HTC S710
One of most eagerly anticipated devices of recent times, the HTC S710 is the first of the coming Windows Mobile 6 device invasion. Using the "Standard" flavour of Microsoft's latest mobile OS, the S710 is one great looking phone. Also widely known as the Vox and available from Orange as the SPV E650. Interestingly enough Orange actually launched their variant before HTC managed to get the S710 to market.
All photographs can be clicked to view a larger version. (note that screenshots are already full size)
| Manufacturer: HTC |
| Vendor: Hugh Symons |
| Product: S710 |
| Colour: Black/Chrome |
| Cost: £254.99 (Incl. VAT) |
| Manufacturer Web Site: HTC |
| Vendor Product Web Site: DeviceWire |
The HTC S710 smartphone is the most compact smartphone with semi auto-sliding full keyboard. It redefines the smartphone with its attractive and sleek design – yet it’s much more than just a phone! The S710 is a multi-functional device and is the first smartphone to use the new Windows Mobile® 6.0 Standard platform. The new Windows® platform builds on the previous version by enhancing business and enterprise tools, and providing a richer interface for better user experience.
Extract from the HTC website.
First Impressions
Unsurprisingly the S710 comes in a standard egg carton style box with the by now expected nicely designed outer sleeve.
In the box are the following:
HTC S710
Battery
Stereo headset (plugs into mini USB port)
Charger
USB-Mini USB sync cable
First impressions of the S710 itself are very good indeed; the back of the case has a semi soft finish which makes it less likely to slide out of your hand. The QWERTY keyboard has an assisted slide mechanism like the one first seen on the HTC 4350; this does mean that as with the larger device the S710 feels heavier than you would expect for its size. Being ultra critical for a moment the balance of the phone in the hand feels ever so slightly wrong but you do get used to this. It took all of two seconds for me to fall helplessly in love with the idea of having both a standard phone keypad and a QWERTY keyboard, although it has taken a little longer for me to actually remember that the keyboard is there every time I start to type an email. The keyboard itself is, unsurprisingly, a little on the small side with the biggest problem being the size of the space bar; I find that when I use my left thumb to hit the space bar I frequently catch the "b" key instead. Otherwise though it is perfectly usable and for me far preferable to text typing on the keypad. Also worthy of mention, and high praise, are the addition of LED's to indicate use of the CAPS and Function buttons.
As for the keypad, this is standard Smartphone fare with a numberpad, home key, back key, phone answer and cancel keys, two WM softkeys and the D-pad. The D-pad is, at last on an HTC Smartphone, very well designed with the direction section separate from the action button. This means there should be no more screaming when you try to select an option only for the dpad to move the selection down one first. Only time will tell how well the chromed effect on the outer keys and the screen frame last but the overall look of the S710 is very appealing.
In common with most WM Standard devices the S710 doesn't have many buttons on the side of the case; the left hand side has the two buttons for volume and one for voice dialling whilst on the right hand side merely has a camera button. The power button is in the traditional location for a phone on the top of the handset. This lack of buttons is probably my only real disappointment with the phone as the addition of a TyTN like jog wheel and maybe one more button on the right hand side fot Cpm Manager would have had me on cloud 9.
Back on to the front face of the phone and we come to the brilliant QVGA screen: big, bright, crisp and quite frankly awesome.
As for ports and connection points, HTC have obviously put a deal of thought into the design. The MicroSD slot is on the bottom right hand edge of the S710 and has a nice rubber cover to prevent you losing your precious data. The sim card slot, in common with many slider phones, is located on the underside of the top section of the slider. The Mini USB power/sync port is located in the usual place on the bottom of the handset and also has a rubber cover to protect it from pocket fluff.
