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...
A 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.
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
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
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turn this off after a bit as it played when the keyboard was extended with another tune being played when the keyboard was retracted.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 1200x1600. Thankfully HTC have actually set it to be 1200x1600 (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
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.
With the combination of WiFi and more "flat rate" data tariffs appearing it's becoming easier to stay in touch with friends or colleagues when you're on the move. Windows Live Messenger is the new name for MSN Messenger and it's simply a matter of logging in with your account. It'll integrate Windows Live with your contacts list too, and with the addition of the spring-loaded QWERTY keyboard it's so easy to message people. Here I am with the handset in its' "widescreen" (i.e. keyboard extended) mode.
Next ? Well, I'm guessing you'll probably be wanting to setup an email account. This has been made even easier in Windows Mobile 6.0 and most of the work is done for you if the wizard finds your settings. You've also got the keyboard of course, so there's no excuse to get your normal POP3 email setup.
Once into "Messaging" you'll see a screen like the one above. It's just a matter of choosing option "3" to add a new email account. Next I slide out that keyboard and enter the necessary information to setup my email account. First up it's my email address and name - again, look how the "xt9" system picks up words for me..
The email setup process requires a few bits of information - your name (easy enough), your email address (simple), the incoming / outgoing mail servers (if you're unsure, copy this off your PC settings) and the username and password. You can then set it to automatically receive at set intervals or - as I've done here - only manually when I tell it too. Once complete you'll have a new account to use in your "Messaging" program. This will let me check to see if I've got email from you guys, and reply to it, when I'm on the train. Good eh?
OK, so what next? We've got onto the WiFi, we're on Windows Messenger, we can browse the net and we're all setup for email. I guess we better add some contacts really hadn't we? :) This part can be one really, really easily by connecting your PC into the phone with the supplied cable. This will send across all of your Outlook contacts onto the phone. All you need to do to add someone is simply do it on your PC and then all of their details will magically get transported over to the phone.
To add people in when you're on the go it's easily done through the Contacts system on your handset. First up, enter "Contacts" and then choose "New". The HTC s710 will ask if you want an Outlook Contact or a SIM contact. I'd choose Outlook here, but it's useful to have the SIM contact option should you be swapping SIM cards.
You start off by entering all the usual details. Again the xt9 system helps you along the way.
As usual there's bucket loads of fields to use up. You can, if you wish, add just the name and number, however that'd be a bit of a waste when you've got home numbers, work numbers, company numbers, email addresses, company names, department, job title, office address, town, postcode, birthday, nickname and so much more ! Below is an example - on the left is the taxi firm with just some limited details, whilst on the right there's a more detailed contact with their own ringtone etc.
 |  |
 |
Once you've saved your contact it's easy to edit or find it. From the homescreen you simply need to start typing out the name. If I wanted to call Richard Branson I'd just need to start typing "742" and the predictive dial will find it. It'll look for names starting with "RIC" or "SHA" in your contacts and call history along with any numbers starting "742". This makes calling people a breeze.
All of these contacts have been added in using Outlook - I just plugged the phone in and it mirrored everything across. Now, this doesn't mean that I can't still edit those contacts - this is easily done by choosing "Edit" on the menu, plus any changes I make will be reflected back wth the PC after. I can also beam contact details and send them as a vCard or add them to Windows Live. There's bags more stuff to choose from depending on what you're part of the contact card you're looking at.
I touched on the Call History before. This will not only show you the contacts you've called but also those who've called you, plus your missed calls, timers and more.
Let's have a little look around the Office Suite. It's slightly different to the PocketPC / Windows Mobile Pro version. You can't create files with the Microsoft Office applications here, however you can edit them. It's a slimmed-down version of the Window Mobile Pro editing capabilities too, but there's enough functionality to keep you and your slide-out keyboard happy.
Yes, you heard me right - you can't create documents. You can, if you wish, copy a couple of blank documents (say, blank.doc and blank.xls) to the phone and use these as "templates", then do a "Save As". I've already done this and it works well - an excellent work around. Here's Excel. One thing I did notice is that - if you've got Office 2007 on your PC - you CANNOT copy the new "xlsx" documents over to Office Excel on the phone. Even though the "xlsx" format it now saved as standard on Office 2007 you'll have to manually go in and choose "Save As -> Office 97-2003 Workbook" and then copy it to the phone. Yes, yes - I know.
Here's me viewing a document. You then have to switch to "Edit" mode to tweak the document and then you can save it or send it on.
Word has a lovely smooth scrolling system and when you're viewing documents it's so nice to slide down the .doc file. Again you can choose "Edit" mode and change bits about the file. You can also adjust the zoom, adjust font style and perform searches.
Powerpoint lets you view slides before you get to a presentation or meeting and will let you prep for that all-important briefing. Again there's lots of viewing options and the ability to go to certain slides, show links and orientation control.
