A review of the Creative Inspire T10i speakers

Quite a while ago I reappropriated my old HTC Magician as an internet radio. The set up was a bit convoluted, but worked quite well. in the interim, however, the phone was requisitioned by my parents and I went back to listening to my internet radio on the PC. I still think this is a bit of an overkill, and there is something vaguely annoying about having to boot up my desktop to listen to a bit of streaming Christmas music. Time to come up with another solution!

While I no longer have the phone, I still do have the SanDisk WiFi SD card and indeed the bluetooth speakers. The bluetooth connection was a bit wasted though, since the only PDA I have lying around at the moment is my old hp iPAQ h2210. This has bluetooth but does not support A2DP. In truth, the Acoutic Energies don't have the best sound anyway, with rather muddy basses and wooly highs. So I figured it was time to look for a new pair of speakers.

In the end I settled on a pair of Creative Inspire T10i speakers. I have had a really good experience with Creative's before and I know that in their price range their speakers really are unparalleled. I originally wanted to get one of the fancy X-Fi speakers since the music playing out of my PDA will have been digitally compressed. Most internet radio streams run at a feeble 96kbps I believe, and it would have been great to have some of that fleshed out using the X-Fi crystallizer system. I'm not going to argue the case for X-Fi, but suffice to say that response to it is a bit subjective - I love it for digital music.

Unfortunately, X-Fi systems come at a price premium and I didn't want to spend more than fifty quid on it. I found one review of the T10is on line and it was really positive, so I figured I would give them a shot. Even so, I was heading rather blindly into the purchase. I ended up spending just under £30 for the speakers on eBay and have to say that for the price the sound really is stunningly good.

The speakers themselves aren't particularly huge but they have a tweeter and a mid-sized cone, as well as a bass port exiting at the top. The right speaker has the volume and tone control knobs, and at the back a power and audio in port. This being the T10 'i' variant, it also came with a dock for an iPhone or iPod Touch - clearly this is something I do not need. As I mentioned, I am streaming internet radio through it at the moment, and the basses are rich and punchy with clean, crisp highs and rounded mids. The sound is really beyond what one would expect for speakers in this price range. Strongly recommended and well worth it: if only because I can now listen to O Come All ye Faithful without first hearing the Windows startup sound!

A quick review of the MSI Wind

The demands I place on my portable devices aren't great. I generally use them for the odd bit of word processing or spreadsheet data entry, and if I am particularly adventurous, might also read emails or surf a bit of the web. That is why until now I have been quite content with my combination of an old handheld PC and an old XP notebook. Then the MSI Wind came along, and it met my needs for a lightweight, relatively powerful and suitably cheap computer, and I rushed out (or actually, logged on) and bought it.

As a portable device the Wind in its Advent 4211 incarnation is a small and light notebook. It feels about the same weight as my MobilePro 900C, and much lighter than my Fujitsu Lifebook P2120. As it happens, the Wind is significantly thinner than the Lifebook (it lacks an optical drive after all) but still deeper than the MobilePro, so the latter still wins on size. However, I never really understood the point of laptops smaller than this because, to me at least, the reduction in usability is not made up for by the gain in portability. After all, unless the computer is the size of a mobile phone you still have to carry a bag to put it into.

The most major advantage of the MobilePro is that it boots instantaneously; it is, after all, running an embedded operating system. In contrast, the Lifebook with its 800MHz Transmeta Crusoe processor used to take nearly five or six minutes to boot up into XP! So my usage patterns of the two devices varied. When I am out and about, but with access to a regular desktop I'd carry the H/PC, but when I was travelling it was the notebook which would go with me.

To be honest, I hardly ever do a cold reboot on my XP systems anyway, preferring to hibernate over shutting down. The Lifebook could just about do it, but a wake up would still take a couple of minutes, so it was still frustrating and nowhere near as convenient as the H/PC. Thankfully, the Wind is running Intel's new Atom processor and has a healthy 1GB of RAM. That means that it does boot up quickly, and it takes a very tolerable 15 seconds to go from hibernate to a useable desktop. The processor and RAM combination means that once you are booted up, there is just so much more you can do.

