end"?
I have never encountered a windows mobile crash even after really heavy use neither has my N82 ever crashed
The only thing i'm really jealous o in the iPhone is the media player......nothing comes close to coverflow.
Regarding this particular phone....i think they need to lose the stripes and it'll be a real awesome device. n anycase there are a huge number of skinning programs to make use of this amazing screen and personlise it............
Face it haters (engadget especially), Windows Mobile is the most powerful mobile OS available at the moment and its flexibility is what allows companies like Toshiba to come up with devices like this. Android is far from being as usable in its current state and doesnt support the enterprise and the iphone while being the leader in terms of userfriendliness lacks some features. The truth is there is a place for all these OSes at the moment, all have pros and cons and wont suit everyone. This is a great looking WM device (hopefully running 6.5 by its release date), fast processor making for speedy operations and that screen means it will be great for browsing, movies and enterprise functions like word editing and rreading emails.
Just sit back and enjoy the tech, if WM is not for you move on.
WinMo is a disaster. I was shocked to find that its user interface has not evolved at all since my Pocked PC device 7 years ago. To adjust screen brightness I have to click through FIVE menus, and each click has to be done with pinpoint accuracy - cannot do it on the move.
It is slow. It has perpetually unfixed bugs, like the voicemail notification that would not go away. IE Mobile is a joke.
Its old age is the only benefit -- lots of software available. Perhaps if you have one of those TouchFLO things some ugliness is hidden from you by the device manufacturer, but I have it raw.
Mmm, 1 gigahurtz (jigahurtz actually)
Yeah whatever.
Weird phone... Very thin, but very high too.
Preview and some more pics here in french http://www.mobinaute.com/255224-1eres-impressions-smartphone-toshiba-tg01.html
Two words:
New Zune
"1GHz Snapdragon chip that Toshiba claims makes the TG01 considerably faster than any device currently on the market"
The Archos 5 has been on the market since October with a Texas Instruments Cortex A8 processor, which in fact is about just as fast as this Qualcomm Snapdragon chip.
Toshiba needs to put Android on this device.
Oh man ! That hardware is HOT ! make it capacitive touchscreen and Im sold.
about that whole "revolutionary" thing though ..
WinMO 6.1 ? really ?
I'm not willing to be anti-MS or whatever but this WinMO 6.1 is ... dated you know..
Like in dated-really-is-not-revolutionary.
So this is just a idea I had, might be totally stupid, but.. well I have these friends of mine .. maybe you know them : GOOGLE.
Well Google has been working on it's own OS for "revolutionary" smartphones, and since it's free and opensource I was thinking maybe you could give it a try.. you know, for fun.
I'm excited about this phone it looks amazing and it wicked fast compared to all of the winmo phones and other smart & dumb phones. I am not certain about how long the battery would last though with a 1GHZ processor inside i can only think that the battery would be horrible but i can be wrong about that. Besides that i think the phone looks great and why do they have to put Win Mo on it?
Slim = fits in pocket. Large screen, true VGA, fast cpu? I am sold!!! WinMo is crap, with the good side that it supports all kinds of soft, including TomTom6 I currently have on my device.
With 4" screen (as opposed to my old 2.7" glofiish) and Snapdragon cpu this thing can replace netbook.
@jakem
Nice post about WM on a 4" device. One of my favorite all-time devices is the Toshiba e830 (PPC 2003SE) 4" VGA PDA released in 2003/4. I still use the device daily. 98% of the time, I use finger navigation; the 2% stylus use is usually selecting a weblink from a cluster of closely spaced links. WM on a 4" device is a joy to use, and much more finger friendly than WM on the 2.8" devices. Unlike the many negative comments about WM, I actually like the WM interface, particularly on a 4" screen. If you can use Windows on a desktop, you can use WM. If you want a more graphical interface, free or low cost shells are readily available for WM5 and WM6. I have tried various shells, and usually end returning to the original Today screen, or SPB Shell. The Toshiba e830 has been extremely stable, and reliable in the five years I have been using it.
I agree on the app store as well. I have been purchasing apps from Handango, Palmgear, Pocketgear etal for years. Not quite as convenient as the Apple app store, but I prefer being able to choose where I purchase an app, and the freedom to choose any type of application I desire, not just the apps that one company deems are ok.
One of the best apps I use on my WM devices is CorePlayer. CorePlayer looks fantastic on a 4" VGA screen, and can play just about any video codec without the time consuming prior conversion required with most other solutions. CorePlayer is not dependent on any desktop component. I frequently stream video from NAS to CorePlayer via WiFi, and add video via the SD or CF cards. After using CorePlayer on the 4" screen, the videos on the iPod touch's 3.5" screen seem cramped.
My last Palm OS device was a Sony Clie TH55 with a 3.5" 320 X 480 screen in a tablet format. Sound familiar - when Mr. Jobs first showed the original iPhone at MacWorld, I thought he was holding up a 2004 era TH55. Before the flames start, find an image of the TH55 on the web, and check it out. I also rarely use a stylus on the TH55.
Sorry that link was taken down. Here's another:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pXfHLUlZf4&fmt=22
Want It.
Snapdragon is awesome! Too bad it isn't running an updated version of Android! a highly optimized Android will scream on a 1+ Ghz Cortex-A8 based ARM..
WinMO is not the greatest, and the three pillars of "most used apps" is just weird in my opinion. Here is what the TG01 should have looked like:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jmoney1536/3252073433/
Toshiba should also release an Android version of this TG01. Then we can call it an iPhone killer.
That striped UI actually looks darned clever.
It looks like each app/category has its own vertical stripe, like movies, music, websites, photos, contacts, etc, with little pictures of associated files.
You move to the stripe you want, then scroll up and down through miniature pictures of each item, to the one you want.
If you can sort by date, alphabetical and most used, then it looks very useful and easy to figure out, even for my non-techie wife.
Am I just missing it, or does it NOT have a headphone jack ?
If not - my next wish would be for HTC to put out a Snapdragon version of the Touch HD...
WinMo does not deliver a full internet experience - you need a full browser like I.E. or Firefox. Some of these ARM devices also suck on web page rendering - sloooow. You need an Intel Atom processor for a great experience...
Still my Samsung i600 does all of that except GPS. But I fixed that with a bluetooth GPS. I still ain't gonna buy a new phone cause my i600 (They call it Blackjack in the USA) is cumstomizable and loadable with 3rd party software, it does internet, email, IM, Youtube, takes pictures and video (1.3 mp, ok you got me there), office dox, pdf, even divx with the right app. It does everyting AND has a full physical qwerty keyboard which works fine. It's a in 2007 bought 2006-model, but but who cares!? It weighs only 99 grams and is thinner than whatever other modern phone.