Give this phone to people and you’ll get good comments. People will polish the
keys and mention the bright screen, but rarely will they notice the added bonus
to this normal-looking phone. What is it? Well, I’ll show you…
spring-loaded QWERTY keyboard slides from the back.
This instantly turns the phone into a fantastic multi-purpose messaging handset. It’s a testament to the phones designers that no-one I gave this phone
to spotted the additional keyboard. Even I continually kept using the numeric
keypad to write messages because I forgot it was there too. This really
is a normal phone-sized device which expertly hides a killer feature.
When you first use the device you’ll no doubt notice the weight of it. It is
noticeably heavier than other devices. With the keyboard tucked away you may
notice that it’s a little loose in its moorings. It’s nothing major, however
there is the possibility for cards to slide into the gap on the left side of the
phone when closed. Whilst this is noticeable it’s by no means weak or floppy. ….
As a comparison I took a shot of the device next to the Orange
SPV C600. It’s a little wider but still around the same depth as the C600. The
HTC s710 is a little shorter than the C600 but packs a bigger 2.4” QVGA screen.
Specs
The HTC s710 is one of the first Smartphones to get Windows
Mobile 6.0 Standard. The "Standard" means "not touch screen" and current owners
of Pocket PC’s (Windows Mobile Pro) devices may find themselves tapping the
screen for a short while after buying this. Windows Mobile 6.0 however does
bring some added benefits, such as the Office Mobile suite – something which is
suits the keyboard on this device well. Powered by a Texus Instruments
OMAP 850 CPU running at a little over 200Mhz there’s 64Mb RAM and 128Mb FLASH
ROM. Using a QVGA 240×320 LCD screen there’s also a 2.0 megapixel camera and a
MicroSD card slot for storing the images on.
Connectivity is good, although there’s a lack of 3G in this handset
unfortunately. You do get GSM/GPRS/EDGE quad-band connectivity along with
WiFi and stereo Bluetooth. Inside you get Windows Mobile 6 (Standard) along with
Windows Live for sending / receiving instant messages and more.
In the box
Along with the CD’s and manuals needed to get your started
you’ll find a standard MiniUSB cable for hooking up your device, a charger,
headphone / handsfree kit, battery and the handset itself.
Around the device
Let’s have a look at the handset with our usual close-up camera.
At the front the numeric keypad is almost reminiscent of those on the
Lobster 700 we reviewed a while back in that the keys are tilted
backwards. This time though it works and the keys don’t jiggle around and they
work rather well.
The outer keys are a polished silver colour with the call answer
/ release keys being on the bottom portion of the keypad. It doesn’t take too
long to get used to these frequently-used keys being here. The "home" and "back"
keys are just above and the polished silver is continued around the screen.
The central navigation pad is raised slightly and has the two
soft-keys either side for choosing menu items with Windows Mobile. You may also
see the small light sensor at the bottom of the keypad just below the "0" key.
This senses when to turn the backlight on for the keys – a cool blue colour is
used on both keyboards.
The QWERTY keyboard pops out with a small push and a sound is played at the
same time. I was inclined to turn this off after a bit as it played when the
keyboard was extended with another tune being played when the keyboard was
retracted. It seemed to slow the screen switch down a little and ended up
getting a little annoying, however it’s easy enough to turn off
(Settings->Sounds->Keyboard Sliding->Off). There’s two status lights on the top
left. The first is the familiar "CAPS" light you’ll have seen on your normal PC
keyboard whilst the second indicates whether the FN key is in use. This gives
you access into extra functions shown below in blue.
In addition to the QWERTY keyboard you’ve got two more soft-keys
at the top, plus if you need to you can still use the numeric keypad even while
the rear keyboard is extended. I found this useful for the all-important "Home"
key and for navigating webpages, answering calls etc. With the keyboard extended
you’ll probably start using the normal navigation pad to browse webpages without
even thinking about it.
As we look toward the top of the device there’s a rather sexy little earpiece
containing a couple of LED’s for Bluetooth / network / charging activity. These
will flash to let you know what’s happening with the device.