An essential piece of software (at least in our book) is Adobe PDF. There's zoom control and a whole lot more packed in here so you can open up PDF documents that you may have been sent on email. One thing I'm disappointed about is the lack of "Zip". If you get any of these documents (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Adobe PDF) zipped up you're stuck. :(
I almost wasn't going to load up the "Calculator" application. In Windows Mobile 5.0 the calculator is a bit... meh. But look what's happened. It's undergone a serious facelift, plus they (and I mean the Microsoft "they") have made it easier to use by including the mathematical functions on the navigation pad.
Let's say we want to do 4 multiplied by 18 divided by 6. I'd just press "4", "left", "18", "right", "6" then it's just a matter of press the navigation button in the centre and bingo - you're done. What a fantastic idea, and so damned simple. Lovely, just lovely.
Let's have a look at the messaging application again. We touched on the email side earlier, but most people will want to know about the text (SMS) messaging and MMS messaging. Writing a message is simply a matter of clicking "New" (which is hidden away under "Menu") and then using the predictive function we saw earlier (when dialing someone) to choose the recipient. Below you can see the message listing screen. If you open one up you'll see the contact picture at the top of the message plus the whole message.
When typing out a message you can use the "xt9" system to help you out or - if you want to use the old way and type without assistance if you wish. Either way, you can use the slide-out keyboard to type stuff out fairly rapidly by using your thumbs.
Picture messaging / MMS is easily done and follows a similar pattern. You choose the MMS account, select a contact and insert objects or pictures. It'll tell you if any attachment is too big and will offer up resize options on the fly.
You can keep your life in check too by using the Calendar. This will synchronize with your PC or Exchange and keep you on-time for those all important meetings and appointments.
You're also able to change appointments or suggest new times as well as replying to meeting requests.
Now let's have a look at the programs available in this HTC s710. We've covered a few of them already, however it's good for you to see what's available. Don't forget that you can navigate this menu system with your navigation pad or press the relevant numeric keys - i.e. 1 for "Messaging", 2 for "Call History" etc.
Messaging, Call History, Internet Explorer, Contacts, Calendar we've already covered. We'll have a look at the camera in a moment but first up let's use the "Pictures and Videos" application. This does pretty much what it states - you can watch a slideshow of your pictures, send them off to your Windows Live space, change folders, copy and paste. If you select a picture you can perform some cropping, auto-correction or rotation, beam the picture, set it as your home screen, zoom or save it under a different name.
The Tasks system let's you create a "To Do" list in order to keep your life in order. Here you can see I've added in a critical task using the keyboard and given it a high priority..
On the next page of applications we've got Messenger that we showed earlier, plus Activesync for getting your stuff synched up with your PC (and Exchange etc). There's also an "Expert" folder which will let you do advanced things like wiping the storage (i.e. resetting the phone back to factory defaults). We've also looked at Office Mobile already so lets' examine the other goodies that we can play with....
Windows Media Player comes into its own with the inbuilt WiFi connection. It's a shame that the handset doesn't have 3G, so you're restricted somewhat. However, when you do get WiFi it's all systems go - you can open streaming media links meaning that TV and radio can be viewed on your phone. I've already used this to listen to www.dance.fm around the house - just hook onto the wireless, open up the relevant web page and then fire up the streaming URL. I can then bop away around the house (or anywhere else with a wireless access point) with my headphones on or I can place the phone on one side so that everyone can hear it.
Above I'm listening to a streaming radio station, however I can easily open up a TV station like BBC News 24 (there's more streams like this on http://mobile.coolsmartphone.com). Here's me watching a news report in normal view and widescreen..
Windows Media Player also includes the usual library system to easily categorise your music and video files by name, genre and album plus you can update or switch the library from the internal storage to the MicroSD card for more room.
File Explorer comes on board and lets you do most of the stuff you're able to do in Windows Explorer on your PC. Rename files, copy, sort, beam, delete, make new folders or send the files as email attachments. There's alsoa Bluetooth explorer that'll let you browse other handsets as if they were a network share. This makes moving files a lot easier.
Our last page of programs includes the Comm Manager (seen right) which will let you control all of the various connectivity functions of your phone. You can set the phone to flight mode, turn the WiFi on /off or mute the sound, turn push email on / off an more.
A task manager helps to display what programs are currently running in the background. This can help to speed up your phone if you find that one application is sucking all of the phones' resources or memory. I've got all this stuff running and still have over 7Mb free.
In the settings you've got stacks of options to choose from and change. Everything from the sounds, background image, power, security and regional settings can be changed plus there's now a Window Update function to help keep your phone running smoothly.
