Back to my HTC Tornado :-)

I could not believe it when I went back to the Tornado Forum before Christmas last year - there is SDHC support for this little gem finally. Took up the challenge and cooked my own ROM with SDHC support and now have back my Tornado which I should never have left. See here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=619510

Vox is a very nice device with lots of support and very convenient, just too heavy. The KS20 which I bought recently was a sidestep to the WM6 professional - but what a waste due to the very poor audio quality (not the noise and volume like for the E72 this time, but the frequency response), see this: http://www.gsmarena.com/lg_ks20-review-208p6.php

My new device (a used + worn-out HTC S710/VDA V)

Well - I gave up on the weight issue and returned to an HTC device. I could get hold of a cheap used and worn out Vodafone VDA V (branded HTC S710 aka "Vox"). This now works as expected - despite I have to say that the noise level is still higher than on my old devices. Since the maximum volume is however high enough to compensate for a little attenuation in the music-adapter to get the noise to a low-enough level for the physical environment, it does not matter much.

If anyone gets hold of information how the BenQ E72 headset volume can be increased beyond the poor original state - let me know, please - I am really willing to give it another chance then. You can contact me via this blog or in the linked forums on the left side - my user name is tobbbie there.
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Good bye my little friend...

Now that the device showed it cannot serve as a good music player, I have finally returned it to the vendor. I very much regret this, as there is no other device on the market that fits my simple scheme still.

• Music Player (no noise at low volume, still high volume possible)
• SDHC compatible
• no touchscreen
• Windows Mobile
• WiFi
  
• light-weight (less than 100g)
  
• and yes - it has to work as a mobile phone too :-)
  

My only choice seems to be giving up the "non touchscreen" option - next candidate is the LG KS-20 (Corona) - sigh - another set of investigations to do. Luckily the community for the LG is larger than for the BenQ.

Some interesting links (and pictures) around the net

When I was investigating if the BenQ E72 was a device for me - it was very hard to find any evidence if it had the option to attach a lanyard. Finally I found a set of pictures that told me where it was hidden, see the Taiwanese forum here (Google translated link).
Further squeezing out Google pictures search has also revealed some other interesting links that depict the history of the device's release roadmap. Initial pictures still show the BenQ-Siemens logo and a less glary screen, e.g. here or here or here or here.
It is interesting to note that marketing plans had initially thought about a sliver model, as can be derived from the existence of shop dummies - seen here. Even a black-silver version seemed to exist in the plans, as can be seen here (looks like photoshop-ed version though).
While the device is not really cutting edge technology any longer - plans originate in the 2006 range - I do not have much hope for any further serious updates for this little gadget. It seems though that BenQ (or the mother QisDa) have found cooperations to sell a few of these units around the world. Kyocera sells them as E4000 - and I have even seen evidence (Google translated link) that a Windows Mobile 6.1 version exists for that (despite the Kyocera site tells it is WM6 only). Thanks to the Polish E72 community forum (see left side + here - thanks for revealing the source!). Maybe I can convice some over there to dump us a ROM of that?!

Interesting Programs in \windows

Interesting Programs (not linked via .lnk files) in \windows:

• DevHealth.exe will also be called by LogMaster and creates a very elaborate memory and process report. It is named "mem_1.txt" and is either located in the Storage Card root or the main memory root, sized ~ 292kB. Subsequent calls will generate files named mem_.txt where relates to the called number. This file includes the DLL relationship of all active loaded modules, so it is easy for ROM cleaners to sort out the debug ROM remains.
  -> This is the key application to investigate further any modifications of Startup options or ROM modifications.
• LogMaster.exe sets various trace and log points, can call netlogctl.exe, swmodemtrace.exe, celogflush.exe, DevHealth.exe, WinsockLogApp.exe, links to LogUtil.dll which relates to logfiles: OSImageVersion.txt, sqpco.log, sqmodem.log, sqdriver.log, sqatcmd.log
  My version is 2.4 (I have seen already 2.5 in another ROM).
  
• QDW.exe (internall referenced: "QDW.exe is launched by AppExceptionMonitor.exe", but this .exe is missing, only a dll is remaining) This would read (or write) to files in \Windows\System\ExceptionExtraLogs\. It calls copylog.exe to do the job.
  If directly called it asks for a memory card and generates a directory \yyyymmdd_hhmmss\ExceptionExtraLogs\ generating (copying) files ELog.txt KITL.txt qatcmd.log qdriver.log qmodem.log qpco.log verinfo.txt call is finished with "copy failed".
• PreForWSA.exe is called via HLKM\init\Launch.. and may prepare WinSockLogging (may call \Windows\WinsockLogApp.exe)
• prtscrn.exe generates a screendump of the current state, it is also called via long press of the Vol-Up key and generates a file called scncap.jpg in the "\My Documents" folder ( is a sequence number starting at 1).