At the very top of the handset is the power button. You can see in this shot
how rounded the device is too, it fits nicely in the hand and lacks any harsh
corners.
If we flip the device over you’ll see the 2 megapixel camera.
There’s no flash here, but it seems to work a lot better in low-light
than any other HTC camera I’ve seen before. More on this later. You’ll also
notice the main loudspeaker behind the grill on the right.
While we’re looking at this area I’ll show you how the back of
the phone looks with the keyboard extended…
See the slot on the lower right of the above picture? This is
actually where your SIM card goes. I should mention here that all HTC-branded
handsets are SIM free, so you can stick any SIM card in here and it’ll just
work, regardless of network. It’s certainly a lot easier to install a SIM card
in here and there’s no need to fiddle around with the battery and battery cover
to access it. Here’s another look at the same slot with the phone upright and
the keyboard closed. You may also just be able to see the strap-hook on the
lower left corner which let’s you have the phone around your kneck or wrist
should you wish.
Continuing up the left-side of the phone we’ve got the
voice-dial button. Press this and it’ll go into the voice-dial application.
Press and hold it to get the "Notes" application allowing you to record audio
notes. One definite bonus I’ve noticed here is that all of these keys work even
when the device is in its "power saving" mode. This means I can just tap this or
the camera button without having to use the power button first.
The volume control buttons are just above the speed-dial button
and, if I’m honest, they’re not as good as they could be. I couldn’t find them
easily enough during a call and ended up having to take the phone away from my
ear to adjust the volume. Again, this is probably just me being a tad picky but
they’re not quite prominent enough to find by touch alone.
Switch to the right-side of the handset we’ve got the camera
button on the top right. This will activate the camera application and will take
photos in a portrait style – this makes photos very "tall" instead of "wide"
with a resolution of up to 1200×1600. Thankfully HTC have actually set it to be
1200×1600 (2 megapixel) as default - so many times I’ve picked up
handsets and they’ve been set to resolutions lower than the maximum as
the default "out of the box" setting.
More on the camera later.
At the bottom right we’ve got the MicroSD slot. This is tucked
behind a rubber flap and lets you increase your storage capacity easily. Check
out the prices at www.mobymemory.com
if you’re after a cheap card for this device.
At the very bottom of the phone is your miniUSB connector. This
is where you’ll plug in the supplied headset / hands-free kit, your charger or
PC cable. This again is hidden behind a rubber door. I found it a little tricky
to open and close, however if it did fall off I don’t think I’d miss it much :)
To the left is your microphone.
I did take a little too many photos of this device, so here’s a
few more of the phone from various different angles ;)
Inside
The HTC homescreen is relatively uncluttered and gives you the information you
need. Here you can see that the WiFi is turned off (you’ll see the WiFi symbol
in a moment) and the GPRS / Bluetooth connection plus signal strength, messages,
date, time and other important information.
You can add other bits to the homescreen, such as Windows Live search etc.
You can also see if your alarm is turned on – a small bell will appear in the
top right corner to indicate that you’ve set it. There’s also a large amount of
homescreens and themes out there for you to customize your handset. First, let’s
have a look at that WiFi. Having wireless connectivity on a "normal" phone is
still quite a new thing, so let’s connect to my home AP (access point) so that I
can browse the internet nice and quickly (and for very little money!)
Selecting the top rows (showing "Orange … Wi-Fi: Off) brings me into the
Comm Manager application. I now press "4" or move to it and press select. It’ll
do a bit of searching and then hopefully spot my access point. I should probably
mention the power saving here – the WiFi is turned off after a period of
inactivity and then back on again when you start using the phone. This is all
configurable through the "Power" setting as shown on the right here.
OK, now I’ve turned on the WiFi it’s spotted some access
points for me to choose from. Two of these are mine (I’m greedy). Pressing "2"
gets me into my access point and I then need to simply add in my WEP key to get
access. You can see at the top I’ve now got a "WiFi" symbol in my status bar so
I know I’m browsing via WiFi!