I like to configure my desktops (one I use for sound/ video editing and website management, and one which I use as an HTPC) with Rocket Dock, Yahoo! Widgets and a Vista-esque skin with transparency, animation and drop shadows. Until now I could never ever dream of doing that with the Lifebook without it being crushed. In contrast, the Wind desktop looks and behaves exactly like my desktop. In itself, this is just eye candy, but it reflects how well the system is able to cope with multitasking and processor intensive activities. Until now, for instance, I would never have been able to reencode a video using Super which simultaneously watching a show on BBC iPlayer on my laptop, but this is handled with aplomb on the Wind.


The main purpose of the MSI Wind is as an internet connected device, and this it handles very well. For one thing, the all-important wireless connections of Bluetooth and WiFi are built-in which means none of the nasty PCMCIA cards/ USB dongles of my former two devices . I’m using Firefox 3, and it handles the Silverlight-based ITV catch up website with no problems at all. Flash videos play as well on the netbook as well as on my HTPC. Better yet, the built-in webcam means that I can Skype/Windows Live Messenger my parents and friends on the other side of the globe wherever I am. This is not, I hasten to add, always a good thing. None of these are things which I could ever do on my MobilePro, and only with great difficulty on my Lifebook. It does not have any GSM/3G technology built-in, but internet connection sharing using my phone is not a problem. This means access to the web is feasible even when I am away from WiFi.

I realize that I am making the MSI Wind sound totally wonderful, and there is no doubt that it has almost supplanted the MobilePro 900c and the Lifebook P2120 as my portable device of choice, but it is not all a bed of roses. My first and most major complaint is the battery life. Now I admit that all those wireless radios do suck up the juice, but I would expect more than 2 hours on a screen at half brightness with wireless off. With wireless on I am barely eking out 90 minutes of uptime. On my Lifebook I was probably doing no better, and in fact the productive time was probably less as I waited for the processor to grind through things, but with the 900c I was easily getting four hours and more on a full charge.

Secondly, unlike the Lifebook, there are no hardware quick launch buttons. I have taken for granted the ability to launch Firefox with a single button press, and while launching a program from the dock is not a huge hassle, it is less convenient.

Thirdly, the MSI Wind has a track pad. I am well aware that users fall into two different groups as far as track pads and pointer nipples go, but I am very much a fan of the nipple (oh ho ho!) as it is implemented on the Lifebook. The Lifebook also has the all important third mouse button which enables opening of links in new tab in the web browser. I’ve still not figured how to do this in a convenient way on the Wind. The 900c is even better in that it has a touch screen and, apart from price, it baffles me as to why this was not incorporated into the Wind.

Fourthly, the built-in speakers are very feeble. I can understand that they decided not to put it under the palm rests. This is an annoyance for me on the Lifebook in that you are always covering the speakers with your hands while typing. But the fact that they are on top means that the sound passes through unobstructed and the Lifebook actually doubles up as a pretty good DVD player. There is no optical drive in the MSI Wind, but to be honest, I rarely used it in the Lifebook, and if I really need it I can use a virtual one with Virtual Daemon Manager, or if pushed, use an actual USB external drive.

Many reviews I have read on-line go on about how wonderful and spacious the keyboard is on the Wind; it certainly is when compared with the EeePC, its closest competitor, but is about the same size as the keyboard on the Lifebook and the 900c. But size really isn’t everything, and the keyboard on the wind has a very solid feel to it, with very good key travel. I can type without problems on it, and it beats the fragile feel of the Lifebook keyboard hands down. With the Lifebook it feels like you could mistype, jab your fingers under a key and pop it off all too easily.

