(Dopod International Corp Ltd) Windows Mobile smartphone Camera: 1.3-Megapixels Display (internal): 65,536 colours, 240 x 320 pixels Messaging: MMS, SMS, e-mail Connectivity: infrared, Bluetooth, GPRS, EDGE Phone memory: 64MB RAM, 64MB ROM Expansion slot: MiniSD up to 1GB Battery type: 1150mAh Lithium-ion Standby/talk time: 250/5 hours Other features: Windows Media Player 10, Pocket Internet Explorer, Pocket Outlook, MSN Messenger, Java applications Operating System: Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone Edition Weight: 106g Dimensions (w x d x h): 46.2 x 17 x 107.5mm Price: RM1,688 Website: www.dopodasia.com Review unit courtesy of SiS Distribution (M) Sdn Bhd. Dopod Customer Service Hotline (03) 5569- 8878.

IT IS amazing how much you can pack into a smartphone these days and still keep it roughly the same size as a regular phone.

Case in point is the Dopod 577W – it is no bigger than a regular-sized candy bar phone, yet it has the full Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone Edition operating system and, incredibly, a very high-resolution 240 x 320pixel (QVGA) TFT colour screen which measures 2.2in diagonally.

A QVGA screen is essentially the same resolution as most Pocket PCs and on a screen this size, the pixels are nearly invisible to the naked eye.

Compared with most regular phones and smartphones, which usually only come with 176 x 220pixel screens, the 577W blows them all out of the water in the display department.

What’s that you say? You don’t need this kind of resolution on a mobile phone?

Well, buddy I have news for you – with a screen like this, web surfing, viewing pictures and playing games suddenly makes a lot of sense.

And high resolution isn’t the only thing that this phone’s got going for it – it comes with a Texas Instruments 195MHz OMAP processor, 64MB RAM and 64MB ROM (of which you get about 15MBs free for program storage), a MiniSD slot for more storage and, most important of all, it comes with built-in WiFi and Bluetooth.

If that's not enough, there are the applications you usually find in a Pocket PC, including Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer.

Push my buttons

The 577W has a design reminiscent of a current Nokia phone. This smartphone even has a 1.3-megapixel camera on the back and all the usual complement of buttons.

At the risk of repeating myself, the screen is absolutely gorgeous – the contrast and colour are very good, and the backlight is really bright.

The main thing I don’t like about this phone was that the buttons that just don’t feel good when pressed.

The joystick is also a little dodgy – literally – I generally dislike joysticks because you tend to press the joystick inwards when you’re actually intending to push it upwards to scroll.

I’m not sure if it’s the review unit, but the joystick did fail for a few hours one day, although it mysteriously recovered later.

There is also a MiniSD slot built in to the phone which allows you to put in up to 1GB storage cards for added space.

In fact, you should consider getting a card together with your purchase as you’ll quickly realise that the phone’s 15MB of user-accessible memory isn’t nearly enough for this smartphone, since you’re probably going to store a few applications and some songs on it.

The 577W’s MiniSD slot, however, is located under the battery, which means you have to turn your phone off and remove the battery before you can swap cards.

The phone has a default Home screen which shows you lots of information such as your appointments and e-mail messages and which can be customised by downloading other themes.

You can access some built-in themes – most notably a Dopod-specific one, which not only changes the Home screen’s look, but also simplifies the whole interface and hides some of the more advanced features from the user.

This is great for the novice who doesn’t want the complicated Microsoft Smartphone interface.

The cool thing about this interface is that it changes your usual program icons into nice 3D animated icons and even has a background wallpaper which changes according to the time of day – for example, you get a nice daylight beach scene at midday, and a sunset wallpaper towards the evening.

Conclusion

I have to say that after a couple of weeks using the 577W, I really did like the phone a lot.

What surprised me the most was that the built-in WiFi turned out to be more useful than I thought, for the simple reason that you’re most likely to have a phone with you at all times than either a WiFi-enabled Pocket PC or a notebook (see sidebar).

My only real concern is the joystick, which failed during the time I tested it – hopefully production units will not suffer from the same problem I had.

Nevertheless, at RM1,688, there’s very little to complain about – after all you’d be hard-pressed to find another phone with this kind of features and this kind of versatility at this price.

Pros: Feature-packed; built-in WiFi coupled with a real web browser is very useful; a

truly pocketable smartphone; many installable applications; very affordable.

Cons: May be a little overwhelming for non-geeks.

Related Stories

•Wireless freedom

• 
• 
•