Author Archive: Matt

Toshiba Portege G710 review

It has been a long time since I reviewed a phone but while I’m on maternity leave and waiting for the baby to arrive I thought I would do something useful. This is actually the first Smartphone (Windows Mobile 6 Classic) device that I’ve ever used in earnest and it has been quite an experience. Read on to find out what I thought of the Toshiba Portege G710!

10 second review:
Device: Tohiba Portege G710
Cost: SIM free only: £185 (Ex. VAT)
Available from: Clove Technology
Summary: One of Toshiba’s latest Windows Mobile device the G710 offers entry level features with the added benifit of built in GPS in a Blackberry style package.
Best of: Inexpensive WM device with GPS, great battery life.
Worst of: Lack of 3G and WiFi. Trackball navigation method that you’ll either love or hate.

What’s in the box?

The Toshiba G710

Lithium-ion battery

USB Sync/Charge cable

AC Adapter/Charger

Manual and getting started guide

Application CD-Rom

Wired USB Headser

Toshiba G710 specification:

Windows Mobile 6 Standard

260MHz Texas Instruments OMAP V1030 CPU

128MB ROM / 64MB RAM

GSM850, GSM900, GSM1800, GSM1900

CSD, GPRS, EDGE

2.46” 320×240 TFT display

Built-in QWERTY-type keyboard

TrackBall

Bluetooth 1.2, A2DP, AVRCP

MicroSD

Built-in SiRF Star III GPS receiver

2 Mega Pixel with Digital zoom and Flash

1050 mAh Removable Lithium-ion battery

130 grams

115.5 x 62.8 x 13.2mm

GENERAL

Starting with the front of the device then we have a 2.46″ QVGA landscape screen with loudspeaker above and controls below. There’s the standard softkeys, home and back buttons as well as the send/end call keys. In the middle you’ll find the trackball which is in place of the Dpad that you’ll find on most devices. Certainly not the first device to use a trackball but the first time we’ve seen one on a Smartphone. Below these you’ll find the fixed QWERTY keyboard.

Looking to the left side of the G710 you can find just two buttons, the power button and the camera button

Spinning the device around to look at the right side you’ll see a up/down rocker for volume control and then a rubber cover over the USB socket. Under the cover you’ll also find a socket for an external GPS antena.

The G710 doesn’t have any additional controls on the top or bottom edges, these are both rounded off and give the device quite a smooth look.

On the back you’ll find a 2.0 megapixel camera with LED flash. You’ll also notice two loudspeaker grilles either side of the camera.

Highlights

Decent entry level Windows Mobile device

Built in GPS

Great battery life

Lowlights

No 3G or HSDPA

No built in WiFi

Tempremental trackball navigation device

REVIEW

I’ve been using the the Toshiba Portege G710 for just over a week now, it’s taken some getting used to as this is the first time I’ve used a Smartphone in earnest. Getting started is a simple affair, removing the back cover and installing the SIM card and 1050mAh battery. It took me a while to find the MicroSD card slot, I even had to double check the spec to make sure it really did have one! The MicroSD card slot is actually located on top of the SIM card and becomes more obvious once you have installed the SIM. It’s virtually impossible to install a memory card without havaing a SIM installed first.

On first boot up the G710 runs through the normal setup asking me to set the date and time and my region and offers to let me set up a PIN code. I notice that there’s no custom software installation routine when you first boot up and I’m not asked about setting up an email account, I can do that manually later. The G710 doesn’t have any special homescreen and instead has a standard WM design.

The first thing I want to do is see what software is already installed on the device but in order to do that I have to get used to the trackball! The trackball is one of those things that you’ll either going to love or hate. Personally I would prefer to see a normal dpad as I find the trackball awkward, there is a definite threshold where it goes from not working at all to working a lot – what I mean by that is if you move the ball too slowly in an attempt to be accurate then nothing happens to as you move it more or faster it suddenly comes to life an you find it scrolling across two or three lines or icons. There is no happy medium here and no settings to adjust to get it right.

Unlike newer HTC devices, the Portege G710 doesn’t automatically detect the network operator from the SIM card, instead you have to go in to a folder in the start menu called Config UK. In here you’ll find 4 icons for setting up the network settings. After runing the desired set up file you’ll see a text message confirming the change. There’s no setting for 3 users though so if you have a 3 SIM you’ll have to set up the data connection manually.

The G710’s keyboard is pretty easy to use and the keys have a nice positive feel to them. They are also raised enough to make them quite easy use either single or two handed. They are quite close together though so if you have particularly large fingers (or thumbs actually) then you might find that you press more than one button at a time.