You can get more detailed information about your WiFi connection through the
"Settings" option shown above. This shows you the access point your connected
to, what channel you’re on, how strong the signal is and the speed you’ve got.
You can also do advanced stuff like refreshing your IP address and more.
If you now go back to your homescreen you’ll noticed the access
point name – this will vanish and it’ll say "Off" if you don’t do anything on
the internet for a bit. Again there’s lots of options to tweak here and you can
adjust pretty much everything.
The next thing you’ll probably be wanting to do is open up
Internet Explorer. You can access this from the homescreen or through the
programs menu. It’s undergone some changes since Windows Mobile 5 and seems to
render pages quicker. You’ll also notice the lack of an address bar and the
integration of Windows Live Search as a start screen. You can still enter
websites manually by clicking the "Menu" option, however the home page also
integrates your favourites (which at last, is spelt the correct English way!)
and your history using drop-down menus for fast browsing.
I start things off by doing a search for the HTC s710. As you can see it
gives me all the result in a page which is formatted for mobile viewing. If I go
back again you can see the "Favourites" drop-down menu which shows the URL’s
I’ve added into my favourites list on the phone. This time I’m going to search
for something else though, and you’ll notice that I’m not currently using the
slide-out keyboard. This is because there’s also a natty "xt9" system on board
which shows words you’ve typed previously and from its’ own built-in
dictionary – this allows speedy entry of words even if you just decide to use
the numeric keypad alone. You should be able to see it guessing the site name at
the bottom of the screenshot below.
Due to the WiFi connection pages appear really quickly and its’
nice not to worry about data charges from your regular phone network. Each page
shows up as "One Column", however you can change this plus the text size to suit
your preference. If you close your browser and then come back to it later you’ll
find that your browsing history is tucked under the relevant menu bar on the
home page – this lets’ you find the page you checked out earlier without any
difficulty.
OK, so you’ve browsed the web. I’m guessing you may want to go
onto Messenger now, so we’ll have a look at Windows Live Messenger. It’s
included as part of the HTC s710, however some other variations of the handset
(such as the Orange SPV E650) don’t include it.
keys and mention the bright screen, but rarely will they notice the added bonus
to this normal-looking phone. What is it? Well, I’ll show you…
spring-loaded QWERTY keyboard slides from the back.
This instantly turns the phone into a fantastic multi-purpose messaging handset. It’s a testament to the phones designers that no-one I gave this phone
to spotted the additional keyboard. Even I continually kept using the numeric
keypad to write messages because I forgot it was there too. This really
is a normal phone-sized device which expertly hides a killer feature.
When you first use the device you’ll no doubt notice the weight of it. It is
noticeably heavier than other devices. With the keyboard tucked away you may
notice that it’s a little loose in its moorings. It’s nothing major, however
there is the possibility for cards to slide into the gap on the left side of the
phone when closed. Whilst this is noticeable it’s by no means weak or floppy. ….
As a comparison I took a shot of the device next to the Orange
SPV C600. It’s a little wider but still around the same depth as the C600. The
HTC s710 is a little shorter than the C600 but packs a bigger 2.4” QVGA screen.
Specs
The HTC s710 is one of the first Smartphones to get Windows
Mobile 6.0 Standard. The "Standard" means "not touch screen" and current owners
of Pocket PC’s (Windows Mobile Pro) devices may find themselves tapping the
screen for a short while after buying this. Windows Mobile 6.0 however does
bring some added benefits, such as the Office Mobile suite – something which is
suits the keyboard on this device well. Powered by a Texus Instruments
OMAP 850 CPU running at a little over 200Mhz there’s 64Mb RAM and 128Mb FLASH
ROM. Using a QVGA 240×320 LCD screen there’s also a 2.0 megapixel camera and a
MicroSD card slot for storing the images on.
Connectivity is good, although there’s a lack of 3G in this handset
unfortunately. You do get GSM/GPRS/EDGE quad-band connectivity along with
WiFi and stereo Bluetooth. Inside you get Windows Mobile 6 (Standard) along with
Windows Live for sending / receiving instant messages and more.
