How is the 640X480 screen useful?

[JMckie]

Please enlighten me on the practical use and benefits of full VGA on a handheld. What percentage of programs support it, and is the screen large enough to make a difference?

[AnswerDude]

Generally, it just allows you to put a lot more stuffs on the screen. Here's a sample of VGA today screen.

[AnswerDude]

Here's spreadsheet in VGA.

[AnswerDude]

And Mapopolis in VGA.

[AnswerDude]

And internet browsing in VGA.

[Bokkie]

Joseph, AnswerDude has shown some excellent examples. Now, if Garmin could see the way open to convert the maps to use 640x480 we'd have a different game on our hands. I seem to recall that switching to 640x480 mode needs a separate app to do it. Swapping to landscape mode is embedded and easy to do. It's certainly possible for any app to change orientation and I'd like to think there is an API call that will change the resolution. Maybe there is something at the very excellent www.opennetcf.org?

[AnswerDude]

Here's a fairly new article from MS;
How to Develop Orientation-Aware and DPI-Aware Applications for Pocket PC
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnwm2k3/html/orientation_dpi_aware_apps.asp?frame=true

[JMckie]

So Garmin's app does not yet take advantage of 640X480? What resolution does QueMap run at? In some screenshots (from the cfQue thread) I have noticed some graininess suggesting 320X240. Is this accurate or is this a problem of the screen capture software?

The Mapopolis screenshots provided by AD is quite hi-res. That would be nice to have in a map.

What percentage of PPC apps today take advantage of full VGA?

[AnswerDude]

With free 3rd party true vga utility such as SE_VGA or OzVga and Tweak2k2 (not free but there's a free lite version), you can try to force any applications into VGA mode. It's hard to say but not counting games, i would say you can force over 60% of applications to take some advantage of VGA screen. Bokkie does not like Tweak2k2, but you can try to convince him to force QueMap into VGA mode and show us what it looks like.

[JMckie]

Originally posted by AnswerDude
With free 3rd party true vga utility such as SE_VGA or OzVga and Tweak2k2 (not free but there's a free lite version), you can try to force any applications into VGA mode. It's hard to say but not counting games, i would say you can force over 60% of applications to take some advantage of VGA screen. Bokkie does not like Tweak2k2, but you can try to convince him to force QueMap into VGA mode and show us what it looks like.

Bokkie, did you hear that? What are you waiting for? Do it!

[Bokkie]

Originally posted by JMckie
Bokkie, did you hear that? What are you waiting for? Do it!

Joseph,

I can't use an ActiveSync partnership at work as I have too many problems with it on my work and home PC as it causes weird problems. I've downloaded the OzVGA program and I'll try that later when I get home this evening. I'll see what it looks like in the Garmin Que application and I'll post a screenshot of the result.

[Bokkie]

Joseph,

here is a sequence of Garmin screenshots snapped at 640x480.

First, the startup screen. As you see can see, it's not a pretty chicken!

[Bokkie]

This next screenshot shows a side-by-side comparison of the Que app in standard VGA (left) and 640x480 (right) using a 3km scale. As you can see, the map detail looks crisper. Now, for some reason, it looked awful using the SE_VGA program, but with OzVGA it looks much better. The problem though is the icon bar at the bottom. The icons are reduced in size so much they are, for practical purposes, unusable. You'd not find them easy to interact with.

[Bokkie]

Here's another similar in context to the previous but with a map scale of 80 meters. If you want additional screenshots I have the program on my PDA and I can do others at the office now if you want some.

What I can't explain is why some street names appear in one but not in the other. Maybe there is some 'intelligence' in the app that decides what is visible.

No matter what though, the 640x480 is drop-dead gorgeous and if Garmin's apps can harness this capability in the future, so much the better, especially as all of you will be getting PPC's within the next few months or so.:)

[JMckie]

Thanks for trying out the screenshots Bokkie. You are right, the maps in VGA are gorgeous, and Garmin should fix it. After all Mapopolis already fixed theirs.

It looks like the map only runs at 240X320 (QVGA). Why not 480X320 like the iQue? Probaby Garmin developers just picked the most common resolution for PPCs at the time of development.

[Bokkie]

I think the various versions of the PPC apps suggests they had to rush something out of the door. Maybe the quality will improve at the next release and hopefully an SDK as well.;)

[JMckie]

I don't think it was a bad compromise, because full VGA was considered a novelty around the time that they were working on the apps. However, they have to work to keep up with the times.

[kefer]

Bokkie:

I downloaded OzVGA yesterday and replicated your experience with the Que application. I agree the icons at the bottom of the screen are so small that they are rendered useless...but the display resolution is so good, I think I just might use it this way (at least until Garmin "fixes" it for VGA display). Now I know why I spent the extra $ for that vga display!

I noticed the turn previews are actually much more useful, since they provide a decent amount of information on screen to help you orient yourself. Also, the text at the top of the screen is small, but still readable enough to use. I sort of like it this way!

But the other Que program menus are nasty...the navigation and find menus are all screwed up and the text is pretty much useless. I will have to fool around with the text settings on OzVGA to see if I can get it adjusted so I can at least read them. Thanks for the tip though-

[Bokkie]

kefer,

I noticed the same problem with the other icons, especially those on the find screen where they get all jumbled up, with clipped text, making them somewhat challenging to decode. I really hope Garmin bring all the PPC products into line and offer a dynamic switchover to 640x480 asap as we are seeing more of these screen res devices coming into existence.

If you manage to select a usable text size on the OzVGA configuration screen, would you post the settings as well? I really find OzGVA a slick program to use.

[kefer]

Try setting your system font to 1000, make sure bold is NOT checked. At least it's readable for the most part, although the icons are still a little jumbled (at least on my x50v they are)

[Bokkie]

The font size is one avenue to explore. What I did notice is that the size of window caption and the icon bar at the bottom of the screen seem to be immovable. The iQue has the same 'restriction' so I wonder if that can be customised on the PPC somehow?