So, all in all, I think I am really enjoying my new gadget. It has finally supplanted my duo of a Handheld PC and a subnotebook, in a convenient, attractive and inexpensive package. I’m very pleased with it!

A review of the HTC Touch Diamond

It has now been a week since I upgraded my phone to an HTC Touch Diamond. I’m on Orange and have been using its spiritual predecessor, the SPV M700 (HTC Trinity) for quite a while now, so this review is more to do with how the transition went. I’m very sceptical of upgrades because I realise that technology doesn't move all that quickly, and a new case does not a worthwhile upgrade make. Moreover, most of the time I suspect that the mobile phone operators are out to fleece you. This time was different though, because the iPhone 3G has just been released on O2, and it is a powerful bargaining chip with Orange.

Anyway, after speaking to customer retentions I negotiated an 18-month contract which includes 600 minutes of mobile/land line calls, unlimited text messages and 250MB of data, all for £30 a month. Crucially, it also gives me the unlimited home broadband deal (8Mbps ADSL and an Orangebox) for just £5 a month – a great overall saving which, to be truthful, keeps me loyal to them. I also got the HTC Touch Diamond (or as they call it, the ‘HTC Diamond’) for free. This compares well with other flagship phones which I would have had to pay for otherwise.

So what do I think of it after a week of use? Well, from the outside I must say that it is one of the most beautiful phones I have ever had. I really like the angular shape, the flush screen and the faceted back. It certainly compares favourably with my old HTC Trinity – with the leather case on the Diamond is actually still smaller than the Trinity! In fact it is significantly smaller than the iPhone and the N95 8GB, the much touted competitors of this phone. I can slip it into a pair of tight jeans without gouging myself in the groin.

Such minimalism does come with a few caveats though: the first is that there are much fewer hardware buttons on this phone. Although the traditional windows and OK button are missing, they have been replaced by the home and back keys. Significantly absent, however, are the voice command, recorder and camera buttons. The Trinity also had a fantastic scroll wheel and an extra OK button. I never normally use these buttons as they are designed but reassign them to launch specific programs. For instance, in my Trinity the camera button would launch the communications manager - really helpful for turning WiFi on and off.

There are no such hardware shortcuts in the Diamond, and all of these functions have to be launched instead through the touch screen interface. Although the touch wheel on the front of the device is capable of scrolling in certain programs, it is admittedly not as easy to use as the true wheel on the Trinity. Thankfully, the interface is a wonder to behold – TouchFlo 3D is easily the prettiest interface I have ever seen on any of my phones and combined with a VGA resolution (640x480) everything is in sharp technicolour. I was running Windows Mobile 6.1 with loads of interface tweaks on the Trinity, including the old TouchFlo as seen on the HTC Touch, and while it was a breakthrough at the time, this is so much better and it certainly has that wow factor, even after seven days of use. I get bored of interfaces after about a week, so it is doing well!

I notice that people have complained that the screen is unresponsive or sluggish, but I certainly have not found that to be the case at all. However, I must preface that with the confession that I am also one of those people who loves hacking the phone, and even before properly using my Diamond I had already downloaded and installed the tweaks available from xda-developers. This is not to be underestimated as a resource for optimizing and expanding your phone. The two key programs I installed are the TouchFlo 3D configurator and GSen, a program which enables the use of the accelerometer to rotate the screen.

Interestingly, Orange have decided to eschew any form of customization on the Diamond, and the only sign that it came from Orange is the very discreet logo on the battery case. In fact the Diamond thankfully includes a stock version of Windows Live Messenger, without the Orange (pay-for) customizations. Apart from the built-in apps I loaded on my usual set of must-have programs - Mobipocket, Vito Sound Explorer, TomTom 6, JB Piano, and 1-Calc Lite - as well as a half dozen or so games. I’ve also put Core Player on there for .avi video playback. I've also paired it with my ThinkOutside bluetooth keyboard. Everything works as it did on my Trinity, but seems speedier overall in terms of load times, and TomTom even gets a faster fix on the satellites from a cold boot (20s or so versus nearly 2 minutes on my Trinity).

