Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Asus P750

Touchscreen phones have taken off in a jiffy after the introduction of iPhone. Windows Mobile platform is a favorite among manufacturers to launch a touchscreen phone. Its capabilities have been pushed to the limit and the world is awaiting the launch of Windows Mobile 7 eagerly. Asus P750 is based on Windows Mobile 6.0 Pro and comes loaded with features to challenge its counterparts.

Asus P750 specifications :

  • Dimensions : 113 x 58 x 17.4 mm
  • Weight : 130 g
  • Display : 2.6″ TFT, 240 x 320 pixels
  • CPU : 520 Mhz
  • RAM : 64MB RAM, 256 ROM
  • GPRS, HSCSD, EDGE, 3G
  • WLAN : WiFi 802.11 b/g
  • Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP
  • Camera : 3.2 megapixel with autofocus
  • GPS receiver with SiRF III chipset
  • OS : Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.0 Professional
  • Approx. price : $700

The Asus P750 has highly professional looks and has a sturdy and compact design. At first look, you will notice that it does not include a QWERTY keyboard, which is a big drawback. The display is also smaller at 2.6″ against 2.8″ ones commonly found. The display can only be operated through the stylus.

Picking it up in your hand for the first time will make you feel its heaviness. The build quality of the mobile as brilliant as high quality materials have been used. The front has a brushed metal look with high grade plastic used at the back. Accessories bundled with it include leather holster, stereo handsfree, USB data cable, car charger and surprisingly a windsheel mount holder.

The display has QVGA resolution and has good clarity. But visibility under sunlight isn’t good and you can barely see it. The display is basically a VGA screen which has been reduced to QVGA one. A little bit of hacking can lead you to its VGA resolution.

The keypad is a regular style keypad which offers good tactile feedback. The metallic keys offer a neat look to the keypad but no backlighting renders them useless in low lighting conditions.

The right side has a lot of keys stacked up. It also has a slot to plug in external antenna to boost GPS reception. Slider lets you switch between standby and keypad lock. Other keys include camera key and a reset hole.

Windows Media Player is the preinstalled multimedia player which allows watching videos and also TV streaming. You can filter content by artists, genre, album etc and also create playlists. The music quality on the device is just about average. The loudspeaker doesn’t fare much better either.

The camera has a resolution of 3.2 megapixels and autofocus. Seems good enough with the specifications unless you start using it. The interface is good and offers a variety of customisation options. It also features geotagging letting you tag photos based on where you took them. The image quality is average and fine details are not captured. Video quality is of the same stature.

Internet Explorer Mobile is the default browser which isn’t the best you can get on this platform. You are better off with installing a much better browser like Opera etc. The organiser is good as expected and has the same set of time-management features found on other Windows Mobile platform.

Pros :

  • Windows Mobile 6.0 Pro
  • Fast processor
  • SiRF Star III GPS chipset
  • Good build quality
  • Great accessory bundle

Cons :

  • Small screen
  • No QWERTY keyboard
  • Bad camera quality
  • Audio quality average
  • Low RAM

Final Thoughts

The Asus P750 is a good offering from Asus turned bad. The specs on paper look good but the handset underperforms. Small screen, no qwerty keyboard, bad camera quality etc. are its downpoints. There are not enough strong points to cover them up and considering its steep price point, it might not be worth investing it unless you want a small and sturdy touchscreen PDA.

My Rating : 2.85/5

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