The Portege G710 is one of an increasing number of Smartphone devices to include built in GPS and I’m pleased to report that it has a SiRF Star III chipset. Unfortunately Toshiba have not included any GPS software with the device but there are a few free or inexpensive packages out there that you can use. I installed Google Maps in order to try the GPS unit out. As with most devices it takes a little while to acquire a signal the first time you use it but after seems to take less time. Sitting in the garder it quite accuratly pinpointed my location on the aerial map.

The G710 has a dedicated external GPS antena socket. This is situated right next to the USB connector under the rubber cover on the right side of the device. The rubber cover it really awkward to open and it annoys me every time I have to plug in the USB cable.

If you use an external GPS antena you have to select this in the antena settings menu.

As Matt has mentioned in other reviews and articles, we live in an area with poor network coverage. The G710 isn’t the best device to network reception, nor is it the worst. I can get a bar or two of signal most of the time here at home but it’s not totally reliable. If you live in an area where the signal is marginal there are probably other devices that have better reception.

One of the biggest disapointments with the G710 is the lack of 3G or HSDPA. Now I realise that this is a fairly inexpensive device, and if you consider the GPS then it IS good value for money but no 3G I suspect will put many people off. We do not have 3G coverage where we live so I guess it’s not such a big deal for us. However, if you couple the lack of 3G with the lack of WiFi the G710 may have limited appeal. For me spending so much time at home at the moment I find myself using WiFi a whole lot more and I know that Matt uses WiFi all the time at work.

There are advantage to having only GPRS and EDGE though and that is the much better battery life offered by this device. Compared to my TyTN II over the past I’ve had to charge the G710 far less frequently. I guess you have to consider the trade off between connectivity, battery life and price.

The screen on the G710 is clear and bright. It’s smaller than I am used to but still just as readable. The screen is flush with the front of the device so you might want to use a screen protector as I think it’ll be more susceptible to scratching.

CONCLUSION

The Toshiba Portege G710 is a good entry level smartphone and offers value for money especially when you think about the built in GPS.

If you are a business or power user then I the lack of 3G and WiFi are likely to be a bit of an issue and I suspect you’ll want to look elsewhere. But if you are looking for an inexpensive Blackberry-style Windows Mobile device and like the idea of built in GPS then the G710 is definitely worth considering.

Review by: Tracy

[Post tag(s): smartphone blog, Pocket PC blog, Windows Mobile blog, G710, Toshiba, Tracy & Matt]

HTC Touch Diamond review (Part 3)

HTC Touch Diamond review (Part 3) – “Touch-flo 3D”

One thing that sets the HTC Touch Diamond apart from other Windows Mobile devices is the unique Touch-Flo 3D user interface. This builds upon the success HTC had with the original Touch and later the Touch Dual and Touch Cruise and integrates further into the Windows Mobile OS.

Lets take a closer look at the Touch-Flo 3D interface by examining each screen in turn. Note that I’ve reduced the size of the screen shots by 50%.

Home Screen

This screen effectively replaces the Today screen and shows you the date, time and Operator name. You’ll also see that it tells you when your alarm is set for, has a link to call history and shows you the next event in your diary. Unlike the today screen this page wont show you whether or not you have unread email or SMS on the main page but if you look to the bottom the number of unread emails is shown in a green circle over the email button.

People

This tab allows you to add your favourite people or contacts to a roladex style system that lets you thumb through your contacts if your contact has a photograph associated with it then it will be displayed here, otherwise you get to choose what image to display instead.

Messages

This tab provides you with a preview of your text messages and gives you quick access to compose a new text message.

Mail

The mail page is where you access your email accounts. As you can see in the image below you get a preview of the last message in your inbox on the screen. The icons down the side denote the three email accounts I have configured and the icon at the top starts a new email message. Buttons at the bottom of the screen allow you go to the inbox for the choosen account or, from the menu button, send/receive, switch accounts or start a new message.

Internet

The internet page is pretty self explanatory with a link to the web browser (Opera 9.5) and the excellent YouTube client.

Photos and Videos

The photos and videos page lets you browse through any photos you have stored on your device providing they are in the My Documents/My Pictures folder. You can scroll though your photos by swiping your finget up and down on the page then you can tap on the image to bring it up full screen. Once you have the image fullscreen you can zoom in and out by spinning your finger around the dpad and you can move the picture around the screen by dragging it.

On this page you also have an icon to start the camera in either still or video mode. At the bottom of the screen you have buttons to open the album, which gives you a typical preview of images or you can start a slideshow of the currently displayed images.

Music

The music page give you direct access to the music files saved on your phone so there is no need to go into media player, you can select songs or whole albums to listen to from this page and you even get to see the album art for your files if they have them.

You navigate through stored music on this page in much the same way as you would an iPod or iTunes, by swiping your finger across the screen. Buttons at the bottom get you in to your media library or the menu allows you to access controls for repeat, shuffle, track properties, playlist and audio booster.

