HTC owners up in arms over graphics

18 Jan 2008 | 02:00 GMT

By Tony Dennis

A BIT of a spat has arisen amongst owners of certain recent HTC mobile PDAs and the manufacturer over an alleged lack of a decent driver. The complainers have formed the HTC Class Action organisation.

Given the tone of the site, the group appears to be mainly US based. Their main gripe is that a number of HTC devices based on Qualcomm MSM7200 and MSM7500 chipsets fail to properly use the hardware acceleration provided by the ATI Imageon hardware inside the devices.

In the group's own words, "Even much older devices from HTC as well as from their competitors perform better."

We're talking about how well these devices' graphics capabilities work here, of course.

While the threat of a class action (involving the US courts) by the group appears to be something of an empty one, HTC Class Action does seem to be genuinely offering a reward of over $3,000 to anybody who comes up with the right software fix. That must be worth a punt.

The group also claims that it has put together a petition which has been signed by over 4,000 HTC mobile PDA owners asking the company to resolve the situation.

Given that one of the HTC models in question - the TyTN II – retails at about $700, the group doesn't think this is a trivial complaint.

However, HTC did respond to the INQ with an official statement on this particular problem. It said: "Based on recent customer feedback with regards to video performance, HTC is in the process of investigating and validating these reports and if necessary identifying solutions to rectify any unusual issues."

So the two sides still seem far apart on whether there is a problem to be fixed or not. Perhaps HTC doesn't want to pay ATI unnecessarily? µ

L'INQ
HTC Class Action

© 2007 Incisive Media Investments Ltd. 2007