In the old days, you
INTRODUCTION
used to carry around a laptop to connect to the
internet and do some browsing. Now you carry a
Pocket PC. You’ve experimented with browsing
using Pocket Internet Explorer and have been a bit,
well, underwhelmed. The web pages don’t seem to
format correctly. The pictures are too big.
It
takes forever to load the web page onto the screen.
You don’t want to go back to lugging a laptop but
you’d really like to have a better experience browsing on
your handheld. BitStream created their
ThunderHawk browser as their solution to just this problem.
BitStream’s ThunderHawk
WHAT’S HOT
does a lot more than simply bring web page content
onto your PPC screen. BitStream designed the
program to enhance the overall browsing experience on
"the small screen." To do this, they use a
proprietary proxy server that intercepts web page
information and reformats it "on-the-fly" to better
suit the PPC screen. BitStream’s server resizes
pictures so that only the data necessary to display
the image is sent through to the PPC. Further,
the server reconfigures the fonts used by a web site
to use specially designed fonts on the Pocket PC.
The result is the equivalent of up to an 800×600 pixel
display on a Pocket PC’s 320×240 display. You
can read that, but you won’t really understand the
impact until you see it, so here it is.
Pocket Internet Explorer
— 1.5 minutes to load
ThunderHawkII — 10
seconds to load!
BitStream doesn’t use the
SETUP
standard ActiveSync Add/Remove programs feature.
Instead, you download a "CAB" file which you then
transfer to your Pocket PC. You then run the CAB
file on your PPC and it decompresses into ThunderHawk
and all it’s support files. BitStream has also
bypassed one of the standards for using CAB files to
install programs. Normally, a CAB file will
decompress itself onto whichever medium you place the
CAB file onto. In other words, if I place the
CAB file on my SD Card, the program will install onto
my SD Card. In the case of ThunderHawk, the CAB
file overrides this process and always installs into
main memory. You can’t install it onto an
Storage Card or File Store.
When you first start ThunderHawk, the program will
automatically take you to an account set up page on
the BitStream web site. There you’ll be able to
create an account with a corresponding User Name and
Password. The User Name and Password identify
you to the ThunderHawk server for your trial period as
well as after you’ve subscribed.
PROGRAM FEATURES
One
of the first things you’ll notice about the
ThunderHawk display is that there are no icons, no
tool bars, and no place to enter a URL. That
provides maximum screen for displaying the web page.
When you do need to enter information, you call up the
tool bar/keyboard. You do that by pressing
application button 1. It may differ on your
Pocket PC, but on most PPCs that’s the Calendar
button. When you press it, you’ll get the tool
bar and keyboard as shown below:
ThunderHawkII with
keyboard and tool bar displayed
As you can see the keyboard takes up a lot of screen
real estate. Actually, I think it takes up too
much, even more than the built-in keyboard would.
At the risk of making it slightly harder to type, I’d
really like to see the keyboard shrunk in future
versions of ThunderHawk. With the keyboard
displayed, you really get very little usable web page
display above it.
Directly above the keyboard is the URL entry. To visit
a particular site, you can simply type in it’s URL and
press the [Go] button to the top-right of the URL
entry. Like most well-behaved browsers,
you don’t have to type the whole "http://www…" or
even the ".com" at the end. If you just type "pocketnow",
BitStream’s server will locate the closest matching
URL and go to it.
ThunderHawkII with URL
history displayed
Above
the URL entry is the tool bar. There’s an "ESCape"
key to the far left. ESC can be useful for some
internet and intranet applications. Next, the
[X] exits ThunderHawk. It’s a real exit.
It doesn’t place ThunderHawk in the background, still
running. The [<-] and [->] keys go back one web
page or forward one web page (after you’ve gone back).
You can do the same thing without calling up the
keyboard by using application button 4 for back and
application button 3 for forward. Application
button 5 (usually the Record button) will close
ThunderHawk.
To the right of the arrows is the "Halt" button. That
will halt loading information from the current web
page. To the right of that is the "Refresh"
button which will reload the current web page.
The magnifying glass button is a "zoom" control. It
calls up the dialog you see below:
ThunderHawkII Zoom
dialog
The
screens we’ve been viewing were in 640×480 or "Medium" resolution.
Here are examples of the other two resolutions:
ThunderHawkII in Low
(480×360) resolution
ThunderHawkII in High
(800×600) resolution
Next to the Zoom button is the "Favorites" button which reveals
the following:
ThunderHawkII Favorites
screen
The "Open" tab lets you select favorites from your
list. Clicking on one of the favorites will take
you there immediately. Clicking [Done] will exit
without moving to a different web site. The
Add/Delete calls up the screen below:
ThunderHawkII Favorites
Add/Delete
Clicking on the [Add] button will add the current web
page to your favorites. If you click on an
existing favorite, you can then click on [Delete] to
remove it. You can also create Folders to
further organize your favorites.
