Todays & Tomorrows Technology

We’re still harboring a soft-spot for mintpass‘ mintpad MID, so it’s relieving to hear that the first English-modified units are meeting with approval. Pocketables shared their unboxing earlier this week, and now it’s time for some first-impressions. The mintpad’s 1.3-megapixel camera is proving surprisingly capable, as is the browser (despite not being fully translated yet) and the QVGA screen may be small at 2.86-inches but it’s still highly readable.

Build-quality, responsiveness and file support continue to satisfy, while the mono speaker is loud and clear. Fans of Windows CE – and we’re sure there are some out there – will be pleased to hear that the mintpad is compatible with apps for the Microsoft platform, so there’s flexibility in what you can run. Flash support in the browser is a nice touch (especially when you look at the number of smartphones that can’t do this) and audio quality is decent.

On the downside, there are no hardware volume controls, the browser lacks an on-screen keyboard so far, and the rotation-sensor is underused. Still, these things might change when the final English firmware release arrives at the end of the month.

After HTC announced the Hero, we took the opportunity to coerce one of their team to spend a while running through the Android smartphone’s new functionality. The result is the usual excessively-comprehensive SlashGear video, a full fifteen minutes of HTC Hero demo that you can see after the cut.

In the video, you can see how HTC have integrated their new Sense UI with Android, adding an extra bevy of widgets for the newly-enlarged homepage. That same UI will eventually end up on all HTC devices, we’re told, so even if you’re a devout Windows Mobile fanatic you’ll be wanting to see exactly what’s what.

For the full hands-on gallery of live HTC Hero images, check here. If you want all the specs, check out our launch post, or the official Hero page at HTC’s site.

After mintpass made a few pre-release mintpad MID units available to touchscreen-loving early adopters last week, the first English-language unboxing and hands-on for the 2.86-inch device is here. We’re entirely unsurprised to see that Jenn from Pocketables is first; she’s already impressed with the build-quality of the WiFi-enabled mintpad, together with the range of accessories they include.
There are a few design frustrations, such as the microSD card slot being underneath the battery and the mintpad only having 4GB of its own onboard storage, but general things are looking good. mintpass even include a second sync/charge cable for use with the docking cradle, which is something plenty of other manufacturers could learn from.

As it stands, the firmware still has untranslated menus in the browser, and the file-manager and “ad-hoc chatting” aren’t ready for use. All that should change by June 30th, though, at which point an upgrade will be available. This is looking to be a very curious, very distinctive little device, and we’re looking forward to Jenn’s full review.

Novatel Wireless’ MiFi 2352 is the third of the company’s “Intelligent Mobile Hotspots” that we’ve unboxed here on SlashGear, but unlike Verizon’s and Sprint’s the 2352 is a GSM/UMTS device rather than EVDO Rev.A. Launching today on Telefonica Espana [pdf link], the MiFi 2352 features 7.2Mbps HSDPA and 5.76Mbps HSUPA, sharing that connection out for up to five WiFi b/g clients. We caught up with Novatel in London today, to find out what else makes the MiFi 2352 special; you can also see the first video unboxing of the portable 3G router after the cut.


As with the Sprint and Verizon models, the concept behind the MiFi 2352 is simple: pay for one 3G mobile broadband connection, and share it between your various WiFi-enabled devices. The MiFi 2352 supports triband HSPA (900/1900/2100MHz) and quadband GPRS/EDGE (850/900/1800/1900MHz) together with A-GPS, WiFi b/g and WEP/WPA/WPA2 security. There’s also a microSDHC slot, which you can use to share files between the WiFi clients.

Novatel are particularly proud of the MiFi’s ability to quickly serve up a landing page. The complexity of that page depends on the carrier: Sprint and Verizon have used the default setup system (and Verizon also use a connection manager, though Sprint’s MiFi does without) whereas Telefonica have gone one step further and created a new landing page with full microSDHC access, shortcuts to the carrier’s support pages and widgets. Right now the widgets include geotagging and geosearch, but Novatel talked about cloud-based storage back at CES and it seems likely that an enabling widget for that will arrive soon enough.

Apple’s new 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro notebooks were a surprise for their WWDC 2009 keynote, not least because most people were only expecting the iPhone 3G S. Still, we won’t turn our noses up at new unibody machines with boosted specifications, and so when Apple invited us to check out their new MacBook Pros we gladly accepted. Check out our hands-on first impressions after the cut.


You could say that the two new MacBook Pro machines are more of the same. They each keep the unibody casings of their predecessors, making them thin and light, but they now use non-user-serviceable batteries as in the MacBook Air and the 17-inch MacBook Pro. Apple say this allows them to squeeze high-capacity Li-Poly cells in there, boosting runtime to up to 7hrs; we won’t know whether that pans out until we’ve spent more time with our review units.

It feels like we’ve been waiting a long time for the HTC Touch Pro2 to arrive, though really it was only announced back in February at Mobile World Congress. The flagship smartphone - which packs a 3.6-inch WVGA resistive touchscreen, 3G HSPA, WiFi b/g and a full QWERTY keyboard - is the second half of HTC’s two-part Touch refresh, along with the Diamond2, and you can see our video unboxing after the cut.

First impressions of the HTC Touch Pro2 are good; it’s a solid, weighty phone (the full specifications say 178.5g) and not exactly small at 116 x 59.2 x 16.65mm, but it feels well made and sturdy. The metal screen bezel is a nice design element, though we’re glad to see the rear panel is matte rather than the fingerprint-grabbing gloss of the Diamond2.

Software is the usual Windows Mobile 6.1 Pro - with a 6.5 upgrade catered for with the requisite buttons - together with HTC’s TouchFLO 3D UI. That’s had a neat upgrade to deal with the Pro2’s horizontal orientation when the keyboard is out, and of course includes the People-Centric tweaks we appreciated on the Diamond2. The keyboard itself is tactile and has an impressive amount of button-travel considering the size; we’ll be battering away at it some more before giving our final opinion. Until then, enjoy the unboxing video and short demo below!