Update: USB Host Support is broken on this device, with HTC being the only ones who can fix it, please see my post below with full details.
The ultimate Pocket PC Phone has arrived! The HTC Advantage, AKA TMobile Ameo, has every single feature you could wish for use with Pocket Phojo. It is only the second Pocket PC Phone available with USB Host support for connecting directly to your camera, plus it has the most RAM (128MB), the biggest screen (5” VGA), the biggest storage (8GB built-in hard drive), and the fastest uploads (UMTS/HSDPA support).
The phone supports all the frequencies necessary for it to work in both Europe and the US. The price without a cell phone contract is around $899 in the US, and subsidized price of 0-400 UK Pounds from TMobile.
HTC Advantage Site
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Hello,
I have the Advantage 7500. Works splendid as a phone and as a PDA. BUT when I connect my Canon 5D via USB to the 4-1 cable, I do not ’see’ it in the file explorer, nor do I get the message in the camera I am connected.
I tried to connect a CF cardreader to the same cable, who acts as a USB host. Same problem, I cannot find the CF card in the file explorer. Did anyone have the same experience? And if so, what is your solution to this problem?
Many thanks…
Sorry about this, one of the tools that I use appears to not work on the 7500, I`m waiting for a response from the company that makes it. My card reader works though, can you try another one?
What is the brand of your cardreader Paul? I tried 5 different, Hama, Lacie, Simple Tech, Typhoon and a Lexar Jumpshot. And the USB cable direct from the Eos 5D. All with and without a powered USB HUB.
Sorry for the delay, I was testing another idea, upgrading the Advantage to WM6. No joy
I have to send the unit to Israel to have the USB tool developer take a look. My USB reader is by i-rocks:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820300102
I use it unpowered, and purely as a card reader, I would not use a hub with a Pocket PC. Do you have a thumbdrive or USB drive you can plug in? Try a keyboard to make sure your adapter cable is working.
AFAIK, USB hosting is not supported on the HTC Advantage.
Only the XDA Flame, which I use, and the Toshiba Portégé G900, support USB hosting.
See my comparison: http://www.leekillough.com/phones/
The Advantage does have USB host, honest, HTC sells a USB host adapter cable that plugs in the left side of the unit. It just doesn’t work with the USB tools that I use for some reason, it’s being looked into.
Have you tested Phojo’s USB host support on your Flame? Very curious to know if it works, I`m not as familiar with that one.
Dear Nolan!
We have got the same experiences with the others’s
your HTC Advantage X7500 we are eager to know how is process of development in this issue ? Could you give me the date of terminate of solution? Best Regards, Suzy Rubovszky
Extremely disappointing news I`m afraid. I sent my Advantage to the company that provides the USB tools I use, and they used a USB analyzer to further pinpoint the problem. It seems that the Advantage just does not work properly with powered devices. The simplest test that demonstrates this is to hard reset, and plug in a USB device such as a camera or printer. You should see a message saying “Unknown USB Device”. This is good. Now cancel the message, unplug the device, and plug it back in again. No message will appear. This is bad, as it indicates the Advantage’s USB stack is locking up. Unfortunately, the only company that can fix this is HTC, so get emailing, the more people who report the problem, the slightly greater chance they might fix it.
Alternative devices that I have not yet tested are the new Toshiba G900, and and XDA Flame. If anyone gets hold of one before I do, please let me know! The T830 also works of course.
Hey Paul,
does usb host work with card readers? CF preffered?
I just bought it and usb host cable was missing ill report
how it works. I also own a hp hx 4700 and htc x7500 has much better display. I hope the usb hosting works with cf reader.
Yours trully,
TK
I have the (expensive) USB host/VGA/composite/SVideo cable from HTC and I have not been able to get my x7500 running WM6 to talk successfully to my Lumix (Panasonic) FZ18 camera. I get tantalizing bits of evidence that it is on the verge of working, but it is very flaky and intermittent.
Typically, when the camera is plugged into the HTC USB cable the camera displays “Connecting To PC”, and about one out of 10 times I get the intermediate “Access” message, then the “lightning bolt” icon on the camera’s screen that it normally displays when successfully connected to a USB host. Various combinations of power cycling, hibernating, plugging and unplugging of cables is usually required to hit this one-in-ten jackpot.
Once it’s at that stage, there’s an additional 50% (or less) chance that when browsing with File Explorer, I will see the camera appear in the pulldown list of mass storage devices as “Hard Disk”. However, if I select Hard Disk to browse, the machine either freezes or I get WM6’s spinning umbrella of death. One time - once! - as it was unfreezing I saw a brief list of the camera’s DCIM and other directories before the machine locked up again. So close!
I’d be interested to try a card reader, but honestly it would be easier to pop the miniSD card out of the camera and insert it into the x7500.
The Advantage does work with card readers, but powered devices such as cameras fail. Kick up as much fuss with HTC as you can until they acknowledge the USB support does not work properly. Hakan received a Toshiba G900 and reported the USB host port works properly. I have one arriving next week, I`ll be posting a review then, and will probably recommend selling the Advantage for the G900 (in Europe at least).
Well as long as the card reader works its fine if you ask me,
i have to try my 1d mark III with the new Canon wifi adapter,
did you try it already Paul? Htx x7500 seems to work great and is very stable not to mention the huge display and keyboard.
Yours trully,
Tito
WFT-E2 support requires the latest beta, drop me an email and I`ll send you the link.
Hey Paul,
any update on broken usb host?
Iam using x7500(and Phojo!) with great succes
but iam sad usb host doesnt work?
Yours trully,
Tito
I`m sad too, I`ve been recommending Ebaying the Advantage and using the proceeds to buy the Toshiba G900 for people who want USB host support. I just added driver support for the Canon 40D, which hopefully means the Mark III will work too now.
did you end up with the G900? Curious as to comparos. I hear nothing but bad things about it. I ended up going with an Advantage as it seemed like a safer overall package than the G, but USB host isnt really on my needs list.
Its a shame that these OEMs are throwing together great hardware (ATI chip, NVidia chip, USB host, etc) but then not bothering to integrate or support it properly.
As I stressed in my G900 review, a lot of the bad press was from the original firmware, which to Toshiba’s credit, they did update.