MTekk reports on MS Mobiles declaring the photo a fake and predicting the demise of HTC.

In the instance of the iPAQ h6300 "antenna" icon, no signal bars appear. This is would be indicative of either the device being in a no signal area, or this being a mock-up for promotional purposes without an active radio stack.

I have just completed double checking this with my XDA II, and can definitely confirm that the antenna symbol not appearing is not in itself indicative that the photo is a fake, and especially not if - as the photo indicates - an ActiveSync connection is in progress.

More from the article:

" To see the photo in close-up and read more info from this article click here . Please note however: according to us it is a fake, and it is worth mentioning that the same website (smartfone.net) previously published photo of Motorola MPx220 smartphone, that also appeared to be a fake later on. "

I seem to recall that it was MPx200.org who published the original black and white photograph , which I elected not to publish because I was dubious as to its validity. Indeed, I only syndicated the followup (color) version published by Smartfone.net because it contained further detail of the MPx220 release other than just the photograph itself. I've felt all along that it was perhaps just a draft or prototype drawing at the very most. No matter. My point here is that MS Mobiles is wrong in their implied assertion that Smartfone.net is the original source of the image.

Finally:

" All in all: we all expect for the first iPAQ Pocket PC phone to come to the market at last: Compaq, before takeover by HP, was showing several prototypes of iPAQ Pocket PC phones, but HP stopped their market introduction for some time. iPAQ Pocket PC phone can become XDA 2 -killer because it will offer not only built-in Bluetooth and GSM/GPRS but also built-in Wi-Fi that is very important nowadays. Apart from that, while XDA 2 (or MDA II, etc) has weak brand recognition in comparison to HP, so in fact arrival of iPAQ Pocket PC phones may mean death to HTC-made Pocket PC phones like XDA 2. Similarly like arrival of Motorola MPx200 changed totally landscape of Microsoft Smartphones - becoming very quickly more popular than HTC-made smartphones (branded by operators and distributors). It may well be that at the end, among all Microsoft powered cell phones, the top-brand products like Pocket PC phones from HP and Microsoft Smartphones from Motorola will be the market leaders, and the HTC is already on the road to oblivion... "

That's just hilarious. XDA II killer? HP and Motorola market leaders? HTC on the road to oblivion? I'd love to know how they've reached that conclusion. Oh well - they can try to claim it, and perhaps everyone - even HTC - will believe them and act accordingly. However, HTC have established an early lead through their early adoption, and even if a competitor can come in with a lower priced or higher specification Pocket PC Phone (or both), it would take quite some time to completely eliminate them from the market. And in the meantime, they've had time to learn just that little bit more about the technology than a newcomer. So no - I don't think this will kill HTC or their phones.

Anyway, in my opinion, the image is alive and well. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, and mine is that the photo is real. I certainly have my reasons for this - and I don't feel I have to share them - but at the same time, I could be wrong. Yes - the photo could be a fake. But not for the reasons quoted. If it's a fake, it's actually a very good fake. I don't think it is though.