I have also now set up my Google and Yahoo! email accounts so the phone pulls emails off the servers throughout the day. With web-browsing, RSS feed and weather updates as well, it is just as well that I a lot of data is included in my package! One thing I will add though, is that I have turned off 3G most of the time as it is a real battery sapper, the second major caveat of having such a small size and therefore a small battery. With 2G most of the time, apart from 3G for the odd bit of browsing, I am averaging 16-18 hours of battery life each day. Not great, but also not bad for such a tiny device.

In the end I am surprisingly happy with the HTC Touch Diamond. Many reviewers compare it with the iPhone 3G and the N95 8GB, but both of the latter two devices are more expensive and far larger than the Touch Diamond. In the end, in terms of actual useability, portability, functionality and value for money, I do think the HTC Touch Diamond is a winner!

My Zodiac in 2007

As I mentioned previously, one of my not-too-recent purchases was a Tapwave Zodiac. I am not all that familiar with Palm as an OS, although neither am I a complete novice: my first ever PDA was a Sony Clié SJ20. This was a small greyscale affair which was great for PIM functions and the occasional eBook, but which was totally unsuitable for mp3 playback or gaming (yes, I do have both the attachments). After that I moved on to the iPAQ h2210 which was a breath of fresh air, being capable of multimedia and multitasking. That cemented by general affiliation for all things Windows Mobile.

So, it was a bit of a challenge to my prejudices when I finally got my Zod. If you are not au fait with the history of the Zodiac, it was basically a Palm OS based device built from the ground up as a gaming console. To this end it has a Motorola MX1 ARM9 processor running at 200 MHz, and a separate graphics accelerator, an ATI Imageon W4200 2D with 8 MB dedicated SDRAM. My Zod is a Zodiac 2 with 128MB of RAM. With an HVGA screen and not one but two SD card slots, even by today’s standards, the Tapwave’s innards compare favourably with current hardware configurations. And the exterior, well, it has got to be one of the most beautiful PDAs ever created with its all metal chassis, an analog control stick and wonderfully tactile shoulder buttons.

Unfortunately, Tapwave the company went belly up in 2005, meaning that development for the Zodiac platform (although not for the Palm platform with which it is compatible) crawled to a halt. This is a shame because many of the games which are available specifically for the Zodiac, like Stuntcar Extreme and Spyhunter, are visually stunning and make full use of the hardware and controllers. Although I have loaded up all manner of games for the Zodiac and for Palm, and a number of game emulators as well, and the Zod does brilliantly at all of them, I must admit that I am not much of a portable gamer.

So what do I actually use the Zodiac for? Well, since I purchased a PalmOne WiFi card to go with the Zod, I can actually go on line. I have tried a number of different browsers including Opera Mini and Picsel (what a faff!), but in the end I have settled on the relatively stable and full-screen Web, the Zod’s default browser. It is hardly full functioned in that it can’t support Flash or AJAX, but is perfectly capable of handling Google Reader and any Google formatted website. The main advantage is the large screen, and relatively high resolution, which makes reading off it a whole lot easier. A pity that ClearType is obviously not supported because it would otherwise make for a near-perfect eBook reader.

A pox on thee!

I have succumbed to the upgrade bug, but I must admit only partially. As a fan of handheld PCs, I have been looking out for a reasonably cheap HTC Universal for a while. Considering that these juggernauts used to cost an arm and a leg, it is amazing how far prices have fallen in the last 18 months since they came out. That said, they are still pretty cool devices - full keyboard, VGA screen. Most importantly though, there is a huge community out there dedicated to hacking the device, and several builds of Windows Mobile 6 are available.