In the box
Along with the CD’s and manuals needed to get your started
you’ll find a standard MiniUSB cable for hooking up your device, a charger,
headphone / handsfree kit, battery and the handset itself.
Around the device
Let’s have a look at the handset with our usual close-up camera.
At the front the numeric keypad is almost reminiscent of those on the
Lobster 700 we reviewed a while back in that the keys are tilted
backwards. This time though it works and the keys don’t jiggle around and they
work rather well.
The outer keys are a polished silver colour with the call answer
/ release keys being on the bottom portion of the keypad. It doesn’t take too
long to get used to these frequently-used keys being here. The "home" and "back"
keys are just above and the polished silver is continued around the screen.
The central navigation pad is raised slightly and has the two
soft-keys either side for choosing menu items with Windows Mobile. You may also
see the small light sensor at the bottom of the keypad just below the "0" key.
This senses when to turn the backlight on for the keys – a cool blue colour is
used on both keyboards.
The QWERTY keyboard pops out with a small push and a sound is played at the
same time. I was inclined to turn this off after a bit as it played when the
keyboard was extended with another tune being played when the keyboard was
retracted. It seemed to slow the screen switch down a little and ended up
getting a little annoying, however it’s easy enough to turn off
(Settings->Sounds->Keyboard Sliding->Off). There’s two status lights on the top
left. The first is the familiar "CAPS" light you’ll have seen on your normal PC
keyboard whilst the second indicates whether the FN key is in use. This gives
you access into extra functions shown below in blue.
In addition to the QWERTY keyboard you’ve got two more soft-keys
at the top, plus if you need to you can still use the numeric keypad even while
the rear keyboard is extended. I found this useful for the all-important "Home"
key and for navigating webpages, answering calls etc. With the keyboard extended
you’ll probably start using the normal navigation pad to browse webpages without
even thinking about it.
As we look toward the top of the device there’s a rather sexy little earpiece
containing a couple of LED’s for Bluetooth / network / charging activity. These
will flash to let you know what’s happening with the device.
At the very top of the handset is the power button. You can see in this shot
how rounded the device is too, it fits nicely in the hand and lacks any harsh
corners.
If we flip the device over you’ll see the 2 megapixel camera.
There’s no flash here, but it seems to work a lot better in low-light
than any other HTC camera I’ve seen before. More on this later. You’ll also
notice the main loudspeaker behind the grill on the right.
While we’re looking at this area I’ll show you how the back of
the phone looks with the keyboard extended…
See the slot on the lower right of the above picture? This is
actually where your SIM card goes. I should mention here that all HTC-branded
handsets are SIM free, so you can stick any SIM card in here and it’ll just
work, regardless of network. It’s certainly a lot easier to install a SIM card
in here and there’s no need to fiddle around with the battery and battery cover
to access it. Here’s another look at the same slot with the phone upright and
the keyboard closed. You may also just be able to see the strap-hook on the
lower left corner which let’s you have the phone around your kneck or wrist
should you wish.
Continuing up the left-side of the phone we’ve got the
voice-dial button. Press this and it’ll go into the voice-dial application.
Press and hold it to get the "Notes" application allowing you to record audio
notes. One definite bonus I’ve noticed here is that all of these keys work even
when the device is in its "power saving" mode. This means I can just tap this or
the camera button without having to use the power button first.
The volume control buttons are just above the speed-dial button
and, if I’m honest, they’re not as good as they could be. I couldn’t find them
easily enough during a call and ended up having to take the phone away from my
ear to adjust the volume. Again, this is probably just me being a tad picky but
they’re not quite prominent enough to find by touch alone.
Switch to the right-side of the handset we’ve got the camera
button on the top right. This will activate the camera application and will take
photos in a portrait style – this makes photos very "tall" instead of "wide"
with a resolution of up to 1200×1600. Thankfully HTC have actually set it to be
1200×1600 (2 megapixel) as default - so many times I’ve picked up
handsets and they’ve been set to resolutions lower than the maximum as
the default "out of the box" setting.
More on the camera later.
