Test Drive Report for The ASUS A620

Transcription

1 Test Drive Report for The ASUS A620 The ASUS A620 is a Pocket PC with fantastic performance, and a fantastic price tag to boot! Images Front:

2 1. Application keys 2. 9 direction Navigator 3. Speaker 4. Power and status indicators 5. Power button 6. Audio record button 7. Microphone Rear: 1. CF slot rear panel (removable) 2. Reset Top: 1. Stylus 2. CF slot mm earphone jack 4. Audio record button 5. Power button

3 Bottom: 1. Custom USB connector 2. Power connector Left: 1. IR port 2. Power and status indicator LEDs Design Right: 1. Stylus The A620 looks a lot like its predecessor A600, wearing a silver grey exterior. It measures 3.02 * 4.92 * 0.52 in, and weighs 5.2 oz with stylus. Left: ASUS A620 Right: HP ipaq h1940

4 The 9 way D-Pad navigator and 4 application keys under the screen are all designed in a circular fashion, and placed in what is the standard Pocket PC layout; with the navigation D-Pad in the middle and flanked by two app keys to each side. The D-pad is worth extra mention with its 4 added directions of up left, up right, down right, and down left. All the looks in the world would not help a design if it did not feel good, and this is where the ASUS comes up trumps. Key feel was great, and positioning was nice, which is especially apparent during gameplay. To the right of the controls is the vent for the internal speaker. As the speaker is not entirely hidden away on the inside, the audio is un-muffled and of a pleasing quality. As mentioned above, the left s upper corner is home to the LEDs, with the upper one used primarily as a battery status indicator, and the lower a message indicator. As the standard version does not have built-in Bluetooth, the lower indicator never turned blue. Instead, expect the A620BT to do that instead with its built-in Bluetooth function. On the right side is a simple IR port. At the top pf the unit you will find a 3.5mm standard sized earphone jack, a CF card slot, and stylus storage slot. Turn the unit around to its back to discover the removable rear CF panel. The design is not with its merits as ASUS designers have thought up a masterstroke yet again. Removing the panel will allow for easier access to the CF card, and acts as a moon roof for hotter CF devices (GPRS card, WLAN card) so that they can work coolly, and most importantly, more stably. The bottom sees a return normalcy with the commonly seen custom connector and power jack. You can charge the unit simply via the power jack, but syncing action will require you to remove the power cable, and connect it instead to the cradle. This way you can sync and recharge at the same time.

5 Screen Like most other Pocket PCs, the ASUS equips the A620 with a 3.5 inch, 65K color 240 * 320 transreflective TFT LCD screen that gives it respectable image reproduction qualities. Left to right: ASUS A620;HP ipaq 1940;TOSHIBA e400 A very impressive fact about the ASUS is its brightness adjustment capability, offered in a mind boggling 256 steps; which is far, far more than the 10 step adjustments other handhelds make do with.

6 Hardware Inside the A620 is the Intel PXA MH processor. It may no longer be the best available to Pocket PCs, but its performance can still be considered as adequately powerful. This means that application operations are going to run smoothly, as should video playback, and games that require a good deal of processing. Take a trip into the ASUS Settings option to see the Run Mode selection to help you choose which of the 4 offered operating speeds are right for you. The turbo mode is the default setting from the factory, allowing the processor to run at full chat, but needs the most power out of the battery, so users beware. The Power Saving Mode is the exact opposite, with the processor running at its lowest setting, but is very easy on the power supply. The Standard Mode is, of course, the in-between, making compromises between speed and conservation. The final option is the Automatic Mode, where the processor is adjusted automatically to run at the optimized level.

7 Also provided is 32MB ROM as well as 64MB RAM, of which all 32MB of ROM, and a portion of the RAM is used for the OS. The CF card slot is more than just the special characteristics mentioned above, thanks to its support for Type I and II cards, which not only allow it to use the CF Type I, but also the high capacity Type II, and very importantly, the Microdrive cards, and other CF interfaced accessories (e.g. WLAN, Bluetooth, GPS, GPRS).

8 Software The A620 is preinstalled with Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC, inclusive of Inbox, Tasks, Calendar, Contacts, Notetaker, Pocket Word, Pocket Excel, MSN Messenger, Voice Recorder, Microsoft Transcriber, Microsoft ActiveSync 3.7,Microsoft Pocket Outlook, Terminal Services Client, Microsoft Pocket Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player 9.0 for Pocket PC, which virtually cover all the applications for mobile computing except games. Multimedia Pocket PC manufacturers have never skimped when it comes to multimedia processing capabilities, so the preinstalled Windows Media Player makes full use of the processors ability to support MP3 audio playback as well as WMV video playback. In testing the processor delivered quality MP3 playback without any problems. An added benefit of the A620 s impressive battery capacity is all-day uninterrupted MP3 playback (for more on the batteries see the battery power section). Video playback testing was conducted using 3 files of differing bit rates, but of the same content and length: - 218kbps(Resolution 320 * 240, 15fps) - 512kbps(Resolution 320 * 240, 25fps) - 768kbps(Resolution 640 * 480, 25fps) Of these files, the first two played without a hitch both in window and in full screen modes, but the 768kbps file suffered from varying degrees of frame skipping. Though the Intel PXA MHz processor did not pass the test for the 768kbps file, in reality most users will rarely venture away from 512kbps territory, so the A620 s video performance is adequate.

9 Battery Power Built-into the A620 is a 1300mAH irremovable rechargeable slab some 30% better than counterparts found in Pocket PCs of this class (lower to middle) for superior longevity over the competition during MP3 and video playback. Running the A620 for 30 minutes daily will allow it to work over a period of 12 days, while continuous MP3 playback cuts things back to just 13 hours. But we imagine that is longer than anybody really cares to listen for. The batteries will support 4 hours video playback. For details see the graph below (A620 set at Turbo mode via the ASUS Setting Run Mode option) Benchmark Testing Spb Benchmark 1.0 To benchmark Pocket PCs, we use the Spb Benchmark 1.0 from the Spb Software House. This program can test handheld processor speed, memory speed, display and graphics performance, battery life, and the memory access speed in many different ways. Unlike other benchmarking tools that test simply through algorithms, the Spb Benchmark launches programs such as Pocket Word, Pocket Internet Explorer and File Explorer to test speeds. The Spb Benchmark will also test JPEG picture launches, and audio/video playback performance. All test results are given scores based on the results of the ipaq h3650 whose scores are each set to Overall, the Spb Benchmark will produce more objective scoring than other similar benchmarking tools, so its value is real. Spb Benchmark 1.0 Spb Benchmark index 1631 CPU index 1823 File System index 1197 Graphics index 3830 ActivSync index 2181 Platform index 1278 Overall the ASUS A620 is a Pocket PC that does very well for its users. It does supply the power for both business and multimedia computing with affordable price.