HTC Advantage X7501 First Impressions Review - Hardware
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Alfredo Padilla Published on March 28, 2007 Comment on this |
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Probably one of the most distinctive features of the HTC Advantage X7501 is the detachable QWERTY keyboard. When connected to the bottom of the device it creates something of a mini-laptop effect. Unfortunately you won't be able to type on the Advantage's keyboard like you can on a laptop. We found the keyboard to be too small for normal typing and slightly too large for thumb typing. We also found the device difficult to hold in your hands while thumb typing. The keys themselves are hard plastic, slightly raised above the surrounding plastic. The key travel is decent, but there is almost no feedback that confirms the key has been pressed.
We were unable to determine whether the HTC Advantage X7501 supports Auto Complete or T9, and were not able to test the HTC Advantage X7501's backlight.
We did not test the joystick on the HTC Advantage X7501. We did use the directional keys on the keyboard and found them easy enough to use with the same reservations about feedback that we have about all the buttons on the keyboard. The soft buttons on the HTC Advantage X7501 are located on the keyboard in the top line of keys. The soft keys are in a logical location, but we have the same reservations about feedback as we do about all the keys on the keyboard. The volume control on the HTC Advantage X7501 is a slide switch located at the top of the left side of the device. You slide the key up and down and it settles back into its nuetral position automatically.The power key on the HTC Advantage X7501 is located on the right side of the device near the bottom. In addition to the buttons above the HTC Advantage X7501 has several other important shortcut keys. On the right side of the device are dedicated keys for the camera and comm manager (which allows you to control your various wireless radios). To the left of the screen are Windows and OK keys, and on the right is a dedicated Internet Explorer key. There are also some shortcut keys along the top of the keyboard, including a second Internet Explorer shortcut key, another Start key and a second OK key. There is also a dedicated messaging key. There is also a key that has what looks like an indicator for brightness settings, but we were not able to verify this.
The HTC Advantage X7501 has a very large VGA (640 x 480 pixel) resolution display. This is one of the few Windows Mobile devices on the market that sports a VGA display. This gives a pixel density of 84.7 pixels per inch. This is a poor pixel density for a phone and is of course the result of the Advantage having a relatively huge 5" diagonal display. The lower pixel density means that colors will not be as rich as phones that have a higher pixel density. The screen supports supports 65,000 colors. This is standard for Windows Mobile devices and is the highest color depth supported by the operating system. It is nowhere near the 16 million colors that are supported by some other high end devices like the Nokia E90.
The HTC Advantage X7501 has two data ports, both located near the bottom of the left side. The lower one is HTC's ExtUSB port, used for charging, synchronization and also for HTC's proprietary headsets. Above this is a smaller USB port that can be used for both VGA out and can be used as a USB 1.1 host port. In addition to headsets that use HTC's ExtUSB port there is also a 3.5mm jack for standard headphones. The HTC Advantage X7501 also supports the A2DP and AVRCP Bluetooth profiles for use with wireless stereo headphones.
The HTC Advantage X7501 ships with 256MB of flash storage and in addition has an 8GB hard drive for extended storage. This is as much as the larger iPod Mini or the soon to come iPhone. If over 8GB of storage is not enough for you, you can expand the storage via Mini SD card. You put your card into a covered slot on the bottom of the device.
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