What was your first reaction when you first laid eyes on Windows Phone 7 Series? I have to admit my first reaction was not unlike the response I give my wife when she asks what I think of her new dress, haircut, or when she experiments with a new recipe; cautiously positive. At first look, the Start Page lacked a certain zip or pizazz that I have grown accustomed to with Windows Phones. 

Often is the case that as you learn more you learn about something, your first impression changes. While the graphics of Windows Phone 7 Series felt like a step backwards, the more I learned about Hubs and the consistency Microsoft would strive to maintain the more Windows Phone 7 Series grew on me.

Still, while it may sound superficial, I wish Windows Phone 7 Series had a little more "pop" to it.  It reminded me of the generic Today Screen of Windows Mobile of yesterday, that while functional lacked pizazz.  What might help Windows Phone 7 Series's first impression is a Start Screen that is as graphically pleasing as it is functional.

I've gotten spoiled with graphical impact HTC's Manila/Touchflo screens offer and MaxManila really adds a flair (along with more functionality) to the Windows Phone experience.  Windows Phones have a developed a tradition for customization to allow owners have their phones reflect their individuality.  Hopefully that will carry over with WP7S's features.

Microsoft in their Mobile World Congress presentation stated they want to focus on the end user experience.  Isn't the ability to customize the appearance of your phone part of that experience?  Or will functionality win over aesthetics and the lack of customization become a non-issue? 

Looks like we'll never get to see that sweet Tegra chipset in a smartphone anytime soon, with the Zune HD coming the closest to such a device.

That's okay, as NVIDIA is poised to launch its next version of the powerhouse chipset in January at CES (and we'll be there to cover it, of course).  At CES, they will demonstrate the chipset on current and upcoming smartbooks, MIDs, netbooks and the like, then in the second half of the year a big push into the smartphone world.

We obviously don't really need to point out what is launching in late 2010, do we?

The Tegra 2 chip, at least according to Slashgear, is "...expected to have roughly twice the power and graphical capabilities of the original and be based on 40nm processes."  Considering how awesome the Zune HD is, that sounds pretty sweet to us if accurate.

Now just close your eyes and imagine it is one year from now ... aaahhh ... technology bliss and why am I fatter?

[via Slashgear]

It's pretty well established that for whatever reason current HTC devices don't come with their graphics hardware enabled  (2D and/or 3D) and while we don't have the energy here to dive into the nitty gritty (that's for a Wiki), we can install a .cab file.

NeoS2007 over at XDA just released his v3 of his famed graphics driver pack for certain WinMo devices (Touch Diamond, Touch Pro, Touch HD, Touch Pro 2, Touch Diamond 2 and Sony Ericsson X1).  This .cab basically installs "... the OpenGL ES 1.1 Driver by ATI/AMD with the latest dll's, combined with the latest OpenVG driver".

The idea of course is to speed up the graphics performance when running graphic intensive apps, including Manilla/TouchFlo 3D.  Does it work? It certainly didn't hurt our Sprint Touch Pro 2 and heck, sure it seems a bit zippier. But always hard to tell.  Still may be worth a shot as reportedly it helps with GPS apps like iGO.

Likewise, Noir posted a "d3d driver demo" by game maker MindPol for 480x800 devices. Reportedly they are working on their own driver for their games, to get results like these during game play.  Having recently played some iPhone games myself, yeah, WinMo currently needs all the help it can get.  (Note the MindPol is just a demo and won't work for any software you may have.)

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One of the big, ongoing stories we've been following here relentlessly at WMExperts is the Qualcomm/HTC video driver issue--specifically it looks like a lot of the current generation devices make use of software as opposed to hardware accelerated Direct3D drivers. Exceptions to this are the new HTC Diamond and Touch Pro devices.

In our forums, Jeff Kirvin (long time tech geek and guru) has found an interesting gem on the Sprint Treo 800w: namely under \Windows is a file called "D3DDemo.exe" (which also has a Texas Instruments icon to match the TI chipset on board).

What happens when you click it? You get that cool little spinney cube thing going on along with the very important to know Frames Per Second (FPS). In Kirvin's pic it shows 35.45 FPS and we've hit 38.79 FPS on our device (tweaked out for speed). That's fast.

So besides the Palm tweaks you can rest assured that you have some serious graphic acceleration going on to keep things zippy. Perhaps that's why it trounces the Tilt in a Internet Explorer scrolling contest, eh?

Anyone up for some Doom or Quake III? Call me.

As Windows Mobile continues to explode (and the long drum beat of WM7 begins), it looks as if long time graphic card maker Nvidia is getting ready to debut their mobile processor designed specifically for WM devices.

Sweet.

What's even cooler is the promised speeds of 600 or 800mhz at less than 1 watt of power from this new "Tegra" line. The processor is actually "spread out" having several accelerators, as opposed to the Intel single-processor/multi-platform Atom solution.

Nvidia thinks that extra punch will give developers of Wm7 devices much more freedom in delivering those eye-popping custom UI graphics.

So when can we expect these bad boys? How about Q4 of this year. Not too bad. Along with Qualcomm's endless promises with "Snapdragon" (see our earlier coverage here), the mobile processor biz should get interesting real soon. It also looks as if the line between mobile phones and mini-PCs is about to get very blurry.

Read more about Nvidia's Tegra here

Source: T.Krazit Blog (Cnet) via Solsie

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MSMobiles is reporting from a reliable source that the HTC TyTN II (aka the "Tilt") is scheduled to get a new ROM update that will include "...improved graphics drivers and will offer improved performance".

What is more exciting is that this update is planned for this month and possibly even next week. (For those needing a refresher on the topic, click here for past coverage).

Yowzers. Though, fyi we're taking this with a huge grain of salt, so don't get those torches and mob ready just yet.

The potential bad news? This is only for unbranded HTC TyTN II devices, meaning the AT&T Tilt won't be included, for whatever reason (we're betting it has to do with this: money and who pays).

While unfortunate and inconvenient, at least it may be possible for the prominent hacker community to rip the driver for those unlucky owners of branded devices. Stay tuned.

However, what may be even worse, if true, is this quote from MSMobiles:

HTC is not not (!) preparing in near future updates for any other phones that might have these graphic issues.

Probably not what anyone wants to hear. Hopefully details will follow as pressure mounts on HTC if any of this pans out to be accurate,

We'll await for an official HTC response though for our final judgement.