HTC bringing VGA displays to sprint: Raphael and Diamond

[TurboFool]

Originally Posted by ehanhan

How long has the 6700 been in use? Three years?

If the Raph comes out this fall, the Mogul will only be one year old.

It would make the most sense to make the Raph MUCH different from teh Mogul since the Mogul could still be marketed to certain people, as the Apache is still used today with the Mogul being available.

Some would argue the Apache overstayed its welcome by quite some time. The Titan was already outdated by the time it hit the market. Most phones don't have a lifecycle that comes close to the Apache's, and I think a year between replacement models isn't uncommon for regular phones. Perhaps for smartphones it's different, but when you consider how long ago the Titan was completed (remember, it was built for WM5) compared to when it was finally released, it's reasonable to think it's time for it to be fully replaced.

So wouldn't HTC to their best to differentiate the two devices *Mogul and Raph* from one another so they could sell both at the same time?

And to make them significantly different from one another, double the ram, a better/faster processor/chipset, higher resoultion camera, slimmer slicker design, and an overall nicer, more refined phone makes sense.

Keep in mind that much of these improvements already exist in the Kaiser (AT&T Tilt) for the same priceline as the Mogul. The Tilt has the 3MP camera and double the RAM. The other items you've requested are all par for the course when you take into account die shrinks, reduced manufacturing costs, and other general improvements. I don't see why, even with a VGA screen, the Raphael can't take over the price point of the Mogul. And considering how much critical backlash there was over the Mogul's lack of specs, it wouldn't surprise me to see them just move on entirely. That said, it's not impossible for them to keep the Mogul and market it at a much lower price. It'd be cool to see a full Pocket PC phone in a reasonable price range.

Originally Posted by hetaldp

These Phones will be of NO Use if they Don,t have Multi Touch Digitalizer on Screen and Accelerometer

Multi Touch is Required for Sensinh Gesture in Multiples zone of Screen very Helpful for Gesture Sensing, Accelerometer is Very Important also for Physical Sensing.

You know Windows 7 Mainly relies on these 2 Hardware, and nobody here have thought it ???

As noted by someone else, Windows Mobile 7 (not Windows 7, which is a completely different OS) relies on NEITHER of these functions. They figured out a neat trick for using the camera to simulate the accelerometer, and multi-touch is NOT necessary for gesture-based controls, only for things like Apple's pinch technique. All it needs is a screen that's more sensitive to fingers and you'll be 100% there. And I find it funny how you say the phones will be of NO use without this functionality. My Mogul doesn't have either function, and I find it quite useful. Do you mean they won't be enough of an upgrade? I'd argue that, as well.

My Expectation are

3 Inch Screen Wide VGA screen
3 Mega Pixel Camera (I dont care as i use DSLR)
256 MB Ram or else Windows 7 will not run with that smoothness
Hardware Acceleration driver for Video
Atleast 1 GB ROM you know Windows 7 will eat at least 400 mb of space
Class 6 SDHC Hardware for Faster Writing and reading of SDHC cards
Weight no more than 130 to 140 Grams
at least 1400 mAh Battery
24bit Color Depth ( 6800 has 16bit Colour Depth)
Full Glossy, Scratch Resistance Screen

Well, we already know the size of the screen and megapixel count of the camera. We know it will support SDHC since the last two generations did. The rest of your speculations are silly, though. Do you know enough about Windows Mobile 7's specs to be perfectly clear that it will not run smoothly with less than 256MB of RAM? We know nothing yet about what kind of efforts MS has made to improve the kernel's memory footprint. We may be surprised. And I certainly do NOT know that WM7 will eat up 400MB of space. That's just plain absurd. The current one takes up, what, about 40 to 50MB? You think they're going to increase its size by TEN TIMES? While I expect all the new graphics and transition effects and general improvements to take up SOME more space, I honestly don't see it using up more than 1.5x the current space.

The rest of your requests are more personal preference, but I won't necessarily disagree.

My biggest issue, though, is that you're speccing this phone entirely around Windows Mobile 7. This phone launches at the end of this year, and WM7 isn't pegged for release until the middle of next year (and it was, what, six months after WM6's release before the carriers started to launch it?). This phone will clearly NOT ship with WM7, and odds are we'll only get it via custom ROMs.

Originally Posted by strickly_ppc670

My question is can they add a 3.5mm jack and FM transmitter that actually works?
GPS is always a nice feature if you are lost. EVDO is a must. Bluetooth 2.0 would be
good as well.

The last three items on your list are already announced. Sadly, I wouldn't hold my breath for the first two, much as I'd like to see them, as well. At best you'll get a 2.5mm jack with an adapter (because of headset support), but I'm sure they'll stick to their now-standard HTC plug.

Originally Posted by shaun0207

I would like to see these phone released with WM7, but I know that wont happen. If Sprint is smart: since T-Mobile is promising to have a Android phone out buy Sept, they should these phones come in both versions - WM6.1 & Android.

That would make people go buy them the same day.

WM7 doesn't launch until next year, so sadly we definitely won't see it with that. Sprint was one of the first to promise Android phones this year, so I'm sure we'll see them, but I don't see them confusing the market and splitting it by making two OSes on the same hardware. I don't see that driving sales massively, either, as right now both OSes are really only known to us hardcore users, and we don't drive the market. Unless Google or whomever can make Android an exciting must-sell, the launch of these will sell out to people like us and then slowly filter out to the rest of the world.

[varaff]

Wow!! a phone named after Me.. I definitely have to get it. LOL

[subzero1313]

Wow, very nice looking phone. I figured Id have my Mogul for while, but Ill definitely be upgrading again. And yeeeaahhh some of the "demands" here are kind of crazy. Just give me what the mogul has, add in a bit faster processor(1gig isnt really needed) and pic mms and Im happy -Nate

[courtlandre]

VGA is a must for me. Otherwise I may jump ship and go to the experia, version 2 iphone or andriod w/ VGA.

[TurboFool]

I'm personally kind of curious why VGA seems to be the deal-breaker for a lot of people on here. Granted, I also want VGA, but what is it about it that's got people willing to ignore this altogether if it doesn't have it? I would have been perfectly happy to settle for this phone based on the currently-announced and perceived (more RAM, better battery life, possibly faster processor, etc.) improvements and new design. VGA, for me, is just icing on the cake.

This is genuinely not a knock on people wanting VGA, I'm just wondering why, on a unit with such a small screen, that this is such a defining point.

[Tiberius85]

WXGA or NO DEAL! :P

[subzero1313]

I wouldn't say it's a deal breaker to me but, its very nice to have. I work for a T-mobile dealer and our Blackberry rep came in and was demoing his Curve. He was playing trailers from some movies and they just looked amazingly high def. Idk, I'm just a visual **** I guess. I have a 1080p TV that I don't even watch TV on :P

[BlackDynamite]

We're jumping the gun here. The latest info on this (courtesy of an HTC employee who posts on HoFo) says that this is a GSM phone. Yes, there will be a CDMA version, but the GSM version will be released first. I'm assuming all this info is on the GSM version (which would make sense, based on the chipset). My guess is the Sprint documents were probably fakes...

[Mkostera1]

Newbie question but what is a VGA Screen?

[EtherealRemnant]

Originally Posted by subzero1313

I wouldn't say it's a deal breaker to me but, its very nice to have. I work for a T-mobile dealer and our Blackberry rep came in and was demoing his Curve. He was playing trailers from some movies and they just looked amazingly high def. Idk, I'm just a visual **** I guess. I have a 1080p TV that I don't even watch TV on :P

Ummm....... the Curve is 320x240... same res as the Mogul.