At the bottom right we’ve got the MicroSD slot. This is tucked
behind a rubber flap and lets you increase your storage capacity easily. Check
out the prices at www.mobymemory.com
if you’re after a cheap card for this device.
At the very bottom of the phone is your miniUSB connector. This
is where you’ll plug in the supplied headset / hands-free kit, your charger or
PC cable. This again is hidden behind a rubber door. I found it a little tricky
to open and close, however if it did fall off I don’t think I’d miss it much :)
To the left is your microphone.
I did take a little too many photos of this device, so here’s a
few more of the phone from various different angles ;)
Inside
The HTC homescreen is relatively uncluttered and gives you the information you
need. Here you can see that the WiFi is turned off (you’ll see the WiFi symbol
in a moment) and the GPRS / Bluetooth connection plus signal strength, messages,
date, time and other important information.
You can add other bits to the homescreen, such as Windows Live search etc.
You can also see if your alarm is turned on – a small bell will appear in the
top right corner to indicate that you’ve set it. There’s also a large amount of
homescreens and themes out there for you to customize your handset. First, let’s
have a look at that WiFi. Having wireless connectivity on a "normal" phone is
still quite a new thing, so let’s connect to my home AP (access point) so that I
can browse the internet nice and quickly (and for very little money!)
Selecting the top rows (showing "Orange … Wi-Fi: Off) brings me into the
Comm Manager application. I now press "4" or move to it and press select. It’ll
do a bit of searching and then hopefully spot my access point. I should probably
mention the power saving here – the WiFi is turned off after a period of
inactivity and then back on again when you start using the phone. This is all
configurable through the "Power" setting as shown on the right here.
OK, now I’ve turned on the WiFi it’s spotted some access
points for me to choose from. Two of these are mine (I’m greedy). Pressing "2"
gets me into my access point and I then need to simply add in my WEP key to get
access. You can see at the top I’ve now got a "WiFi" symbol in my status bar so
I know I’m browsing via WiFi!
You can get more detailed information about your WiFi connection through the
"Settings" option shown above. This shows you the access point your connected
to, what channel you’re on, how strong the signal is and the speed you’ve got.
You can also do advanced stuff like refreshing your IP address and more.
If you now go back to your homescreen you’ll noticed the access
point name – this will vanish and it’ll say "Off" if you don’t do anything on
the internet for a bit. Again there’s lots of options to tweak here and you can
adjust pretty much everything.
The next thing you’ll probably be wanting to do is open up
Internet Explorer. You can access this from the homescreen or through the
programs menu. It’s undergone some changes since Windows Mobile 5 and seems to
render pages quicker. You’ll also notice the lack of an address bar and the
integration of Windows Live Search as a start screen. You can still enter
websites manually by clicking the "Menu" option, however the home page also
integrates your favourites (which at last, is spelt the correct English way!)
and your history using drop-down menus for fast browsing.
I start things off by doing a search for the HTC s710. As you can see it
gives me all the result in a page which is formatted for mobile viewing. If I go
back again you can see the "Favourites" drop-down menu which shows the URL’s
I’ve added into my favourites list on the phone. This time I’m going to search
for something else though, and you’ll notice that I’m not currently using the
slide-out keyboard. This is because there’s also a natty "xt9" system on board
which shows words you’ve typed previously and from its’ own built-in
dictionary – this allows speedy entry of words even if you just decide to use
the numeric keypad alone. You should be able to see it guessing the site name at
the bottom of the screenshot below.
Due to the WiFi connection pages appear really quickly and its’
nice not to worry about data charges from your regular phone network. Each page
shows up as "One Column", however you can change this plus the text size to suit
your preference. If you close your browser and then come back to it later you’ll
find that your browsing history is tucked under the relevant menu bar on the
home page – this lets’ you find the page you checked out earlier without any
difficulty.
OK, so you’ve browsed the web. I’m guessing you may want to go
onto Messenger now, so we’ll have a look at Windows Live Messenger. It’s
included as part of the HTC s710, however some other variations of the handset
(such as the Orange SPV E650) don’t include it.
0 comments:
Post a Comment