Weather

Once again this page it pretty self explanatory. The main image tells you what the weather is like today (there are some nice animations to be seen here) with other buttons offering 5 day forecast and the menu allows you to add/remove locations, change the temperature units and change how the information is updated.

Settings

The settings page does what it says on the tin. From here you can sync with ActiveSync, edit the sound settings, alter the background image or wallpaper, open up Comm Manager or download updated weather information. Each of the pages accessed from here are also HTC customised pages that are very easy to use and navigate.

Programs

The last of the main touch-flo 3D pages is the Programs tab. Here you can add shortcuts to the programs that you most commonly use. You can add up to 18 shortcuts to this list and you can easily add or remove them as you see fit.

Comm Manager

Finally I’m going to briefly mention Comm Manager. This is yet another example of how HTC have done away with the standard Windows Mobile interface and replaced it with their own customised version. This is a welcome change and shows you at a glance whether the phone is on or off, if your data conection is active or if you have WiFi on. I think that new WM users are going to find these pages a lot easier to use.

I think that’s enough on the Touch-Flo 3D interface for now. This review unit has to go back in just a few more days but fortunately I’m told that my retail unit is on its way. I’ll tell you more about the retail version as soon as it arrives and I’ll let you know what the differences are, if indeed there are any!

Review by: Matt

See Part 1 of the review.

See Part 2 of the review.

[Post tag(s): smartphone news, Pocket PC news, Tracy & Matt, orange, HTC, HTC Touch Diamond]

HTC Touch Diamond review (Part 2)

HTC Touch Diamond review (Part 2) – “Getting Started”

Last night I started setting up the Touch Diamond. First things first it’s a case of removing the back cover, which slides off upwards, removing the battery and then slipping the SIM card in to place.

At first boot the device sets itself up in much the same way as any other Windows Mobile device. However, after the first reboot you’ll notice something different as once the phone starts up, having played a little startup tune, you are presented with a virtually blank screen. This plain black screen lasts for about 30 seconds (long enough for you to consider that there maybe something wrong) before you are told to “tap here to launch touch-flo 3D” and then “Starting touch-flo 3D”.

I’ll cover the new touch-flo 3D interface in more detail in a later post but suffice to say that this is a nice extension of the original touch-flo as seen on the HTC Touch but it’s a lot prettier and has additional tabs. It’s also more deeply integrated than the original.

Setting up an Exchange email account is a breeze just as with most WM devices at the moment. There is a nice wizard included in WM 6.1 that takes you though the entire process the first time you boot up. Within just a few minutes that account is set up. The next thing for me to set up is my other email account that requires imap 4. This is again quite straight forward barring a slight problem with the larger Diamond soft keyboards. There are times when the larger keyboard gets in the way and where they seem not to obey certain rules like making the screen scroll when not everything fits on. This could be down to WM or the SIP It’s not a huge problem but can be quite frustrating when you are filling in forms with lots of text fields.

I’ve only been using the Diamond for a short period of time but I’ve noticed that the signal or reception seems weaker than on my TyTN II. I live in a village and coverage isn’t great but I always have a signal. However with the Diamond sitting next to me now it still searching for coverage. It finds a single bar on EDGE now and then but mostly has no service. Again I should point out that this is a demo unit but I just hope the retail version is better in this respect.

Driving home from work this evening I realised that the battery in the Diamond was running a little low so I thought I’d stick it on charge. I plugged in the car charger, the screen turned on, but then the battery wouldn’t charge. The charge icon appears briefly on the display but disappears. I’ve had this with some other devices recently where they seem to be fussy about the type of charger you use. I tried a few different car chargers but the Diamond didn’t seem to like any of them. It seems ok with mains chargers and USB Sync/Charge cables though so perhaps you need a special car charger?

In my post yesterday I mentioned the touch screen and how this is made from toughened glass rather than plastic. I had been told that this made the screen ver scratch resistant. However, what I failed to notice yesterday is that despite this being a new review unit there are already a few nasty marks on the screen. I’ve also since found out that a screen protector is included with the retail Diamond so I guess there is a reason for that!

The touch screen on the Touch Diamond is definitely more sensitive than other HTC devices such as the TyTN II. Most of the time it will respond quite well to being pressed or swiped with the tip of your finger rather than having to rely upon using a fingernail. I say most of the time as there have been some times when I’ve found myself wanting to either press the screen quite hard or else resort to using a fingernail or stylus. There are going to be inevitable comparisons between the Touch Diamond and the iPhone – in the touchscreen sensitivity department the iPhone wins hands down.

I’ve briefly used the built in GPS with Google maps. Having installed the app. I took the phone outside and enabled GPS tracking. It initially took a few minutes to get a GPS position fix but subsequent uses have been much quicker. The GPS doesn’t seem to work at all indoors (although why you would need GPS in your own home I don’t know!) even next to a window where the TyTN II would pick up a signal. This isn’t a very scientific test though but GPS testing is tricky at the best of times. It works very well and accurately when used in the car though.

