Toshiba's TG01 makes official video debut
By Ross Miller 
posted February 4th 2009 11:14AM
posted February 4th 2009 11:14AM
posted February 4th 2009 11:14AM
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Sorry, i'll stick with iPhone/Touch.
I know I'm gonna get downranked for mentioning Apple, but besides that, I am 100% certain that the iPhone/Touch are driving the Asian manufacturers insane trying to come up with a device better than apple's without getting sued infringing on their hundred's of patents.
If their breakthrough platform is relying on IE for browsing and real player for video. I think I'd rather have 5 year old windows mobile device. It look like they just put another skin on WM6.1 anyway. Nothing new! Nothing impressive! Look like the Palm Pre still gets my $$$.
I don't believe you mentioned patents mate... engadget had a nice article about how Apple are infringing patents.
I will never own locked 2MP camera rubbish like the iphone being locked into a contract and software.
Why would you want to support a company that competes through patents? It's hard to imagine something more consumer unfriendly and anti-competitive.
@ chrisajames: It certainly DOES bring some new things to the table.
First, it's not using Real Player for video, it's using CorePlayer, which is IMHO the best mobile player on the market. Wide range of codec support, from FLV and mp4 to DivX and MKV. 720x480 videos play back well on a device that has at least a 400MHz proc. When HTC started bundling Opera Mobile 9.5 with their phones, I was hoping that the same thing would happen with Core.
I use it every day to listen to and view video on my phone.
The version of IE on the phone is 6on6, which has full html browsing, including decent Flash playback (640x360 FLVs from blip.tv play back at 6-10 fps on a 400MHz HTC Touch, and about 9-12 on a 523MHz Diamond). Not as good as Skyfire, but better than Opera's beta support. Opera still has a better user interface, but I'm basing that on a beta build of 6on6 so I don't know how the released version compares.
Not a huge fan of the form factor or the skin though, it's even bigger than the iPhone, which is too big for my tastes.
That said, I'm looking forward to the Pre as well. :)
"Asian manufacturers insane trying to come up with a device better than apple's"
Are you kidding? Most of their FLIP(!) phones have better features than the iPhone.
Why would you want to support a company that competes through patents? It's hard to imagine something more consumer unfriendly and anti-competitive.------------------
Because Apple is an AMERICAN company that turns out the best products on the market. You can't name a better phone than the iphone - and even if you did - I am certain it isn't as popular and it doesn't do as much - or isn't as flexible as iPhone is with new software.
You can't name a better DAP convergence PDA than Touch.
If I was Apple, I'd sue everyone infringing on my IP too.
Oh so you're a racist as well. Shame that Apple manufacture all their products in Asia.
take your head out of steve's butt and you'll see theres tons of phones thats better than the iphone!
example: HTC touch HD? with 5 megapixel camera and omg... a replaceable battery? that unbelievable!
@Flashpoint
A better phone than the iPhone, WTF:
HTC Touch HD!
I'm not sure if you were being sarcastic.
It does more, and is way more flexible, supporting way more applications out of the box
Are you FKM?
oh flashpoint, how many ways are you a loser, let me count the
1) of course you'd stick w/ your iGarbage. i think if you were in a life n' death situation, going down in a plane and some presented you with a parachute, you'd probably say...no thanx, i'll stick w/ my iphone, it can do everything :)
2) apple is just as bad in terms of patent trolling as those unheard of companies in texas and cali that always sue companies like sony, MS and nintendo for patent infringement on their gaming devices. Apple honestly patents things that are not at all revolutionary, hoping that people will infringe on them to make money. I can understand patenting a UI or some of its trademark features, but how the hell can they be getting on palms case for using...what amounts to desktop icons? shoot, why limit it to the cell phone arena. they better file suit against MS/Linux for using desktop icons too. Any sony and nintendo for their gaming systems.
3) "You can't name a better phone than the iphone - and even if you did - I am certain it isn't as popular and it doesn't do as much - or isn't as flexible as iPhone is with new software."
do i even need to critique this? Does anyone remember Handiman from in living color? it isn't much of a shocker that MANY people called the iphone a crippled device. flexible? ehh...moving on
4) "If I was Apple, I'd sue everyone infringing on my IP too. "
gah'd its good that you're just a fanboi, and not a chief exec w/ them....
Nice.
Wow, look almost good enough that I could suffer through windows mobile. great screen but seems too wide for a pocket.
That colored stripe interface is over-the-top hideous.
Looks like a nice device, gotta remember too that it will be upgraded to winmo 6.5 as well.
exactly. in fact, this has the potential to be the first upgrade to 6.5.
Heck it's even got potential to be upgradeable to WinMo 7
the only thing i'm worried about with this phone is the size; it might be a little too big. i can't wait to check it out in an at&t store (hopefully!) to get a feel for it.
Will microsoft rebrand this to the Zune Touch or Zunephone?
Does the Zune exist anymore?
The phone does look beautiful and IE6 and CorePlayer are both welcome additions. Can't say I'm a fan of the interface though. The rotating louvre transitions are distracting and get in the way of simply moving the panels from side to side to expose a new panel.
