11:40 PM
LegalWatch
OK, welcome back. Chris had some observations and experiences that I can comment on. He pointed to the micro-SD slot on the bottom of the unit and wondered how that would work out. I can report that it worked very well. The slot is deep enough that the card goes in completely so that it is slightly indented from the bottom of the phone. To remove the card you press in and it pops out slightly so that you can get your finger on the little lip. I had it pop out completely once and fly across my desk before I could catch it, but most of the time it just popped out a couple of millimeters. I do have good fingernails, so if you have problems in that area, you can use the stylus to press it in. Chris also had some cases where he had to tap multiple times to get the screen to work. I also found that the screen was stiff in places and at times. I don’t know if the stiffness was in the screen itself or in the software. The reason I say that is that the “X” in the upper right corner sometimes worked easily and sometimes required multiple taps to activate. It could be screen sensitivity, but it just felt like sometimes the taps weren’t being processed by the software. It never got so difficult to be annoying, just something to clarify from the video. The screen is flush, that is, there is no frame around the screen. The screen is highly reflective and shows fingerprints very clearly. When I put the phone to my ear, the screen invariably became heavily smudged with oil from my skin. I found myself cleaning the screen multiple times each day because of that. I didn’t have a screen protector, and installing one would be a challenge without a frame to protect the edges of the protector, but I suspect someone will find a way. The screen was usable as a GPS device, but reflections during the day made it difficult to see the maps. The installation process for all of the optional software was lengthy, and if you select it all to install, you won’t have much storage memory left at all. The optional software can be installed later, so you can add anything you find you need, but my recommendation is to install sparingly at first. As Chris pointed out in the video, there isn’t a ton of memory in this device, so you’ll want to be frugal with it. I couldn’t find a way to install the optional software to the external memory card, either, but you can use the card for your data, which should make it slightly less restrictive if you do need most or all of the optional software. Here is a complete list of the optional software: I ended up installing the GPS Viewer, Satellite Data Update, SIM Manager, Speed Dialer, Battery Meter, Voice Commander, Camera capture, Memory Optimization, Quick Bar, SBP Mobile Shell, Task Manager, Wireless Manager, SCENARIOS and Phone Service. I also installed Total Commander as a file manager, Aurorisoft dotPocket, Sprite Backup, WebIS Pocket Informant, SBSH Pocket Breeze and iLauncher, along with a driver for Eltima’s SyncMate for syncing with Mac. At the end, I had 4.94 MB of storage left. With PocketBreeze, iLauncher and SBP Shell running, I had 21 Mb of program memory available. Not great, but workable. Besides the X610, you will find in the box a battery, AC adapter, stereo headset, mini USB cable, stylus, getting started CD, and printed manual, but no cradle. There is also a spare stylus included, a nice touch. On the front of the device there is a square five way navigation button ring flanked only by start, GPS and home and stop phone buttons. On the left side are two volume control buttons and a button for launching the Voice Commander application. Hold it in, and it invokes the recorder function. The reset access hole is also on the left side, along with the earphone socket. On the right side is the power button and the camera button. At the bottom right resides the telescoping stylus silo. A mini USB port is located on the bottom along with the micro SD slot and the mic hole. There is a removable battery cover on the back, a camera lens with self-portrait mirror and speaker grill. The case is easy to hold, with a good “grippy” surface that feels slightly rubberized. Chris fumbled slightly with the battery as he was installing it. The reason for that is that the battery has three small tabs on it—two on one end and one on the other. Normally you would put the battery into the device so the contacts mated first, then settle it into the pocket. However on the X610 the proper way to install is to engage the end with the two tabs into two sockets at the top of the battery pocket, then drop the battery flat and engage the lock over the end with one tab. The lock is manual, not spring loaded, and is very solid. I suspect the rationale for this design is to make sure the battery stays in place even if the unit is dropped/shaken. It works well. The SIM Card goes into a pocket beneath the battery. It was easy to get in, slightly harder to remove. But given that you don’t move the card that many times, the design was acceptable. On power up, it found my AT&T network easily and worked flawlessly. One of the utilities is to find what services you have in the account, such as Caller ID, and activate them in the software. Worked well. SMS messaging worked properly and being able to use the WM6.1 keyboard with which I was familiar made messaging much easier than with a standard phone button setup. Feature commentary As you might expect with only the 400 Mhz engine, the X610 isn’t the fastest PDA in the market, but performance was certainly respectable. It did handle even high-demand applications like OnCourseNavigator 8 with only slight lag. The built-in GPS was good, and seemed to work pretty well. The receiver was not as sensitive as some of my other SirfStarIII units, but in the car it worked perfectly and maintained a good fix throughout the testing. I didn’t test in a GPS challenged area like an urban canyon or dense forest, but overall the GPS receiver did work well in general use. The interface uses touch-flow style menus. When first powered on, it starts with SBP Shell with a configurable local weather and calendar screen. You can tap or gesture on the screen to move from feature to feature. Some features are redundant, for example, there are multiple speed dialers AND a voice operated dialer included. I used them all and left the redundant software installed, although you may choose to start with none of the optional software installed and add only what you want/need. There are so many combinations available you should be able to find one that suits you best. The earphones are dual-use, for both phone and stereo listening. The earbuds are rigid, and while comfortable for short term, I found them becoming uncomfortable in long use. The sound was acceptable, but if you are an audiophile, you won’t be delighted. The reported sound on the phone was slightly muffled. I also thought the phone audio quality was slightly muffled, although understandable. In noisy environments the tiny speaker on the front of the unit, just above the screen, was not easy to line up with your ear canal, making it much harder to hear. I eventually found the SCENARIOS application that allows you to set the phone to pre-set conditions, one of which was “outdoor.” In that mode the volume is fully up, the screen fully bright. That setting helps in noisy environments. There are three other defined scenarios: General, Meeting and Silent. In General mode the phone is about 80% volume, the backlight about 50%. In meeting mode the phone is silent, with volume at 0% and ringer totally down as well. It does vibrate on ring, however. In Silent mode, even the vibration is quenched. Each of these settings is adjustable to suit you. I kept Outdoor volumes, but moved brightness down to 50% at first. Then I changed the General setting to higher volume and moved Outdoor back to 100% brightness because I realized I liked that full brightness in full sunlight. The camera was adequate. It has multiple resolution settings, with the default at VGA, or 640×480. You can select SGA at 1280×960 or XGA at 1600×1200 for higher quality, or QVGA at 320×240 or even CIF at 176×144 for smaller images. There were options to save the images on the storage card, but even with that chosen, the images were always stored in main memory. I also found that at the highest resolution I couldn’t take a picture because I got an error about not enough memory to store the image, even though I had selected the SDMMC card as the destination and it had 500 Meg remaining. Images were about 320Kb for SGA and 96Kb for VGA. I have attached two images of the same scene at VGA and SGA resolutions for comparison. Overall, the camera is OK as a snapshot device, but if you want to blow up some portion of the picture, that will be a challenge.