Anyway, the way I see it, my h4350 is a great device for Skype, but it is always running out of memory and cannot run Skype, Messenger and Pocket Internet Explorer at the same time. Another annoyance was that the browsing experience on a QVGA screen is very limited.

So, when I received the HTC Universal, I flashed it with Midget's Windows Mobile 6 ROM (version 7 I think), then set about loading on the replacement programs - Skype, Opera Mini, and Deepfish browser. My early impressions are that the browsing experience, even using PIE is infinitely better, especially in high resolution mode, and the new Messenger with it's voice clip feature is pretty stunning. Skype also runs beautifully and looks great.

All in all I think it was a justifiable purchase, but now I need to find a role for the old iPAQ.

A solution to the internet radio question

Well, it has been a while since I blogged anything, but I have been pretty busy. Since the last post I inherited a Qtek S110 a.k.a. HTC Magician from a friend who had bought it solely for the purpose of playing bubble breaker. Anyway, she lost interest after a while and I was the glad recipient of her cast off.

This obviously set me thinking about how to best use what is essentially a Pocket PC as a dedicated internet radio device. I already had the SanDisk WiFi SD card, so it was simply a question of putting it all together. Here is my recipe!

Take one HTC Magician and upgrade the ROM to the latest 1.13 WWE version. Then run the cab file to upgrade the bluetooth on your device. This enables the A2DP profile which will allow the HTC Magician to connect to a set of bluetooth speakers. I'm using a pair of Orange Acoustic Energy bluetooth speakers which currently costs under £40 from Orange. After that all you need to do is install the SD WiFi card and GSPlayer which allows you to play internet radio streams.

Voila! Internet radio is streamed via WiFi to the Pocket PC, and then via bluetooth from the Pocket PC to a pair of external speakers. The icing on the cake is that the HTC Magician is so small it is like a remote control, and you can carry it around the room to switch channels at will. Who needs a Sideshow remote when you have a Pocket PC eh?

Stand-alone mp3 player and internet radio

I was busy tapping away in Open Office Writer when my partner came into the room and asked me to play a "Autumn Leaves". I was, of course, recording a TV show at the same time, so even though the combination of these programs didn't totally kill my PC (AMD XP processor, yes, it is old), poor Eva Cassidy had a serious case of the stutters.

Of course, the answer is to upgrade the processor, but that, being totally against my philosophy of exhausting antiquated equipment, is out of the question. The alternative is to get a standalone mp3 player. One which certainly looks good is the Logik IR100 internet radio. Not only can it access internet radio stations, it can play mp3 files stored in network folders.

But naturally, my desktop will slow to a crawl if it has to feed an mp3 over a network to another device, which means some form of local storage is necessary. I just checked my music folder and I have over 30GB of music, so that puts most last generation digital audio players out of the equation.

Ideally, I'd like to put all my music on a portable hard drive and plug it into something which has a USB host. It should also have WiFi connectivity for internet radio streaming. At present, after some research, I have decided to with a PDA that has USB-host and WiFi, like the Toshiba e800, or something like a Fujitsu Stylistic LT which can also do both.

Watch this space!

A dedicated Skype phone

After a few fits and starts, Phillips will finally be making their VOIP841 available to buy in Europe and presumeably the rest of the world. Their tagline is that it is the "world's first PC-Free Skype-certified phone", meaning that unlike most other dedicated Skype handsets out there, the computer does not have to be on to make or receive calls.

If this doesn't sound revolutionary, it really isn't. Ever since Skype became available as a Pocket PC application, people have been creating their own special VOIP phones. The ingredients are simple: all you need is a WiFi enabled Pocket PC capable of running Skype and a WiFi connection (of course).

My setup uses my multifunctional and ubiquitous iPAQ h4350. It has built-in WiFi which means that even when the computer is off, it can quite happily connect to my wireless access point. The biggest problem was in trying to find the version of Skype most suited to it. The download page is rather unintuitively arranged according to brand, and something as prehistoric as the h4350 is clearly not listed in the HP section.

