Friday, March 10, 2006
Hands-On With the Gigabyte gSmart Phone
Posted by Raphael Salgado in "HARDWARE" @ 11:00 AM
Other Phone devices may include Cyberon's Voice Speed Dial which requires voice tagging for each contact (tedious!) and is limited to launching applications. But, the gSmart has Cyberon's flagship product Voice Commander, which utilizes true voice recognition, responds with voice synthesis, and has a host of commands it can perform.
Figure 22: Cyberon Voice Commander can look up and call contacts, read SMS messages and appointments, play music files, and more.
Figure 23: The Easy-Touch Menu provides quick shortcuts to close programs, set profiles, and change device settings.
Because the gSmart has a 2.5" LCD, it can start to get too small for comfort. Even with small fingers, the screen can be difficult to touch certain on-screen menu options and such. The Magnify tool comes in handy to make the Programs icons and descriptions larger, as well as the pull-up menus in many applications.
Figure 24: Give some menu items a little tweak to make it easier to tap with your fingers or stylus.
Figure 25: Shortcuts in the Programs Folder are easier to see and touch on the gSmart's tiny display.
Figure 26: Gigabyte's built-in GPRS Wizard will be useful to a select number of countries, and will likely be customized by other carriers.
Figure 27: The Java applet adds the ability to run thousands of MIDlets available online.
Figure 28: This extra tab in the Power applet can toggle some very useful settings.
Figure 29: You'll never want to shut this gSmart down; but if you do, go out in style!
While the Notes application native to Windows Mobile can record relatively short files, Gigabyte's built-in Voice Recorder can record up to two hours at a time.
Figure 30: The Voice Recorder is a simple yet effective application.
Figure 31: Monitor your recording time with ease, and just tap Stop Recording when you're done.
Except for the inability to set an SMS email address in the ActiveSync applet on the gSmart, there's nothing to get a screenshot for the long-awaited "push e-mail" feature implemented in AKU2 on this device. The gSmart would keep a GPRS connection open and poll to my hosted Exchange account on 4Smartphone.net, which uses Exchange 2003 SP2 and is active for the new Direct Push technology. Needless to say, the feature works great, and my only regret that the gSmart does not at least have EDGE for the US (and other countries') carriers, or UMTS/HSDPA. Unless you're near a Wi-Fi hotspot, you'll be chugging along at GPRS speeds.
