Asus P750 Windows Mobile smartphone
If a workhorse wore a suit, it would look like this
Review Function over form is the name of the game with Asus' P750. No clever styling, no flash graphic user interface, just robust design, a reasonable specification and decent value for money.
The P750 is a bit of a chunky monkey. It weighs 130g and measures 113 x 58 x 17.4mm, but it feels very robust and solid, and we reckon it could take quite a kicking before anything fell off or apart.
Asus' P750: clear screen, even in bright sunlight
The specification is solid enough too: a three-megapixel camera, GPS, Wi-Fi, A2DP Bluetooth, 3.6Mb/s HSDPA 3G, tri-band GSM/GPRS/Edge, a front-facing VGA camera for video calls and a Micro SD card slot. On-board storage is a somewhat stingy 65MB.
Though Asus' spec sheet lists the P750's Micro SD slot as being SDHC compatible ours flat refused to read data off two 4GB cards. A 512MB card we tried worked just fine, though. As both 4GB cards worked in other Micro SDHC-capable devices, it must be an issue with the handset.
The P750's 2.6in, 240 x 320, 65,000-colour touchscreen is nothing out of the ordinary, but it is bright and clear enough to prove usable in even direct sunlight - helpful if you're going to use it as a satnav rig with the generously supplied in-car charger and screen mount.
COMMENTS
@H
Thanks for that Richard.
We are starting to think that our handset was perhaps non-UK standard or an early model as we didn't get the H signal icon in any of the places we expected it (and where we had it on a K850i and HTC Touch Dual, all three using T-Mobile sims which we swapped about to double check). Also the user guide to all the icons that can appear on the screen also made no reference to the H icon. This may explain our MicroSDHC issues too.
Looks boring, sounds interesting
Finally, someone manages to combine 3G, WiFi, touchscreen, a solid keypad and the ability to take SD Micro (albeit not necessarily SDHC) into one device. Wonder how much weight dropping the mediocre camera would have saved, though...
I get the 'H' all the time
Wrong on no 'H' icon. You're not getting HSDPA. This is a problem with providers. I had to fight with T-Mobile techs to get them to 'activate' my 'enabled' HSDPA. This was after fighting with the Customer Service agents who swore I had to pay another £10 pm to get it.
If you're on T-Mo, you show 3G until an actual data transfer starts with GPRS. Then if the signal has 3 bars, it will switch to H.
I get the 'H' on P750 with T-Mo at my desk on the 9th floor at Canary Wharf, and speeds from 900K to 1.3M bps.
Richard
Dull
Is it possible to build a more dull looking phone ? One look at the pics and I had trouble staying awa..........
Contract
@Finally - Expansys are offering the P750 free with certain air time contracts on T-Mobile.
http://www.expansys.com/p.aspx?i=165463
