ok, I seem to have found the culprit.
in application start I initialize my game class which creates a bunch of panels, images ...
this kind of holds the resize process so it still works with the portrait dimensions.
moving the init to the resize sub doesn't solve it either. it doesn't seem to work there at all and I don't see anything being added to the screen.
when I use a timer and let the init execute after a second then it shows up like on the other device.
I just have one more question...
What triggers the resize sub? if I dissable that timer the resize sub doesn't execute at all. Does it happen from the moment you add a view to it?