Archive for January, 2007

I’ve had the pleasure of using the LOOX T830 for about a month now. It’s a great phone/PDA combination that provides a keyboard, integrated GPS and camera. Somehow though, it doesn’t excite me as much as I thought it would. Much of that has to do with the fact that I waited for a test device for more than six months, and receiving information regarding problems and issues with firmware during that time. Initial sample units were made available but were unusable. It’s that constant delay that made me turn to the JAMin, a device I’m very happy with. When I finally received the T830, my excitement was at a low point. It simply no longer held any allure, regardless what fancy add-ons and features it possessed. This is a possibly biased point of view. It may also be a factor that any new device entering the market has to grab the user in a very special way. The T830 didn’t grab me as the JAMin did.

During my month with the T830 I loaded all applications I use on a daily basis. There was an opportunity to roam overseas and to use both GPRS/3G Internet connectivity and wireless access. There’s little sense in discussing the behaviour of applications on this device. Windows Mobile 5 is Windows Mobile 5, regardless of the device it runs on. That’s the theory, and holds true in most cases. In some instances each manufacturer adds some quirk or useful feature. Such quirks are often annoying. But I’m skipping ahead.

Let’s start at the beginning. The T830 seems huge at first, but has a compact form factor that easily fits into one hand. The addition of the QWERTY keypad is welcome. That makes one-handed number entry and overall data entry faster and less frustrating: no more grabbing the stylus every time. The coolest key on the keypad is the one marked Ok.

It has the magic ability to replace a tap on the top right-hand close symbol and is excellent for closing applications and responding to message box queries.

A cover just above the square screen for the front camera lens moves to the right to expose the lens for video calls, a feature I still consider rather useless. Ordinarily, the lens is covered. The moving cover plate contains the speaker.

At the bottom of the unit, a mini USB connector provides both charging and interfacing capabilities with USB devices. The former is convenient, as you require only a standard mini USB cable to be able to synchronize with a PC and/or to charge the device. The latter is a fantastic feature I regularly used on my LOOX 720, especially for backing up files and moving data from various sources to the device. In the case of the T830 that feature is supported, but the box does not include an adapter. You may wish to try your luck at attempting to find one. I gave up: it’s a unit I won’t keep and I was unable to find a suitable adapter.

Let’s get back to the speaker. At first, I was very impressed with the overall clarity and volume of the speaker. The more I use the T830, the more I struggle with the sound quality of the speaker. It’s definitely better than the JAMin, but not by a great margin. What does bother me a great deal though, is a delay of a few seconds whenever I answer a call. No reboot solves it – accepting a call means you are unable to converse for a few seconds, often resulting in a repeated hello from both parties. It’s no good on a phone. I assume this issue can easily be fixed with a firmware update.

There’s a pouch provided with the unit that attaches securely to a belt. The flap is loaded with a magnet and closes nicely over the device. Using the built-in keylock application is a definite necessity, though it adds a few more button presses each time you need to activate the device. Without the keylock on you’ll find the device on the moment you place it in the pouch, or worse: making phone calls if the wrong buttons are accidentally pressed. That can be expensive and embarrassing. In most cases the battery life and standby time suffers. The keylock requires you to briefly press the red on button and then to hold the Enter key on the keypad in for a brief moment. It took me a fair bit of time to get used to the mechanics of putting the device to sleep. It works quite simply once you’ve discovered the right amount of pressing you need to do on the red power button: too long, and the device is off – permanently. Too brief, and the FSC speed menu is displayed to allow you to select different modes (Standby/Power off/Silent/etc.).

Having mastered the art, you can place the device into standby at will, but it’s not intuitive.

While I’m on handling issues, let’s talk stylus. Even though this is a device with a keypad you’ll still want to, or have to, use a stylus every now and again. The stylus is one of the worst I’ve ever come across. Instead of being round, it’s oval and rather thick.

It’s usable, but uncomfortable to hold and seems unwieldy. Given that the shape of the stylus slot on the back of the device is molded into that oval shape, it’s unlikely that any third party stylus will be able to improve on the factory standard unit.

Let me leave you with the above for now. If this all seems very negative, that’s not the intent. I’ve highlighted some issues I’ve had with the handling of the unit. I feel these make it less than perfect. In part 2, I’ll certainly focus on some positive aspects – I promise