A more thumbable phonebookContact management is usually considered one of the strongest points of Windows Mobile. You have an unlimited contact list, unlimited info fields for each contact and brilliant synchronization options. Shame it's so damn ugly. Even in 6.5, Contacts remained virtually unchanged.
What we like about the GSmart S1205 phonebook is the improved contact search. Apart from the tiny letters on top of the screen you get some large way more thumbable on-screen buttons with letters on them. And quite conveniently – these are only the letters you have contacts starting with. Those allow quick gradual typing which really helps finding the contact you need pretty easy. Again, it doesn’t look good but usability is OK.
If you don’t like to see the quick search letter boxes, you can swipe the Contact list sideways, as indicated by an arrow. If you do, you’ll only get the actual list of contacts fill the screen. Selecting a contact reveals a call screen with two virtual buttons at the bottom: Call and Menu. Pressing Call will initiate a call on the primary SIM card – you don’t get to choose.
Pressing “Menu” however will bring a pop-up list of options such as delete, edit, save to card 1 or 2, assign speed dial, send text, etc. Alternatively, the same menu can be evoked by tapping and holding on a contact. The best thing though is you’ll get the options Call From SIM1 and Call From SIM2.
Dual SIM telephony
Making calls is always a priority for any cellphone – the Dual SIM ability certainly holds the Gigabyte GSmart S1205 to a higher standard.
The Phone application offers Smart dialing, so you hardly ever need to go to the Contact list to dial a number. Once you’ve dialed the number or found the contact you’re about to call, you only have to choose the SIM card to place the phone call on. On the dialpad, there are two virtual buttons: Talk1 and Talk2.
The Phone application also offers a tiny screen above the numpad with a list of recent calls. Alternatively, you can hit the History button and enter the actual Call log.
During a phone call on either of the SIM cards, the other one is not active. So people calling you will hear an out-of-coverage or phone-switched-off message.
The Call log does reasonably well to accommodate the dual SIM functionality. It displays the type of call (incoming, outgoing, etc.), the SIM card used, the caller number/name and the number of calls. When you select a log entry, you can see the entire call history, including the time and date, as well as the call duration.
When a Call log entry is selected, pressing the call key will start a call on the primary SIM card – even if the call was made or received on the secondary SIM. There’s a way around that though – tapping and holding on a Call log item, opens a contextual pop-up menu with relevant options. Among them are Save to Contacts, Delete, Send text and – best of all – Call on 1 and Call on 2.
Messaging the WinMo way
The Gigabyte S1205 supports SMS, MMS and email. SMS and MMS share an inbox and a message editor and, thanks to Windows Mobile 6.5, you can enjoy thumb scrolling in the inboxes and through longer messages.
Still the message interface is the stock Windows Mobile 6.5, where the only upgrade is the slightly touch-optimized menu.
Threaded SMS is also available on the S1205, just as it is across Windows 6.5.
The email editor will hold no surprises for experienced WinMo users as it has not changed at all.
Setting up your email is easy as it is on most of the latest mid or high range phones. You type your email and password and all the other fiddly options are configured automatically.
Perhaps now is a good time to mention input options on the S1205. Gigabyte have equipped the device with two pretty thumbable SPB virtual keyboards. It's a commendable feature since the default Windows Mobile keyboards are fit for stylus use only.
The first keyboard is a full portrait touch optimized QWERTY and the second one is the same QWERTY in landscape mode. The regular WinMo QWERTY for use with a stylus is as usual onboard.
Handwriting recognition is also available and works just fine.
Image gallery and photo album
Gigabyte GSmart S1205 offers two galleries. Both are available from the Multimedia folder in the Start menu.
The first one is the standard Windows Mobile 6.5 variety. It has no accelerometer support and you can't flick-scroll images.
The PhotoAlbum app is a new addition by Gigabyte and though not innovative or beautiful, is still better than the stock gallery. It's properly thumb optimized. Once an image is opened, you can zoom in or out or continue to the previous/next by finger sweeps.
With the PhotoAlbum app scrolling to the next image is smooth and instantaneous with a single move of the thumb.
Windows Media player for music and videos
Unfortunately, Gigabyte stopped right there and did not bother to include any custom music or video player to complement the standard Windows Media player. As usual, it's poor at managing playlists with your favorite songs, and generally has limited functionality. The interface is less than touch-friendly.
Watching varied video content is almost a no-go as there is a limited support for video formats (and codecs).
Core player is the better option
If you’re not impressed with the Windows Player, you may want to install a third-party media app such as the Core player. It successfully played all DivX/Xvid movies, except those using the AC3 audio.
Keep in mind that only videos with maximum resolution of 1008 x 1008 are supported so if you can skip the HD playback (it doesn't really make sense on a mobile screen anyway), you will be happy to know that all other videos we tried played smoothly with no audio problems or dropped frames.