You can see Chris’ unboxing video here. It’s a 15 minute video, so I’ll wait here while you go watch…
I am not normally a fan of converged devices. Converged devices always are a compromise of features and functions, leaving none of them to work as well as dedicated devices in each category. On the other hand, converged devices have the convenience of being a single device to carry, instead of multiple. In the case of the X610, to get the same functionality you would have to carry a PDA, Cell Phone, GPS receiver and camera. In the X610 you get all four, although none of them was in the “excellent” category of dedicated devices.
So, to review the X610 as a converged device, I’ll take each function in turn. First, the X610 worked well as a cell phone, with good receiver sensitivity and battery life. The sound of incoming calls was slightly muffled, but understandable. Outgoing sound was reported also as slightly muffled, but fully understandable. The receiver was excellent, often working in areas where my other cell phone, an LG CU500, could not. The provided utilities were useful and worked. One in particular was the Voice Commander. This software provides voice recognition, working with your phone book to give you hands free operations. When paired with my BlueAnt BT headset, for example, I could leave the phone in the holster, tap the BlueAnt multi-function button, wait a few seconds for Voice Commander to activate. Eventually the headset would prompt me for a command. I would say “Call
Overall, as a phone I gave it an A-. Improve the sound quality and it would be an “A” outright.
As a PDA, the unit performed well. The QVGA screen is bright, the processor is pretty quick, although not the quickest. The screen is a bit stubborn to recognize taps, but it does respond well to gestures. The memory is tight, particularly if you install a lot of the optional software, or if you have a lot of Today plug-ins. But as a PDA, it worked well. Nothing I installed had any problems. It’s not as good as my Axim X51v with 128 Meg of storage and WM6.1 ROM burned in, but not much is. Activesync is available over the USB cable and by BT. I used SyncMate with my iMac and it worked well.
Overall, as a PDA I gave it a B+. Needs more memory and the screen is touchy. Otherwise, it’s good.
The GPS unit is not as sensitive as other SirfStarIII receivers I have, but it’s nice to have it integrated into the unit. You cannot use it unless you have some software installed. GPS Viewer is available to be installed, but it does not have mapping installed. I used it with OCN8 and it worked well. I did note that with the GPS powered up it consumed a lot of power. In an hour’s use, even with a power supply plugged into the mini-USB socket, the battery declined from 100% to 85% in just over an hour, so based on that experience, if you used it all day as a GPS, you’d have a dead battery in about 7 hours, even if plugged in. The processor could keep up with the GPS software, which was a good thing.
As a GPS I gave it a C+. Good, not great, sensitivity and the battery use was a concern.
The camera was good, not great. It doesn’t have a flash or the capability to take a self-portrait (You cannot see the screen if you point the camera to yourself). It always saved images to main memory, so not all resolutions could be used with 5Mb of memory free. It would work well as an emergency camera, but if I were going somewhere that I knew I was taking pictures, I’d take a real camera over the X610. Color rendition was pretty accurate, which was a plus.
As a camera, it only rates a C. Average, not great. Certainly would not work as the only camera I would own, but it’s good for those situations where you don’t have a camera with you and just want a snapshot.
Battery life was pretty good, with the exception of the GPS use mentioned previously. In typical use as a phone/PDA it would decline from 100% to 85% over 12 hours, with about 1 hour active talk included. GPS and a CPU intensive GPS application drained that amount in just over an hour. I didn’t play with screen brightness to see if I could decrease that drain, leaving the brightness at about 75%. The screen is very bright, however, so there is some room to play in that area. The battery recharges when plugged into the USB port, so in my office I could keep it topped off and synced by leaving it connected when I was in the office, unplugging it when I left. Using that protocol I was able know that I had a lot of power for any long call I might get caught up into.
So, with those grades, I’d say the overall rating, when you add in the WiFi and FM capability, was a good solid B+. Not perfect, but certainly respectable.
Conclusion
The X610 is a device clearly worth considering as a converged device. If you are looking for an entry system, this could be a good candidate.
To improve it, I think it could use more RAM, a less power-sucking GPS, better phone audio, and a better camera. However, as a converged device, it’s a good compromise of all those competing needs.