In the past there used to be two versions of Skype, one optimized for low CPU devices and one for high CPU ones. I'm not sure that distinction still applies, so for the sake of consistency I went with the Dopod 700 download since it at least runs Windows Mobile 2003. Once it is installed, you just need to log in and you you are ready to go.

I leave my Pocket PC logged-in all the time. It sits next to my regular phone and rings when someone tries to call me, and because is PC independent. It really is like a dedicated Skype phone. What is using it actually like? Well, as with all Skype calls, your mileage does vary according to the quality of your connection. That said, with echo reduction on, the sound quality is perfect for speech.

In terms of hardware, the h4350 is not really set up to be a phone. The microphone, for one, is at the top, while the speaker is located below. I use it as you would a speaker phone, but if you want a little more privacy then it would be a good idea to invest in a headset. It also takes a while to get over the thin-but-wide feel of the PDA.

WiFi enabled Pocket PCs can be had for much less than the Phillips VOIP841, and you get a load of extra functionality too!

Handheld PCs reborn

At the recent 3GSM conference in Barcelona two interesting phones made the headlines. The first was Nokia’s new E90 smartphone, the natural progression of its own 9000 series phones. The second was iMate’s new Ultimate 7150. To judge by the press coverage of the event it was as though a whole new form factor had suddenly been invented, quite forgetting the fact that clamshell devices, albeit sans phone module, have been around for a very long time.

In my mind, this form factor has always had a special appeal. Quite apart from protecting the screen, it also allows you to have a near full sized keyboard, with keys which actually have some travel. None of those press-and-they-barely-move keys you get with slide-out keyboards.

The very pinnacle of such devices, and I realize that I will no doubt rile the EPOC fanatics out there, were the Handheld PCs. I say ‘were’ because the platform is no longer supported, and has not been for nearly seven years. Like its Pocket PC and Smartphone counterparts, Handheld PC runs on Windows CE. Unlike them though, the native build closely resembles a Windows 95 desktop. With the help of skinning tools you can actually make it resemble any Windows desktop you like, including Vista.

I have a Samsung Izzi Pro, a Handheld PC developed at the height of interest in these devices when there were many companies churning them out. There were later, better specced Handheld PCs released subsequently, the Jornada 720 being one of the best, but never again would there be the range of manufacturers or hardware variations. The Izzi Pro has a great swivel and fold form factor which allows it to convert between a traditional laptop and a tablet, and it has a near full size keyboard, which I can type faster on than my more conventional laptop!

A show on the side

One of the more exciting new technologies to come from the Windows Vista stable is Sideshow. Its purported function is to run small programs (or 'gadgets' as Microsoft likes to call them), allowing users to access a range of PC functionality either remotely or without the computer even being on.

The first device to come out with this functionality is the Asus W5fe laptop. In this particular incarnation, the Sideshow facility is embedded in the lid of the laptop, and allows you to access your personal information without having to spin it up. Sounds like a good idea, although if the laptop is off, your data is only cached, not automatically synchronised with the server.

So far so not very exciting. In this day and age where every mobile phone syncs with Outlook, it is hard to imagine a situation where you would need to look up an address on the lid of your laptop rather than your phone.

But even if you don't have a phone that can do that, you can still replicate some of that functionality with a much older bit of technology - the Xircom REX 6000. This clever bit of kit, which can be had on eBay for around a tenner, is a touchscreen PDA small enough to sit in your laptop's cardbus slot. The real magic is that it syncs via the PCMCIA connection. So, even when your, say Asus W5f (sans 'e') is off, you can whip out your REX and look up that appointment or contact detail.

Tetris and over a hundred other programs can be added to the mix if so desired (call them 'gadgets' if you like). And if you don't want to lug your laptop around with you, you can always pop the REX in your shirt or jeans pocket and leave the computer behind. Try that with the Asus! It is also a more elegant solution than taping a Pocket PC to your laptop as an auxiliary display.