The crappy Battery levels on the BenQ E72

Did you notice that some report a bad battery life for this device? I did as well and there are several reasons possible for that - the most important one imho is the crappy battery level indication on the device (at least on mine - the BT-Fusion branded Version):

If you watch the Battery-Level in Windows, it reaches 100% already with a battery voltage of only 39xx mV - far less than a fully charged battery. Always watch for the green LED to indicate a full charge - this comes at 42xx mV as it should be.

This problem applies as well for the dis-charge: Any battery voltage above 3906 mV is reported as 100%. So you think the battery lasts forever - just to give you a bad surprise below that voltage. The Tornado is way below 80% here...

I still hope that this is due to a crappy battery.dll which may be a special version for the BT-Fusion device. In its intended use, it will eat more power than a normal device as it will scan for WIFI to connect a VOIP call via Internet if possible.

If you want to contribute your observations for a non BT-Fusion device - you can get the Voltage and Charge Percentage from the registry anytime at: HKLM\System\State\ or simply use the well known CeleTask option "Power Status".

If you know of a working(!) Batterymonitor that logs data to a file please tell me. My current idea is to create a MortScript that polls the registry and writes data to a file - yet no time to do that actually.

Edit 20090104:
In the meantime I have seen that the charge-level may not only depend on the batteryvoltage alone - see especially this link. When scanning the extracted files from the ROM dump, I have also found a huge bunch of possible registry entries in the battery.dll module. I will not try to debug their influence, so my only hope is that some other ROM contains a better charge-level calculation.

Why I bought the BenQ E72

Well - this phone caught my eye already a long time ago, i.e. when it was announced early 2007. At that time I just had bought my Tornado (O2 XDA Phone) and the E72 did not offer much more - ecpecially with the price tag it had at that time.
Then, September 2008, the phone hit Expansys.UK for just 100GBP - and I was really tempted to buy one. As I found an even cheaper option on ebay then (69GBP) I could no longer resist and bought one. Still some days after I bought it - the promised wired headset is not there, despite the vendor has promised to deliver one (as announced in the advertisment) - sigh... if that does not come finally I will have to return the device and buy one from Expansys.

OK - what does it offer more than the Tornado?

• thinner, lighter (not really smaller)
  
• less energy consumption in wireless modes (Bluetooth and WIFI)
• can read micro-SDHC cards (after installation of a small CAB)
• micro-SD cards are hot-plugable
  
• much better sound from the speaker
• better camera (2 instead of 1,3 MP + better options: Emuzed HipCam)
• better JAVA (JBlend)
• Nice MMS Client (from Jataayu)
• Active Sync via Bluetooth is a snap now :-)
  

What is worse (yes there is!) than the Tornado?

• Battery level indication is crap (dedicated post will follow)
• no 3.rd party wired headsets or adapters available (dedicated post will follow)
• only English language installed in my BT-Fusion branded device
  
• smaller LCD (2" vs 2,2") and Battery (900 vs 1150 mAh)
  
• no big support community (yet)

Specialties I do not care much about:

• "Redial" option when calls are busy
• automatic Key-Lock (on Home Screen Settings)
• Facade HomeScreens (limited)
  
• MunduIM
• BeetzStream RSS

What still works with this device:

• WM5storage (check the LED options - you can choose any, including vibrate)
  
• TomTom 5 - just like any other application after application unlock

...and what does not any longer:

• omapclock, special Tornado related tools
  

Starting the log...

Hey - despite many resources on the web about Windows Mobile - I have made up my mind to have a kind of log related to my BenQ E72 efforts. Unfortunately BenQ is not a vendor with a long history in Windows Mobile - and not very popular in Germany since the failed Benq-Siemens deal.
This makes dedicated resources for this phone or re-usable tools and methods hard to find and even harder to have a common place to discuss about.

I have Windows Mobile Smartphones since 2004 (SDA Music) when I moved away from my 2-device (mobile + organizer) handling to just one. Then came an O2 XDA phone with TomTom mobile 5 (receiving a new heart from a Vodafone VDA 1240 with WiFi finally). This O2 XDA phone is still my device of choice as it is not fully replaced yet by me last phone, the BenQ E72.