Specifications
Taken from the Devicewire website
Platform : Microsoft® Windows Mobile® 6.0 Standard Platform ( WOOT
)
Dimensions : 101 mm(L) x 50 mm(W) x 17.7 mm(T)
Weight : 120 g with battery pack
Processor : TI OMAP™ 850, 201MHz
Memory (RAM) : 64MB
Memory (ROM) : 128MB
Screen : 2.4inch Transmissive colour LCD with a White LED backlight
Communications : GSM/GPRS/EDGE (quad-band 850/900/1800/1900MHz)
Wi-Fi : Wi-Fi® 802.11b/g
Bluetooth : Bluetooth® v2.0
Camera : 2 megapixel CMOS imaging sensor
Power Adapter : AC adaptor. Voltage range/frequency: 100 ~ 240V, 50/60Hz
Battery : Removable and rechargeable Lithium-ion battery, 1050mAh
Audio (Speaker) : Loud speaker for Hands-free operation
Network : Sim Free
Applications : SIM Manager, Smart Dialing, Camera, MMS, Audio manager, MP3 Trimmer, Picture Enhancement for Pictures & Videos, Audio & Video Enhancement for WMP, Task Manager, Voice Dial & Command
Software
So, the VOX is the first device to, officially, have Windows Mobile 6 under the hood and I have to say that I'm liking what I see. Apart from the graphical niceties added such as prettier icons, most of the enhancements are quite subtle but it has to be said that the handling of email has been made much more slick. The most obvious change when you go into messaging is that the standard left hand soft key action is now delete. The handling of attachments has been enhanced slightly with a "what do you want to do with it" confirmation step added and also decent handling of nasty eml extension files.
The most obvious addition to Standard/Smartphone for WM6 is, of course, Office Mobile. At last we have native handling of Word, Excel and PowerPoint (still no edit for PPT though). As this means that the ClearVue suite is no longer required HTC have thoughtfully included Adobe Reader out of the box. This has to be a huge selling point for the new OS as viewing large documents in the ClearVue readers on Smartphone could be very painful with lots of left/right scrolling required. By comparison Office Mobile is a dream to use and reading Word documents in particular is much improved. And don't forget that you can now edit Word and Excel too, simply excellent IMHO. The one sour point is that you can't actually create a new document in Word and will probably have to put a template document on your device to enable you to work around this.
Also making a welcome return is the flight mode button in the Comm Manager app. The other item of note on the device is the Windows Update app; admittedly I couldn't get the app to connect to a server but it is a potentially very welcome addition.
So everything is looking good so far right? ahhh, wrong I'm afraid! Unfortunately the clue to the issue is in the first sentence of this section of the review; this is the first WM6 device to hit the market and it is exhibiting some OS teething problems. I've been using the S710 as my main phone since it arrived and it functions very well as a phone and also for use as a PDA synced up to our work Exchange server. However I have had to reset the phone every few days due to it getting stuck on a particular screen or completely freezing up; it isn't a deal breaker for anyone who has lived through the earlier versions of the OS but it might put newcomers to WM off. I'm sure that a minor OS upgrade will solve the problem in the not too distant future but HTC haven't exactly been forthcoming with ROM upgrades for their existing devices so far.
Screenshots
For the sake of comparison I have included a screenshot of the S310 Home screen below
Word Mobile - View Mode
Word Mobile - Edit Mode
Powerpoint Mobile - Portrait
Powerpoint Mobile -Landscape
The S710 has a 2mp camera located on the rear; no flash this time but with HTC that's hardly a great loss. As we have come to expect from HTC the camera is adequate in good light conditions but fails to set the world alight as the levels start to drop. Video copes quite well with lower lighting levels however, and is perfectly acceptable for grabbing clips of your drunken loon mate in a nightclub.
The example photos below were all taken using the default settings on the S710 and the usual HTC blue tint is still in evidence on them but they do seem to be a lot better than those taken on previous HTC devices that I've used.
Example Photographs
Comparisons
Pros and Cons
Pros
WM6
Office Mobile
Keypad AND QWERTY keyboard
Caps and Function keylock indicators
Compact size
Great QVGA screen
Battery life = approx 2 days of heavy use
Cons
No GPS
No 3G
No jog wheel
Conclusion
The HTC S710 is, IMHO, the best Windows Mobile device so far, an excellent design executed to near perfection. The Cons that I have listed are minor points (in fact personally I don't want 3G or GPS anyway) and everything that it does do, it does well. WM6 may not be revolutionary but it is certainly a welcome evolution of our favourite mobile OS.
If you absolutely can't live without 3G or GPS then you might want to wait until later in the year when HTC release the Wings device; otherwise the Vox is an excellent phone.
4WinMobile rating:- 98%
One thing though does it come with a case? Oh and does it come with outlook? I would have to have a play with one of course before i finally decided ! Would take me hours of overtime to pay for it AND treat myself to a new PDA this year but my Father needs a new mobile and this would be ideal in his line of work. he could read e mails on the move essential in his job at the moment. if my Mother were alive i would have shown her this review and conspired with her to pay 50-50 for the phone as a christmas pressie. My Father would have loved it. Ahh well better get saving !!! 
Linear Mode
Friends of 4WM