The next button to the right is the User Options button. It calls up the screen shown below:
ThunderHawkII User
Options screen
The "Account Info" tab is simply for entering your
User Name and Password that you’ll get when you sign
up to use ThunderHawk.
The "Advanced" tab currently has the one option you see below:
ThunderHawkII Advanced
Options screen
The "User Agent" string is the string that identifies
ThunderHawk’s capabilities to web sites which you
browse. Currently, it describes itself as
Internet Explorer 5.0 compatible with the additional
ability to use KHTML. If you find a web site
that won’t behave properly while using ThunderHawk,
modifying the User Agent string may help.
The final button on the tool bar is the Windows logo
button. Pressing it allows you to temporarily
leave ThunderHawk, leaving it still running in the
background. This is useful when you want to
cut-and-paste from another application or otherwise
work with other programs on your PPC, but eventually
return to ThunderHawk for further browsing.
There is one last feature of ThunderHawk that I’d like
to call your attention to: When you first start
the program, ThunderHawk automatically switches to the
ThunderHawk home page as shown below:
ThunderHawk Home Page
This "portal" page gives you access to some links to
search engines and other information sources. It
also provides you easy access to your ThunderHawk
account. It’s quite a useful feature for those
of use who generally hop on to the internet to do a
quick search or to check weather.
BitStream provides
HELP SUPPORT
a very brief user guide in PDF (Adobe Acrobat) format
for download from their web site. There is also
a specifications sheet, also in PDF format, which
shows which web standards ThunderHawk can process. In
addition, you can request
e-mail technical support or
new features via web forms.
ThunderHawk will run on
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Windows CE 3.0, Pocket PC 2000, Pocket PC 2002, or
Windows Mobile 2003 operating systems. There are
different CAB files for some of these operating
systems so you need to be sure you download the
correct one. ThunderHawk runs on Windows Mobile
2003 SE machines but doesn’t allow portrait
orientation and doesn’t take advantage of
VGA-resolution displays.
The WM2003 version requires 0.94MB of storage memory to
install and 1.3MB of program memory to run.
BUGS AND WISHES
I didn’t find any program malfunctions or errors.
I do have a few things I’d like to see changed in
future versions though: First, I’d like to be
able to install the program onto a File Store or
Storage Card. Doing so would free up Main Memory
for use by running programs.
Second, I’d like to see a smaller keyboard/tool bar so that
you can see more of the screen when you’re entering
text. While I’m on the subject of the keyboard,
I’d also like to see "sliding" functionality added to
it. On the built-in keyboard, if you tap on a
letter and slide up, it will capitalize the letter for
you. That’s a fair bit faster for me than
tapping on the Shift key and then tapping on the
letter.
Finally I’d like to see ThunderHawk take advantage of the VGA
resolution that’s becoming available. If you can
get 800×600 onto a 320×240 display, you could get at
least 1024×800 on a 640×480 display. Granted,
the text would be small, but I’d like to have the
option at least.
PURCHASING
ThunderHawk is available for download
from BitStream’s web site. The download will
function as a 30-day free trial version until you
buy a subscription to use the ThunderHawk proxy server.
The subscription is $49.95 per year or $5.95 per month
for unlimited use during that time.
PROS
- Speeds up
web page downloads dramatically - Formats
PPC display to act like 800×600 resolution
CONS
- Installs only in main memory
- Doesn’t
take advantage of VGA resolution - Uses too
much screen for onscreen keyboard - Requires a
subscription
I’m of mixed minds on
OVERALL
IMPRESSION
ThunderHawk. It dramatically speeds up web page
loading. It does a great job of formatting web
pages to the small screen. However, the user
interface needs a little more work, particularly the
on-screen keyboard. While I’m not particularly
fond of subscription services, I realize that there’s
no other way to do what ThunderHawk does without a
server doing the "heavy lifting." If you only
occasionally do internet browsing on your PPC, you’ll
probably find the subscription cost prohibitive.
If you want to regularly use your PPC for browsing,
you’ll find the subscription is actually quite
reasonable for the productivity you gain.
The bottom line is that ThunderHawk, version II is a
must-have for anyone who relies on their PPC for
serious web browsing. The speed and the
true-to-the-web display of ThunderHawk take Pocket web
browsing from a tolerable curiosity to a usable tool.
The user interface could use a bit more work, but it’s
still quite usable as it is.
