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Windows Mobile 5 (Smartphone Edition)
If you're coming from a device with an older
version of the operating system, you'll navigate through WM5 just fine.
There aren't too many noticeable differences but I'll try and cover some
here.
Not much has changed with the Homescreen and you
do have your usual options including layout, color scheme, background image
and screen time out settings. One change though is the option to apply
the Pocket MSN plug-in on the homescreen. More on that in a bit.
The usual apps are found, including pocket
Internet Explorer, Calendar, Window Media Player 10, Contact Management,
Camera and Video Application, Basic File Explorer, Comm Manager and Task
Manager.
Most will notice that the MSN Messenger Icon is
no longer on the Start Menu. Yes, it's there but in WM5, you have a
Pocket MSN icon that combines the Messenger application with Hotmail.
You can choose to use the homescreen plug-in as well to conveniently login
to your account. I'm personally not a fan of it and will show you
other excellent alternative later in this review.
Only two games are bundled but I will show you
some excellent third-party options a bit later as well. The
Accessories Menu has your SIM Manager, Download Agent and Calculator. Also
new to WM5, is a Clear Storage icon that will practically allow you reformat
your device via software similar to the hard reset that is performed via a
button combination on the Qtek 8500. Note that when activating it, it will perform a hard and not a soft reset,
which means your data will be lost. This is to be used if you encounter
issues with the device and need to reload the OS.
The Settings Menu has not changed much either.
There are some additional settings though, including one specific to the
Qtek 8500. From here you can gain access to your phone profiles, sound
settings, homescreen settings, connection options, regional settings and
accessibility and security options.
Specific to the device, is the ability to make
changes to the appearance of the external screen. You have not one but
five clock display options to choose from. Personally, I think the
default analog clock setting looks great. You can
also set your own wallpaper and even set a pic taken from the camera as your
background image. The external screen on this phone, although not a
full color display, is quite nice.
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For those new to Windows powered Smartphones,
the operating system includes "pocket" versions of Internet Explorer and
Windows Media Player 10, both of which I'm not too fond of and use other
excellent alternatives. The browser is extremely slow and buggy when
compared to other third party products. Also, WMP 10 Mobile still does
not support other video file formats, including common MPEG files. I
find this quite irritating and is why I resort to other options for video
playback. But then again, that's the beauty of owning a Windows
Smartphone...you have a slew of options available to you that can handle or
do just about anything you wish.
Bundled Software
Most users know that the Smartphone OS is simply
a stripped down version of the Pocket PC OS. This means that you will
not find Pocket versions of Word, Excel or Powerpoint. However, Qtek
does provide you with a CD that contains a full ClearVue Document Suite that
will not only allow you to view all of these file formats, but PDF files as
well.
Update 08/27/06: What many should
note is that while the Qtek 8500 ships with a CD that has the ClearVue suite
allowing you to optionally install it, the I-mate ROM itself already has the
ClearVue suite. For those who don't plan on taking advantage of it, it
will not be easy to remove, considering it is part of the ROM. Also, I
can confirm the Dopod ROM does not have the suite pre-installed in ROM.
Only I-mate does.
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I did take the time to test all quite
thoroughly. I was able to open every file I transferred over and did
not experience any issues other than load times. I'm sure most of you
know by now that viewing large PDF files on even a high end desktop system
can be quite frustrating. They load slow and scrolling through a large
file with images can be painful. Needless to say, viewing a large 6MB PDF with
heavy graphics on a Smartphone was quite unpleasant. Yes, it was able
to view the file just fine, but struggled quite a bit when attempting to
scroll through pages. The PDF viewer is nice, but unless you absolutely must
view a file, I would not rely on it much.
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