14 DAY TRIAL // HTC TyTN II, one of the most powerful Pocket PCs on the market, has now a Chinese brother that looks like its twin. At least at first sight, because if you check the "brother" more carefully, you'll find an overall quality far from the one the TyTN II comes with.
TyTN II is offered in the US by AT&T, as AT&T Tilt, and by T-Mobile, as MDA Vario III, and what's funny is that the "new TyTN", named Awang A900, comes with a "TV Mobile" inscription that looks almost like T-Mobile's logo.
The Chinese device has a bigger display than the original TyTN II (3 inches as opposed to 2.8 inches) that even offers support for more colors: 265k as opposed to 65k. Moreover, Awang A900 comes with dual-SIM technology and TV out, features that cannot be found in TyTN II.
These extras are the only ones that, at least theoretically, would make Awang A900 better than HTC TyTN II. And I say theoretically, because a clone (that's what the Awang handset is, after all) cannot be better than the original. Plus, the rest of the features the device includes are inferior than the ones TyTN II offers: a weak 1.3 Megapixel camera, Music and Video players, Bluetooth, USB, FM radio, stereo speaker, microSD card support. No 3G, no Wi-Fi, no HTC quality.
As mentioned here (the page is automatically translated from Chinese), Awang A900 apparently costs around 1,300 yuan, which means $185. The handset is also available on Trade Me New Zealand, presented with hot girls on its display (if you can't make it high-end at least make it look good, right?). Trade Me sells the Awang Pocket PC for 319 NZD, meaning about $250.
In the end, if you want people to think you have a HTC TyTN II but can't afford to pay its real price (about $800), buy an Awang A900. Of course, no one guarantees you'll be satisfied with its functionality, but hey, at least it's cheap, and if you don't turn it on too often you've got yourself a real bargain.
