HTC Mega ROM leaks, brings new, prettier version of TouchFlo2D
As has been the pattern recently, the HTC Mega has not even been announced yet, and already its ROM has found its way onto XDA-Developers. Taken from there has been the latest version of HTC’s TouchFLo2D, its version of its UI designed for low-powered QVGA devices.
The UI bears a distinct HTC Sense flavour, but in essence appears similar to what the original TouchFlo2D featured. Apparently the software works flawlessly in Windows Mobile 6.5, suggesting to some that the HTC Mega will be coming with that platform from the start.
Download the package from this XDA-Developer thread here.
Via Pocketnow.com
Sphere: Related Content
Posted in 
Tags: 
where is VGA version?
[Reply]
Someone will have to port the VGA version since it’s designed specifically for QVGA. However, it’s NOT quite that simple. I have a Tilt. I’ve tried loading it on using two different 6.5 ROMs and can’t even get it to start up.
[Reply]
Granted, the HTC Mega (thankfully) won’t be coming to the U.S., but in an era with a $99 (subsidized) iPhone 3G, HTC is releasing yet another QVGA WM device, and that too with no 3D hardware?
There’s a point at which the user experience is more important than shipping en masse at low prices. Apple could probably cut down the iPhone 3G to HTC’s hardware levels and result in a sub-par phone that AT&T could sell subsidized for free, but that wouldn’t give the iPhone experience and would hurt Apple’s image.
Similarly, underpowered phones like this won’t exactly help WM or HTC’s market position (just like the atrocious 200 MHz TI OMAP-powered phones HTC sold not too long ago). Windows Mobile is simply not competitive on low-end hardware (and, frankly, on almost any hardware, but that’s another matter).
[Reply]
admin Reply:
July 29th, 2009 at 10:41 am
There is plenty of space for well-done low-end hardware. Even Apple plays in the space – just look at the ipod shuffle, one of their best sellers.
You pay for expensive hardware with expensive contracts – cheap hardware allows the carrier not just to sell it cheaper, but also to sell it on cheaper contracts.
In the end, the end user will aways have to pay for their choices, even with a subsidy.
[Reply]
rad Reply:
July 29th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Apple doesn’t compete in that space (low-end smartphones). The iPod shuffle is a dedicated music player and runs on much lighter software that can function smoothly and effectively on its low-end hardware.
As such, it’s very different from, say, Apple running the iPhone’s OS as-is on a low-end device (which wouldn’t work very well). Similarly, stuffing Windows Mobile (Professional) onto cheap hardware will make it perform even worse than it does on high-end phones today. There is a space for featurephones and low-end smartphones, but my point is that WM Pro is just not suited for it, given its performance issues.
And as for pricing, at least in the U.S., with or without AT&T’s subsidies, the iPhone manages to undercut pretty much all WM Pro phones available, let alone phones that actually have comparable hardware (which won’t even reach the U.S. for a while). I find it somewhat amusing that an iPhone 3GS, with vastly superior hardware, is $100 (or more) cheaper than an HTC Touch Pro 2 on or off-contract.
[Reply]
admin Reply:
July 29th, 2009 at 10:31 pm
I find half VGA and the lack of a hardware keyboard far from vastly superior.
[Reply]
rad Reply:
July 30th, 2009 at 1:01 am
How about a 600 MHz Samsung ARM Cortex A8 processor that offers 2-3x more raw processing power than the TP2’s Qualcomm MSM72xx ARM11 chip, in addition to hardware floating point and all of the significant upgrades of the ARMv7 instruction set?
How about a graphics chip (PowerVR SGX 535) that offers performance significantly exceeding that of the 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon (ATI Imageon Z430) and thus blowing away the MSM72xx’s GPU…to the tune of 7-10x faster in polygon performance and 4x faster in pixel throughput. To add to that, HTC’s implementation delivers nowhere near the hardware capacity of even the MSM72xx’s graphics (see GLBenchmark scores and 3D app performance), so even comparing the two platforms becomes a bit laughable.
How about 16 or 32 GB of built-in flash, vs. the TP2’s 512 MB ROM? You can buy a MicroSD card to add to a TP2, but 32 GB MicroSD cards don’t even exist yet, let alone anything with decent throughput (Class 6 or faster) to match the speed of the iPhone’s internal memory. Even 16 GB Class 6 MicroSDs cost $50-100, so you can imagine what 32GB Class 6 cards will be like when they arrive sometime in mid/late 2010… and keep in mind that’s on top of a phone that’s already the same price as, or more expensive than, the top-end iPhone 3GS.
How about what is hands-down the best finger-input panel on the market? Even other capacitive screen devices like the Pre and G1 are not quite there yet, but the TP2 still has its old resistive panel, part of the argument for which was (on MS’ end) that resistive panels are cheaper to produce than capacitive screens. Right, so why are we paying _more_ for a resistive panel? So that HTC can try to get TD2/TP2 owners to upgrade yet again next year when it releases its next marginal hardware upgrade, with capacitive screens installed?
rad Reply:
July 30th, 2009 at 1:07 am
To add to the first paragraph, the hardware floating point unit (VFP) on ARM11 makes FP calculations (which many mobile apps on iPhone and other platforms use quite heavily) around 22x faster than on WM’s software FP DLL, meaning the iPhone 3GS should deliver around 40-60x the floating point performance of HTC’s phones.
admin Reply:
July 30th, 2009 at 1:10 am
You know, if I just want to confidently enter a few hundred words (as I do every working day) all of that hardly makes any difference…
rad Reply:
July 30th, 2009 at 1:21 am
Sure, but something like a $20 Peek could do that too (http:/www.getpeek.com).
People buy high-end smartphones like a TP2/3GS because they want to do something more than that, and it’s difficult to argue that better hardware and software are anything but helpful in such circumstances.
There are obviously many other factors involved (like particular software packages for word processing, etc.), but my point here was mainly just that 1) even HTC’s high-end hardware is sub-par today and 2) putting out more QVGA WM Professional phones that are even more underpowered is hardly going to help keep WM/HTC’s market share (and non-existent mind share, in the U.S.) afloat.