I am not discounting Sideshow as a platform entirely, and there are some really exciting looking remote controls based on it being released soon, but in its current form it is not doing anything that couldn't be done years ago.

There's life in her yet

The PDA is dead. At least that's what Slashdot tells me. Again, and again, and again. Indeed, my second ever PDA, an iPAQ h2210 I bought 4 years ago when it came out, briefly suffered a case of neglect and was placed on ice for a while, supplanted by a newer and equally capable convergent mobile phone.

Yet it has recently come to life, and in fact, is much more useful now than it has ever been. I no longer use it for PIM and Office functions, but because you can install programs onto it, it has taken on a new role. Here is the software which resuscitated my PDA.

If there is a single piece of software which brought the Pocket PC back to life, it is PDAWin's TV Remote. I normally have four different remote controls, but with this program, I can transform my Pocket PC into a universal remote. Note that not all PDAs have a sufficiently powerful infrared transmitter to reach from your sofa to the TV set; thankfully the h2210 is one of them. This program is worth every cent I paid and has given the PDA a new lease of life.

The next program is OmegaOne's 1-calc Lite. Windows Pocket PC 2003 comes with a built-in calculator which is both ugly and rudimentary. Thankfully Microsoft provide this calculator from their website for free. It includes a unit converter and a tip calculator with large glossy buttons, making it really useful.

Another program which has given my PDA a new role is Pocket GBA. Are you someone who plays games on your Pocket PC? Well, I never used to either, the extent being the odd attempt at Jawbreaker or Solitaire. Part of the reason was the lack of good games. With Pocket GBA though, the entire universe of Game Boy Advance games is available. Now I can get my Mario, Zelda or Donkey Kong fix on the PDA. Where you get the ROMs though, is another question!

The last program which I find useful is JB Piano, another freeware utility which turns your PDA into a virtual piano. I'm in a choir, and while I am not tone deaf, I do find it hard to look at a note and pitch it perfectly off the top of my head. JB Piano solves this problem by producing the note I'm looking for pitch perfect from the PDA speaker. I use it all the time when rehearsing and find it really invaluable.

So there we have it - an outdated PDA which was briefly retired, but has been resurrected and is now more functional than ever!

The inevitable iPhone-y post

The post is inevitable because the current king of shiny gadgets which must be resisted has got to be the Apple iPhone, and it is not even on sale yet!

I am not going to argue about whether any of the technologies presented in the iPhone are particularly groundbreaking, but I do want to say that I am not all that impressed. I do appreciate the interface which has prompted all sorts of copycat skins from Blackberries to Treos. The one which has drawn the most ire from Apple, however, is, understandably, the skins for Windows Pocket PC devices.

Now, I have an old iPAQ h4350 which runs Pocket PC 2003 first edition. Normally it stays connected to the internet via WiFi, and it runs Skype. With good noise cancellation and a decent microphone, this does as well as most dedicated Skype phones. The h4350, however, also has a built-in QWERTY keyboard which makes it ideal for instant messaging with Skype and MSN messenger, so in that sense it is already more versatile.

Because you can customise the interface as much as you like with a Pocket PC, I decided to create an iPhone skin. I made my own, but these are readily available all over the internet, much to Apple's annoyance no doubt. The interface sure looks nicer. As for the functions, I have installed Windows Live Search mobile which runs really well and gives good aerial and line maps of most places in the U.K. The weather button links to Weather Watcher, and the stocks button links to AvantGo, all of which are free 3rd-party programs.

Is there a point to this? Well, no, not really, but it does go to show how a 4-year old PDA which can be had quite cheaply on eBay, can approximate the looks and functionality (and in some ways exceed them) of what is currently in vogue.

And when the iPhone becomes passé, and some other gadget takes it place, the h4350 can be modified again.