Remember years ago I mentioned how rubbish the Smartphone alarm system was? Well, luckily enough I got the chance to go over to Seattle and tell the Microsoft boys myself. End result? It's now slighlty better. It's still not as configurable as the Pocket PC (Windows Mobile Pro) version, however it'll now let you sound the alarm every day, on weekdays or not at all. Huzzar!
Many of you will want to know about the sounds, ringtones and message alerts on this handset. They're better than the Windows Mobile 5 OS and you've got more choice now too. You can always download more from our downloads section if you want !
As you can see there's sounds for everything - even that keyboard sliding sound I mentioned earlier.
There's also several Profiles to choose from and you can edit each one to suit your tastes. That "Automatic" one at the bottom will turn the phone onto "Silent" mode when you're in a meeting that you've scheduled. Clever huh? There's also home screen options and colour schemes, so you can change the green areas to be a different colour etc.
The Date and Time setting also lets you set an automatic time zone. I've disabled it here, however you can turn it on and I'm guessing it'll pick up the time from the local network.
Camera
I've read a few reviews whilst preparing for my own and some tend to mention the low camera quality. Now, whilst it's not going to beat a 7-8 megapixel Canon camera it is rather good indeed. I noticed especially that the shots in low-light were much improved over other HTC devices. This is probably best shown rather than explained, so I did my comparison shots again. The shots below are taken at exactly the same time on an Orange SPV M3100 (left) and the HTC s710 (right). Here you'll also notice how the HTC s710 takes more "portrait" style photos. You can of course change this by rotating the phone and then altering the picture rotation on your PC later.
Click each image for the original "un-resized" shot. All of these photos were taken on the standard setting - I've not messed with the brightness / exposure settings at all.
 |  |
 |  |
 |  |
 |  |
 |  |
In daylight the camera is probably about as good as any other 2 megapixel camera. However, it's in low-light that this camera really works a lot better than other devices I've tested. Sure, you have to make sure that both you and your subject aren't moving too much when you take a photo in low-light, however the results are much better. I've included some more example shots below - the shot for example was take in a room with just one lamp on. I took the same shot on the SPV M3100 and got a black screen. However, even against a dark brown rug our Poppy is clearly visible...
The camera application is the "new style" one we've grown used to in more modern HTC-built handsets. There's a few shortcut keys to help you out too, for example "1" will rotate through the capture types,"2" will change the resolution, "3" will change the exposure setting and so on. You can also use up / down on your navigation pad to zoom and left / right to increase the brightness. There's also that "Metering Mode" setting that will detect either the light at the centre of the shot or the entire shot. This helps when you're taking pictures with a combination of light and dark.
Below you can see me lining up a nice shot of the "review food". Look at that lovely wood flooring in the background. I did that all myself you know. It took ages. Anyhow.. where was I ? Oh yes - you'll notice in the top right that I'm storing my images / video on the phones' internal memory. You can change this by pressing the left soft-key (the spanner symbol) and changing it to the memory card if you want. There's many more settings to play with including the photograph effects (negative, grayscale etc), time stamp, shutter sound, review duration and more. Oh yes, I forgot to mention that, after taking a shot it'll give you a review of the image for a couple of seconds and then switch back to the camera preview window again. This is good for rapid-fire shots and cuts down on the amount of buttons you need to keep pressing.
As I mentioned before the shots are taken in a "tall" picture like this, so photos come out in a "portrait" style instead of widescreen. Just rotate the phone
To zoom in you'll need to drop the resolution a bit, so I've pressed "2" to alter the resolution down to 1 megapixel (indicated below) and then used the "up" button on the navigation pad to zoom in. On the right I've adjusted the brightness too so you can see the difference.
You can also use templates or switch the timer on for more fun shots of you and your mates.
Conclusion
This handset has some great features. The fact that it looks and operates like a conventional mobile phone is fantastic, and I love the fact that I am, at last, reviewing a Smartphone (Windows Mobile Standard) handset. Sure, Pocket PC's (Windows Mobile Pro handsets) are great too, but the minute you get a stylus out and start tapping on the screen a lot of people tend to knock you down the "cool" scale somewhat.
Yes, it lacks 3G, yes, there's no Zip application yes, the 200Mhz CPU can sometimes drag a little on screen switching. However, you should weigh these minor niggles against a "normal looking" phone that packs not only WiFi, but a terrific colour screen, good camera, large storage capacity, spring-loaded keyboard, voice dial, Office Mobile, Messenger, Windows Live, stereo Bluetooth and MP3 / video capavilities plus a stack load more.
A few years ago we reviewed the Orange SPV M2000 and I remember saying how much I wanted it to be smaller and more phone like. Now that very device I wanted is here - a phone that combines the speed and ease of a numeric keypad for dialing numbers and the flexibility of a QWERTY keyboard and WiFi all in one compact handset.
No comments:
Post a Comment