Bitstream Announces Preview of ThunderHawk 2.0

[bkbroil]

Here's a press release from Bitstream and their newest release of Thunderhawk. I have purchased and been using Netfront but you can grab a 30 day free trial to test this browser out. Also get an additional 30 days for providing feedback. I think I may just test this browser out to see how it compares to Netfront.
Update: I just realized that Thunderhawk is a subscription service. A one year subscription is $49.99. I am still downloading it to see how it compares.
From the site:

You can personally contribute to the future development of ThunderHawk by sharing your ideas with us on a survey. As a token of our appreciation for your feedback, we will provide you with an additional 30 days to try the latest version of ThunderHawk. To take the survey and get a 30-day trial extension, click here.

Bitstream Inc. (NASDAQ: BITS) announced on Tuesday the release of ThunderHawk 2.0, the company’s breakthrough mobile browsing technology. Bitstream is previewing ThunderHawk 2.0 PocketPC Edition at Mobile Enterprise 2004.
ThunderHawk 2.0 further narrows the gap between mobile and desktop environments by including functionality that enhances the browsing experience on small screen devices:

Effortless Scrolling. Fast, fluid Web page navigation, as if you were browsing on your desktop
Increased Speed. Download ThunderHawk directly to your PocketPC for the fastest mobile Web page speeds available
Immediate Browsing at Download. Just-rendered Web links work immediately, so you don’t have to wait for the initial page to finish downloading
Seamless Connectivity. With ThunderHawk 2.0, a dropped connection is re-established immediately, along with any data you previously entered
While some browsers reformat the Web page for quick reading, users still have to scroll through several pages before finding the information they need. ThunderHawk 2.0 promotes effortless navigation on mobile devices because HTML Web pages look just as they would appear on desktop browsers users are already familiar with. As a result, images are full and crisp, text is sharp, and users can easily find and read information.
“Our ThunderHawk development goals always focus on delivering the best user experience for browsing Web pages on mobile devices,” said Anna Chagnon, President and Chief Executive Officer of Bitstream. “ThunderHawk 2.0 meets our users’ expectations of not only finding information fast, but also being able to read it quickly on their PocketPCs. ThunderHawk enterprise clients will appreciate this ease-of-use, especially when deploying business applications for access in the field, as well as ThunderHawk’s 128-bit encryption technology not available on any other mobile browser. Bitstream looks forward to releasing ThunderHawk 2.0 for cell and SmartPhone users in upcoming months.”

[bkbroil]

I'm using version 1.x on my tosh e805 right now. My initial reaction is...this stinks! I don't know if version 2.0 will be better but this is hard to use and the page rendering is terrible.

[bkbroil]

Ahhhhhhhhh! Back using Netfront...This is so much better..

[staypuft]

So I'm a total dork, but the PDA in the photo looks like an e335 which probably won't run the software too well being as it would need to be in the cradle (in landscape mode.)
Or does this software support offline reading?

[jkendrick]

ThunderHawk is not SE compliant so whatt you're seeing is the quad pixelling. TH pre-SE was quite good at displaying a page 800 x 600 on a QVGA screen. Even with the quad pixelling TH is much faster than NF as all the page rendering is done on the TH servers and not the PPC.
It's not as necessary with VGA devices now. If you want to see some nice screens showing TH in real use and not just Bitstream's lousy pics check out the review on BostonPocketPC. It's easily accessible through the all time 10 top review list on the left sidebar.

[buzzard]

I'm confused...I currently have Thunderhawk version 1.10 on my Ipaq and when I try the 30 free trial download it doesn't tell you what version it is. How do you know that this is version 2.0 or a download for the current 1.10 ?

[jkendrick]

Even though news articles and a press release claimed that a version 2.0 "preview" was released it's apparently not a public release as it's not obtainable from Bitstream so far. The demo download will be the latest official release which is not SE compliant. It does run fine in SE, however, just quad pixelled.

[buzzard]

Does that mean that the 30 day trial is the new version ? If so, I'll download it.

[jkendrick]

No, the trial is 1.X. I don't think they'll put a preview release up for public trial for people that haven't used the s/w yet.

[buzzard]

Thank you for the prompt answers. The only problem that I've had with Thunderhawk is the way it scrolls...not too well, at least in my opinion. I hope that is addressed in a new version and notice that "effortless scrolling" was mentioned in the first comment.