M8 price increased，now $372 for 8GB,$440 for 16GB

Originally Posted by haXXa

[snip]
Windows CE is a stable and solid platform. Meizu don't mess to much with the internals when they customize it for the M8. What they are consentrating on is if I'm not wrong the user interface, and a kernel driver for the multitouch.


Just hoping the M8 is not a air castle. My N73 is getting ready for replacing.
Preferably before christmas.

Did you heard the news about Windows mobile 7? It is supposed to be out Q1 2009, and HTC has already anounced WinMo7 smartphones for Q1 2009 too. Releasing the m8 with its customized WinCE 6 OS (which can be seen as a kind of WinMo7 preview, or cousin, because WinMo7 is based on WinCE6 too) at the same time, or even after phones using the real WinMo7 would be even more difficult. And given the lasts news (or absence of news ) from Meizu, I think that Q1 2009 is not a pessimistic guess for m8 availability...At this time it will have to compete against iPhone2, Windows mobile 7 phones, and Android phones. No wonder J Wong told he do not sleep well anymore

Yes, I know that Meizu OS is actually a customization of Windows CE,that's why I call it "so-called".

Now we all know iPhone 2.0 could only install softwares from the App store,before it got hacked / if can't be hacked,so that's a effective way to product sharewares from cracking,I think all of these softwares would got a DRM ,or like itunes plus,no DRM,but have ID something preventing them from pirate.programmers/software corporations would like this.

Without a similar solution,M8 could hardly attract developers who wants to earning profits.

But there are already tons of applications available for windows CE!
Depending on how much meizu changes, most of these will run on the m8 without any trouble...

Originally Posted by gkai

Did you heard the news about Windows mobile 7? It is supposed to be out Q1 2009, and HTC has already anounced WinMo7 smartphones for Q1 2009 too. Releasing the m8 with its customized WinCE 6 OS (which can be seen as a kind of WinMo7 preview, or cousin, because WinMo7 is based on WinCE6 too) at the same time, or even after phones using the real WinMo7 would be even more difficult. And given the lasts news (or absence of news ) from Meizu, I think that Q1 2009 is not a pessimistic guess for m8 availability...At this time it will have to compete against iPhone2, Windows mobile 7 phones, and Android phones. No wonder J Wong told he do not sleep well anymore

Well. WinCE6 is nowhere near a preview of WinMo7.
WinMo is a down-stipped WinCE with a few things added. But it will be interesting.


I think the M8 will have a chanse. If markedet properly and delivering what it promises.


Right now I'm only interested in proof of a working proto/alpha phone.


@burnfox
When developing M8 applications they can be ported to other WinCE and WinMo devices easily. That is a big group. I don't see why few devs would develop for it.


It is a much less painful an time consuming process developing .NET apps than using Objective C (as preferred in the iPhone).

I .NET there is no need to worry about memory allocation and other things you need to get right.


I don't think gettign third party apps will be a problem.

The problem is that there is no M8 ATM
(Hopefully there will be some time ...)

Originally Posted by haXXa

Well. WinCE6 is nowhere near a preview of WinMo7.
WinMo is a down-stipped WinCE with a few things added. But it will be interesting.

AFAIK, WinMo=WinCE (kernel and libs) + UI shell + microsoft apps( office mobile, IE mobile, ...).
So on m8 you will have WinCE6 + meizu UI shell+ meizu or third party apps (opera,...)
on WinMo7 phones, you will have WinCE6 + new microsoft WinMo UI shell + microsoft apps.

As the new WinMo7 UI shell and apps are microsoft response to iPhone (more touch friendly, revamped look with nicer animations), and this is also something that meizu tried to do with its customization, it seems that the Meizu/WinCE6 OS and WinMo7 OS have about the same goal and will be comparable (with slight differences: Meizu targetting mediaplaying, WinMo7 beeing more generalist and business friendly).

If WinMo7 brings similar eyecandy and smoothness, I personally would prefer it to m8 (better support, and 100% compatibility with new apps and probably older apps, while with m8, it will probably be more hit and miss).