We ran some benchmarks with the Core Player against the Acer neoTouch and the HTC Touch Diamond and here are the results.
Audio output is impressive
The audio output of the Gigabyte GSmart S1205 is downright impressive, the handset faring great in our traditional test.
In addition to being on the louder side of the handsets we have tested so far, the S1205 achieved great scores across the board, making it impossible to find a weak spot in its performance.
FM radio
The Gigabyte GSmart S1205 built-in FM radio naturally requires the headset to be plugged-in.
The FM radio has an excellent interface and offers memory for 20 radio stations.
Inadequate camera
The Gigabyte GSmart S1205 has a 3 megapixel fixed-focus camera producing photos with a maximum resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels. The camera offers an intuitive user interface and shoots in landscape mode. However it doesn’t have a flash.
The S1205 camera viewfinder is nicely touch-optimized and has all controls you may need placed on the two vertical taskbars on both sides of the viewfinder. There you can change the shooting mode, scene, timer settings, effects, adjust brightness or go to the Photo Album. To go to the advanced settings hit the arrow at the bottom of the screen.
Speaking of the advanced settings, they include image resolution and default storage, white balance, ISO and other image properties (saturation, contrast and sharpness). Although the S1205 has an inbuilt GPS receiver its camera lacks geotagging support.
The 3 megapixel shooter is nothing special in terms of image quality. Images are oversharpened (even when sharpness is set to 0), but with good contrast and acceptable color rendering.
Noise levels are normally quite high and the aggressive noise reduction that kicks in takes its toll on resolved detail. At 100% magnification there's easily visible watercolor effect on most surface textures.
Generally, the lack of detail in images is a major weakness along with the limited dynamic range, which easily leads to underdeveloped shadows or blown highlights.
Video recording
As far as video recording is concerned, the Gigabyte GSmart S1205 can offer VGA resolution at 30fps.
The camcorder interface is identical to the one of the still camera. Unfortunately, there is no image stabilization of any kind.
The videos shot with the S1205 turned out pretty nice. While we would’ve been happier to see more detail and less compression artifacts, the contrast and the actual frame rate are quite good.
Connectivity: no 3G
When it comes to connectivity, the Gugabyte GSmart S1205 is struggling to match most midrange PocketPC’s. While it packs quad-band GSM support for both SIM cards, it lacks 3G support so the best you get is EDGE.
At least, there is Wi-Fi so if there is a hotspot nearby you could take advantage of it. Bluetooth with EDR and A2DP is also on board.
The S1205 comes with a microUSB port and USB 2.0 support. When connected to a computer, the GSmart S1205 prompts you to select among ActiveSync or Mass Storage mode.
In Mass Storage mode, the memory card is treated as a removable drive. The only downside is in this mode you have no access to the memory card from the handset itself – the card becomes invisible to the file manager.
Browser: not enough processing power and no accelerometer
Now, this is the really interesting part – the preloaded version of the Internet Explorer Mobile web browser packs a nice touch-optimized interface and a cool skin. It sports kinetic scrolling and full Flash support, and looks set to give you the browsing experience that it fails to deliver on competing devices.
Zooming is easiest with double tapping on-screen. Double taps are certainly more comfortable than the alternative zoom bar.
There is no built-in accelerometer so don’t expect the screen to rotate automatically.
Unfortunately page load times are awful even on Wi-Fi. Scrolling speed is passable though.
Opera Mobile web browser is still the best among the Windows Mobile browsers and is available for free download. Even optimized, Internet Explorer still has a lot of catching up to do.
Organizer and apps
Gigabyte GSmart S1205 features the standard time PIM features as any other WinMo-powered device and a full office package with editing. As far as the apps are concerned, there is only one worth mentioning - the Pocket Backup.
It allows you to save your data before you upgrade the phone’s software and restore it when the system upgrade is ready. You can choose which items to be covered by the backup but what is far more interesting, you can schedule the next backup.
Final words
The Gigabyte GSmart 1205 isn’t a phone you’ll instantly like. The cheap finish and the poor screen are no match for most other PocketPC’s out there, not even some pretty old ones.
But then, it’s not this phone’s job to lure and seduce. It’s simply waiting to be discovered by the practical buyer. It may take a while before you know it’s a PocketPC, and Dual SIM isn’t inscribed in gilded letters. But that’s what it is – a dual SIM PocketPC. Now, good luck trying to beat that, HTC, Sony Ericsson and the like.
Now, not only is the Gigabyte GSmart 1205 a dual SIM PocketPC – it’s one of the cheapest PocketPCs ever. Seems the right thing to do really when you know you can’t compete with HDs and XPERIAs. A bargain is welcome – no doubt about that, but the GSmart 1205 is cheap and it means it.
No comments:
Post a Comment