All screenshots in this
review are taken using
SOTI’s Pocket Controller Pro
Back
to pocketnow.com |
Discuss
this Review
 |
Bitstream’s
ThunderHawk v2.0
October 21, 2004
Review by:
Russ Smith, Contributing Editor
In the old days, you
INTRODUCTION
used to carry around a laptop to connect to the
internet and do some browsing. Now you carry a
Pocket PC. You’ve experimented with browsing
using Pocket Internet Explorer and have been a bit,
well, underwhelmed. The web pages don’t seem to
format correctly. The pictures are too big.
It
takes forever to load the web page onto the screen.
You don’t want to go back to lugging a laptop but
you’d really like to have a better experience browsing on
your handheld. BitStream created their
ThunderHawk browser as their solution to just this problem.
BitStream’s ThunderHawk
WHAT’S HOT
does a lot more than simply bring web page content
onto your PPC screen. BitStream designed the
program to enhance the overall browsing experience on
"the small screen." To do this, they use a
proprietary proxy server that intercepts web page
information and reformats it "on-the-fly" to better
suit the PPC screen. BitStream’s server resizes
pictures so that only the data necessary to display
the image is sent through to the PPC. Further,
the server reconfigures the fonts used by a web site
to use specially designed fonts on the Pocket PC.
The result is the equivalent of up to an 800×600 pixel
display on a Pocket PC’s 320×240 display. You
can read that, but you won’t really understand the
impact until you see it, so here it is.
Pocket Internet Explorer
— 1.5 minutes to load
ThunderHawkII — 10
seconds to load!
BitStream doesn’t use the
SETUP
standard ActiveSync Add/Remove programs feature.
Instead, you download a "CAB" file which you then
transfer to your Pocket PC. You then run the CAB
file on your PPC and it decompresses into ThunderHawk
and all it’s support files. BitStream has also
bypassed one of the standards for using CAB files to
install programs. Normally, a CAB file will
decompress itself onto whichever medium you place the
CAB file onto. In other words, if I place the
CAB file on my SD Card, the program will install onto
my SD Card. In the case of ThunderHawk, the CAB
file overrides this process and always installs into
main memory. You can’t install it onto an
Storage Card or File Store.
When you first start ThunderHawk, the program will
automatically take you to an account set up page on
the BitStream web site. There you’ll be able to
create an account with a corresponding User Name and
Password. The User Name and Password identify
you to the ThunderHawk server for your trial period as
well as after you’ve subscribed.
PROGRAM FEATURES
One
of the first things you’ll notice about the
ThunderHawk display is that there are no icons, no
tool bars, and no place to enter a URL. That
provides maximum screen for displaying the web page.
When you do need to enter information, you call up the
tool bar/keyboard. You do that by pressing
application button 1. It may differ on your
Pocket PC, but on most PPCs that’s the Calendar
button. When you press it, you’ll get the tool
bar and keyboard as shown below:
ThunderHawkII with
keyboard and tool bar displayed
As you can see the keyboard takes up a lot of screen
real estate. Actually, I think it takes up too
much, even more than the built-in keyboard would.
At the risk of making it slightly harder to type, I’d
really like to see the keyboard shrunk in future
versions of ThunderHawk. With the keyboard
displayed, you really get very little usable web page
display above it.
Directly above the keyboard is the URL entry. To visit
a particular site, you can simply type in it’s URL and
press the [Go] button to the top-right of the URL
entry. Like most well-behaved browsers,
you don’t have to type the whole "http://www…" or
even the ".com" at the end. If you just type "pocketnow",
BitStream’s server will locate the closest matching
URL and go to it.
ThunderHawkII with URL
history displayed
Above
the URL entry is the tool bar. There’s an "ESCape"
key to the far left. ESC can be useful for some
internet and intranet applications. Next, the
[X] exits ThunderHawk. It’s a real exit.
It doesn’t place ThunderHawk in the background, still
running. The [<-] and [->] keys go back one web
page or forward one web page (after you’ve gone back).
You can do the same thing without calling up the
keyboard by using application button 4 for back and
application button 3 for forward. Application
button 5 (usually the Record button) will close
ThunderHawk.
To the right of the arrows is the "Halt" button. That
will halt loading information from the current web
page. To the right of that is the "Refresh"
button which will reload the current web page.
The magnifying glass button is a "zoom" control. It
calls up the dialog you see below:
ThunderHawkII Zoom
dialog
The
screens we’ve been viewing were in 640×480 or "Medium" resolution.
Here are examples of the other two resolutions:
ThunderHawkII in Low
(480×360) resolution
ThunderHawkII in High
(800×600) resolution
Next to the Zoom button is the "Favorites" button which reveals
the following:
ThunderHawkII Favorites
screen
The "Open" tab lets you select favorites from your
list. Clicking on one of the favorites will take
you there immediately. Clicking [Done] will exit
without moving to a different web site. The
Add/Delete calls up the screen below:
ThunderHawkII Favorites
Add/Delete
Clicking on the [Add] button will add the current web
page to your favorites. If you click on an
existing favorite, you can then click on [Delete] to
remove it. You can also create Folders to
further organize your favorites.