With this timing, I can not stop thinking that Meizu went to a custom WinCE because they wanted to be the first to offer a revamped attractive interface on a windows mobile smartphone....and with all their delay, missed the target as classic windows smartphones will quite likely have caught up at the time m8 is released. HTC with touchflo was a warning sign. WinMo7 is imho the end of the customization adventures...

Imho m8 "OS" is no longer an advantage, if anything it is becoming a drawback. I think at the release time they will only have hardware specs and price to compete, WinMo7 on m8 may even be a smart move if they are not able to maintain their OS well.

i perssonaly don't understand the hype about android.

Originally Posted by darkado

i perssonaly don't understand the hype about android.

I thought the hype was only because of the open source platform (linux based).

Originally Posted by xgaming

I thought the hype was only because of the open source platform (linux based).

It is :-) And, imho, the hype is perfectly justified if android is similar to desktop or other linux distro: upgradable by the user, and supported by both big companies (Google,...) and by opensource independent developpers. It would make OS support and upgrade dissociated from hardware, while at the moment os upgrades allows to sell new phones and old phones (and not so old ones) are very poorly supported when bugs are found.
The day I can upgrade my phone OS like I do on my PC, eventually dual-booting between WinCE and Android, I will be a happy man :-)

there are a few motorola linux phones and they are very poorly supported by the devs

Originally Posted by darkado

there are a few motorola linux phones and they are very poorly supported by the devs

If the phone OS is not upgradable by the user, which could install a distro not tailored too much to the phone ( i.e. available from somewhere else than the phone manufacturer support page), being linux based, winCE based or osX based is not important from the user point of view. you are completely dependent on the goodwill of the manufacturer, that can forget updates because it does not want to use manhours for this, or (worse and likely) because no OS upgrade speed up phone obsolescence without having to improve the hardware a lot...

I hope that android will be different in this respect, that you would be able to download android v 2.1.3 from google or sourceforge, and install it on a smartphone that came with android v2.0.1 for example. This would make a big difference for the users, and to the platform attractiveness for opensource developpers, imho

Originally Posted by gkai

AFAIK, WinMo=WinCE (kernel and libs) + UI shell + microsoft apps( office mobile, IE mobile, ...).
So on m8 you will have WinCE6 + meizu UI shell+ meizu or third party apps (opera,...)
on WinMo7 phones, you will have WinCE6 + new microsoft WinMo UI shell + microsoft apps.

I disagree.

Gotta love msdn.
Zandoná Mobile® : Windows CE X Windows Mobile - what is the difference?

Just going to quote the conclusion.

Windows Mobile is not Windows CE (and vice-versa), Windows Mobile has Windows CE as its core – WM 2003 was based on WinCE 4.x, WM 5.0 is based on WinCE version 5 – plus a standard shell, applications and APIs.

EDIT: Same blog - more about the topic.
Windows Embedded Blog : Windows Mobile and Windows Embedded CE - what's the difference ?

I think there will be a lot of development for the M8.

Errr, haXXA...If I understand your post correctly, you agree with the quote from msdn, but you disagree with my post????
I am not a native english speaker, so I accept there may be a nuance that get over my head...In this case, may I ask you to enlighten me by explaining in details where I made a mistake? Because, from my understanding, the quote from msdn and my text could not be in more complete agreement

i agree with gkai. he might not be 100% on target but he got the point

Originally Posted by aniym

Thanks for translating. I wish the post mentioned something about a release date. While I can just about afford the final 8GB version, i'm hoping that a more attractive alternative (HTC Diamond Pro, Xperia) will be out by then.

Just to clear things up, its the HTC Touch Pro. thanks

Originally Posted by gkai

Errr, haXXA...If I understand your post correctly, you agree with the quote from msdn, but you disagree with my post????
I am not a native english speaker, so I accept there may be a nuance that get over my head...In this case, may I ask you to enlighten me by explaining in details where I made a mistake? Because, from my understanding, the quote from msdn and my text could not be in more complete agreement

I'm sorry if we agree and I just didn't understand :P


I thought you disagreed with me about WinMo beeing a stripped down WinCE with stuff added

... on WinMo7 phones, you will have WinCE6 ...

I just wanted to point out that you will not actually have WinCE6, even though it got the same core.


"Based on" is quite vital IMHO.