The angular or faceted design of the back of the Diamond means that it sits comfortably in the palm of your hand as the corners have been chiseled off. As I said before it also looks quite cool and it’s something that other people in the office that have had a look at the device today have commented on. There is a slight negative to this design though: When the device is placed on a table it’s not 100% stable so if you were to press the buttons at the bottom of the screen it rocks from side to side. This is particularly noticeable with the end-call key which you may well press to reject a call. The other problem is that there are three distinct high spots on the back that even after 24hrs of use are showing signs of wear. I wonder what this would be link in a month, three months or a year?! This may also be quite annoying if you are typing on the HTC Touch Pro if that is to have the same back plate.

I know that I have only used the HTC Touch Diamond for one day so far but I have to say that I am really enjoying it. There are lots of cool things that I keep discovering, like the Email message preview in Touch-Flo 3D that I’ll show you later and that when you turn the device face-down on the table it’ll mute an incomming call.

The VGA screen is glorious, extremely clear and easy to read. The backlight can also be set extremely bright, much brighter than any other device that I have used in the past. This means that despite the screen being quite shiny it can remain quite clear even when used outside in bright conditions. The backlight even has an automatic setting so that the backlight dims when the ambient lighting is dim or brightens when you are outside. Genius!

There are some nice bits of software installed on the Diamond from YouTube and Opera to MP3 trimmer and audio booster. I’ll cover more of this later but now I’m off to play Teeter – the marble game on the Diamond!

Review by: Matt

See Part 1 of the review.

See Part 3 of the review.

[Post tag(s): smartphone news, Pocket PC news, Tracy & Matt, orange, HTC, HTC Touch Diamond]

HTC Touch Diamond review (Part 1)

HTC Touch Diamond review (Part 1) – ‘The Overview’

Today I managed to get my hands on an HTC Touch Diamond which I have on loan for a few days and I’ll be starting our review from here. My plan is to use the Diamond as my main device and to see how I get on with it day-to-day as a replacement for my TyTN II.

I should state at this point that loan unit is still a pre-release version and while the hardware wont change between this and the retail unit the software and ROM may well be different as “Test only, not for resale” is very much evident at bootup. The latest update from HTC is that the retail version will be shipped to us next week so at that point we’ll be able to compare the two.

GENERAL

So let’s start out with the basics. As this is a pre-release device it arrived in a plain black box which just a charger and USB cable so I’ll leave the “What’s in the box?” until the retail unit arrives next week.

On the front of the Touch Diamond we have the 2.8″ VGA Touchscreen which is completely flush, no bezel to be seen. You would normally consider this to be a bad idea as it would mean that the screen was more likely to get scratched but HTC tell us that the screen is more scratch resistant than most as it’s made from glass rather than plastic.

Just above the screen is the front facing VGA camera (used for video calling) and the phone speaker. Below the screen there are just a few buttons. Home, back and send/end call keys plus what looks like a regular dpad style navigation control. However HTC have built in capacitive touch sensors in to the dpad so the unit will respond to the lightest touch. In addition to working as a regular up, down, left and right push button control you can also run your finger around the outer ring which acts as a zoom control.

Looking at the bottom of the Diamond only the mini ExtUSB connector is obvious. This is where you plug in your charger, usb sync cable and headphones. Once again, if you want to use your own headphones with a 3.5mm jack you’ll need to get an adapter.

On the left hand side of the device are two buttons for volume control. Interestingly these are two separate buttons rather than a rocker so it is possible to press them both at the same time (if you want to).

There are no controls be found on the right side but here you’ll be able to find the stylus which is fixed rather than telescopic. The stylus stays in place because it is magnetic which is a great idea. The stylus also turns the device on when removed.

On the top edge of the Diamond is the power button, which is a little hard to press with big fingers, and below that is the external loudspeaker. Loudspeakers are normally placed on the back of devices but moving it to the top of the Diamond is a good idea as it means that you don’t cover it up when the phone is on a desk and it’s also easier to hear ringing when the phone is in a jacket pocket for example. I suspect, though, that the decision to put it in the top may have been to save valuable space.

Finally, on the back of the Diamond is the 3.2 Megapixel auto focus camera. Unfortunately there is no flash included. Also, as you can see from the image below, the back of the unit, which removes entirely to access the battery and SIM card, has an angular or faceted design presumable to emulate a cut diamond. The design works well!

Now it’s time for me to install my SIM card and set up my email account. I’ll have more on that for you later.

Posted by: Matt

See Part 2 of the review.

See Part 3 of the review.

[Post tag(s): smartphone news, Pocket PC news, Tracy & Matt, orange, HTC, HTC Touch Diamond]