The next button to the right is the User Options button. It calls up the screen shown below:
ThunderHawkII User
Options screen
The "Account Info" tab is simply for entering your
User Name and Password that you’ll get when you sign
up to use ThunderHawk.
The "Advanced" tab currently has the one option you see below:
ThunderHawkII Advanced
Options screen
The "User Agent" string is the string that identifies
ThunderHawk’s capabilities to web sites which you
browse. Currently, it describes itself as
Internet Explorer 5.0 compatible with the additional
ability to use KHTML. If you find a web site
that won’t behave properly while using ThunderHawk,
modifying the User Agent string may help.
The final button on the tool bar is the Windows logo
button. Pressing it allows you to temporarily
leave ThunderHawk, leaving it still running in the
background. This is useful when you want to
cut-and-paste from another application or otherwise
work with other programs on your PPC, but eventually
return to ThunderHawk for further browsing.
There is one last feature of ThunderHawk that I’d like
to call your attention to: When you first start
the program, ThunderHawk automatically switches to the
ThunderHawk home page as shown below:
ThunderHawk Home Page
This "portal" page gives you access to some links to
search engines and other information sources. It
also provides you easy access to your ThunderHawk
account. It’s quite a useful feature for those
of use who generally hop on to the internet to do a
quick search or to check weather.
BitStream provides
HELP SUPPORT
a very brief user guide in PDF (Adobe Acrobat) format
for download from their web site. There is also
a specifications sheet, also in PDF format, which
shows which web standards ThunderHawk can process. In
addition, you can request
e-mail technical support or
new features via web forms.
ThunderHawk will run on
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Windows CE 3.0, Pocket PC 2000, Pocket PC 2002, or
Windows Mobile 2003 operating systems. There are
different CAB files for some of these operating
systems so you need to be sure you download the
correct one. ThunderHawk runs on Windows Mobile
2003 SE machines but doesn’t allow portrait
orientation and doesn’t take advantage of
VGA-resolution displays.
The WM2003 version requires 0.94MB of storage memory to
install and 1.3MB of program memory to run.
BUGS AND WISHES
I didn’t find any program malfunctions or errors.
I do have a few things I’d like to see changed in
future versions though: First, I’d like to be
able to install the program onto a File Store or
Storage Card. Doing so would free up Main Memory
for use by running programs.
Second, I’d like to see a smaller keyboard/tool bar so that
you can see more of the screen when you’re entering
text. While I’m on the subject of the keyboard,
I’d also like to see "sliding" functionality added to
it. On the built-in keyboard, if you tap on a
letter and slide up, it will capitalize the letter for
you. That’s a fair bit faster for me than
tapping on the Shift key and then tapping on the
letter.
Finally I’d like to see ThunderHawk take advantage of the VGA
resolution that’s becoming available. If you can
get 800×600 onto a 320×240 display, you could get at
least 1024×800 on a 640×480 display. Granted,
the text would be small, but I’d like to have the
option at least.
PURCHASING
ThunderHawk is available for download
from BitStream’s web site. The download will
function as a 30-day free trial version until you
buy a subscription to use the ThunderHawk proxy server.
The subscription is $49.95 per year or $5.95 per month
for unlimited use during that time.
PROS
- Speeds up
web page downloads dramatically - Formats
PPC display to act like 800×600 resolution
CONS
- Installs only in main memory
- Doesn’t
take advantage of VGA resolution - Uses too
much screen for onscreen keyboard - Requires a
subscription
I’m of mixed minds on
OVERALL
IMPRESSION
ThunderHawk. It dramatically speeds up web page
loading. It does a great job of formatting web
pages to the small screen. However, the user
interface needs a little more work, particularly the
on-screen keyboard. While I’m not particularly
fond of subscription services, I realize that there’s
no other way to do what ThunderHawk does without a
server doing the "heavy lifting." If you only
occasionally do internet browsing on your PPC, you’ll
probably find the subscription cost prohibitive.
If you want to regularly use your PPC for browsing,
you’ll find the subscription is actually quite
reasonable for the productivity you gain.
The bottom line is that ThunderHawk, version II is a
must-have for anyone who relies on their PPC for
serious web browsing. The speed and the
true-to-the-web display of ThunderHawk take Pocket web
browsing from a tolerable curiosity to a usable tool.
The user interface could use a bit more work, but it’s
still quite usable as it is.
All screenshots in this
review are taken using
SOTI’s Pocket Controller Pro
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