What is quite cool is that each panel also slides in the vertical axis to expose more shortcuts, and it looks like the links are not just limited to programs but also media files and webpages which appear as thumbnails. So it looks like it is more than a launcher.
As for the colours, well I guess they have to be fairly bright to enable differentiation between panels. Hopefully Tosh will allow slightly less garish options. If you really hate it you can always turn it off and put on some other interface. This is Windows Mobile after all, so the option is at least there.
Im not feeling the interface in the slightest, but i sure am feeling the hardware specs. Just wait untill the XDA-Developer community get their hands on it.
Yes! It comes with Core Player! Without a doubt, it is the best media player for mobile devices. I wonder why many mobile devices do not embrace it as a standard.
OMFG....amazing. I can't wait to see this in real life.
I can't believe this phone isn't getting more attention. Its 1Ghz... damn that fast!
I'm gonna really stay tuned to this phone as I am wanting to upgrade to a newer WM phone this year.
I don't understand why people would buy a WinMo phone.
Features.. customization... expandability...
Why not?
Then I guess you don't understand why people like to be productive on their phones
MS Office
RDP
Internet Sharing (out the box)
Citrix Presentation Server Support
More applications than any other Phone OS
The phonelooks really cool, but I'd turn off the Today Screen addon UI and just use the standard WinMo interface or add on TouchFlo 3D cause this one Toshiba came up with is kind of ugly.
Thanks to the WinMo OS, it's entirely possible. Better yet, no "Jailbreak" software required.
count me in for one, when and if it comes to USA. will it play ogg? i'm certain it will. i assume it will have camera/video capture, but will it have flash? i was gearing toward an omnia but this is nice and packs more power than my first computer, way back in 1998!
Yeah it will play everything - including all DRM'd formats.Yes, camera/video capture - and yes, it will have flash. It's gonna feature a 35x optical zoom with an amazing 350x digital zoom (without darkening or artifacting). Still better, it will play Xbox 360, Wii, PS3, and PSP files.
Barack Obama already has one and it's been cleared by the NSA, too!
Beastage: could you perhaps find that engadget article about apple patents?
Its about time a phone came out with 1ghz this will make WinMo 6.5 or 7 to be really good as an UI. If you ask me they need to put 4 of those snapdragon chips in that phone for 4ghz.
I literally drooled over the hardware specs, but the UI still looks like crap. Arg, I'll try and get my hands on one and see what's what.
We are so quick to forget the new HTC Touch HD versions coming out this year with interfaces that aren't painful to look at...
Well, I have a Nokia N810 and they have identical dimensions.
The TG01 is thinner 10mm vs 14mm but the N810 does have a full keyboard.
I love the N810 to death but:
1) Its not a phone and I have carrying 2 gadgets with me.
2) Its kinda slow when surfing the web. When you're scrolling up and down, it had problems keeping up.
I guess the TG01 solves these 2 problems.
The size is not a factor for me.
I love the 4" screen for the web and photo viewing.
Looking at the TG01, I don't think they can trim much it except the sides.
Can't really trim the bottom and at the top, the extra room is needed for the camera on the back.
that is one sweet phone, for us older guys a larger screen is nice. for us guys who who windows mobile office its even better. problem with HTC (i currently use a HTC7501 aka athena or advantage) is that there support sucks, there drivers suck even more. i mean i love my 7501, but i get my support from xda-developers not from HTC.
anyway that phone would be sweet for me.
As far as WinMo phones go, this could be their God on the hardware level. The specs should allow the phone to chew through the inherent slowdowns WinMo brings. Sadly this whole custom UI bs is not helping the mobile phone industry, and neither is the lack of a capacitive touch screen on a 4" screen phone.There was an article recently explaining how it doesn't make much business sense to create an app for Mobile phones outside of the Iphone because of its broad reach, this is exactly what a real competitor needs. The first company to at least equal the Itunes/App store distribution method is going to move units. I wanted this from Android but right now its not even close. More pixels and bigger screens don't fix the software issues Windows Mobile faces. And just to qualify my dislike of WinMo, I've used several WinMo phones including a T-mobile Dash and it was literally light years behind Android and the Iphone, it might have all the features in it's nested menus, but there is absolutely no convenience to the OS.
Look the problem with wm 6.1 was speed the reboots. The fault is that it was not made to run on thoes phone out there with the new snapdragon you shouldn't have thoes problem. Look at Apple if they didn't went the route that microsoft did and let other people make there phones the would have the same problem. Now if this phone came out with windows mobile 7, a 4ghz chip, Tegra APX chip, 64gb of memory and 100gb sd card slot. This could be the phone for 2009
@siralderan
I agree completely! I would also add Blackerry and the upcoming Palm Pre to the "good" list, along with the iPhone and Android. Honestly, I have unfortunately never used Android but I have seen videos and it looks amazing. And for those claiming WinMo is the only OS that can do work, ever heard of Blackberry. It's the ultimate work machine with a UI miles better than WinMo. I personally got the iPhone because I loved the App Store and the design. And to the person who said that there isn't enough apps for the iPhone, is 10,000+ not enough for you?
The new IE looks incredible.
Can you go back to TUAW where you belong?
MMmm, I want the TG01 so bad! With Opera though, of course. Come on, Sprint!