The e also has a speakerphone, a vibrate mode, voice commands, a SIM toolkit, and a utility called EZDial for easier contact search and dialing. Wireless options on the e include Bluetooth 2. The phone supports a number of Bluetooth profiles, including wireless headsets, Bluetooth stereo headsets, hands-free kits, dial-up networking, file transfer, and vCard exchange. As far as Wi-Fi, the device was able to find and connect to our test access point, and we were able to easily get on the Web within minutes.
Now, while the e is equipped with a GPS radio, its functions are limited without the inclusion of navigation software. However, it will not give you real-time driving directions. As we noted in the Design section, the Pharos GPS Phone e has a 2-megapixel camera with a flash and video recording capabilities. You have a choice of five resolutions and a number of setting options for white balance, special effects, and frequencies.
You also can enhance your photos with a frame or add a time stamp. In video mode, you get three quality settings and three resolutions, as well as many of the white balance and special effects option, but you lose the photo frames. Overall, we weren't very impressed with the quality of the photos.
They lacked definition and colors were washed out. Plus, we found you really have to keep the device steady, more than usual, to get a somewhat clear shot. Call quality was OK; there was a lot of background noise and a distracting echo on our end, and while our friends said they could hear us fine, they could tell we were using a cell phone.
When we activated the speakerphone, the results were reversed. Conversations were much clearer, but our callers said we were barely audible as a crackling noise disrupted things. The one bright note is that we had no problems pairing the Logitech Mobile Traveller Bluetooth headset. General performance was mixed. The smart phone was quick to perform certain tasks like opening office documents, but it slowed considerably when launching the camera or activating certain wireless features.
Obviously, we didn't get the benefit of 3G speeds when browsing the Web on the e, but it wasn't horrible, as pages loaded fairly quickly. Music playback through the phone's speakers was, as expected, pretty poor, lacking bass and richness. Watching video, however, was surprisingly good. The e does not include the card, the maps, or the software, instead being geared to users who already own navigational software that they would rather use.
Not quite as thin as some other devices, but much more so than most touchscreen smartphones, and in a footprint smaller than most pocket notepads.
This becomes all the more impressive when you consider the fact that this includes a fairly large mAh battery, well above average even for thicker devices like the HTC Hermes. The hardware features of the device are pretty well spaced around, with the headphone jack, volume controls, and record button on the left side; camera, power, and reset buttons on the right; MicroSD and MiniUSB on the bottom; and the camera, mirror, speaker, and LED light on the back.
The SIM card, of course, resides under the battery. The directional pad is a bit hard to get used to, needing practice to avoid hitting any of the buttons clustered around its thin main ring, but it is at least usable.
Last but not least, as most GPS nav systems are prone to do, the Pharos comes with a selection of mounting and powering hardware, primarily geared around affixing it to a windshield or dashboard. Using the Linpack benchmark for Windows Mobile, it tops out at 1. Unlike most PPC phones, this Pharos model comes with an extensive loadout of fairly useful software. Changes before the final release next months are possible.
The Call History is easily accessible from the numeric pad screen too. Thankfully, the software is once again smart enough to guess which key the user is trying to press. The version 7. Having an integrated GPS makes everything easier for the end user. Once your position is known you can zoom in and out by performing simple motions on the touch screen: a lower-left to upper-right line to zoom out and a square to define the area that you want to zoom in.
0コメント