August 28th, 2007
Is the HTC Advantage really the most powerful mobile office?
Usage scenario - mobile phone: As I stated earlier, HTC really doesn’t even advertise the phone functionality of the HTC Advantage and it really is not designed to be held up to your head. However, if you are like me and primarily want data connectivity with occasional phone calls then I found the HTC Advantage to be a perfectly good phone. You can use smart dialing to dial contacts directly from the Today screen. The stereo speakers make the speakerphone functionality quite good and I personally prefer to use the speakerphone in most cases so I can work with my hands at the same time. It connects easily to Bluetooth headsets and I found the signal strength to be quite strong so all of my connections have been clear. It does not have a vibrate mode so this may be a concern if you have to leave the device off and don’t see the display when a call comes in. My wife also said I sounded like I was on a land line when talking on the device with a Bluetooth headset. I was able to stuff it into my jeans pockets, but it isn’t designed as a super portable mobile phone so don’t buy it if that is what you are looking for.
Usage scenario - GPS navigation system: I find the high resolution display, loud stereo speakers, and touch screen to be a perfect combo for a navigation system. And then you throw in a powerful GPS receiver and high speed wireless data connection and you have a very nice and compact navigation system. TeleNav does not allow you to preload maps so you will want to find another solution there (maybe the free Smart2Go maps) if you will be traveling in an area without a connection. I set the Advantage in laptop mode on the keyboard and rest it on my center console while driving. I would like to find a better mount and think it would be nice if HTC made something available for better in-car navigation.
Usage scenario - multimedia machine: The HTC Advantage plays media fluidly and supports SlingPlayer Mobile. I also was able to load it up with music from my Yahoo! Music subscription service so it works well for music on the go. With the magnetic keyboard it sits at a perfect angle for watching video on an airplane trip and the battery will last you much longer than a laptop.
Usage scenario - practical battery testing: On one Saturday, I took the HTC Advantage off the charge with a 100% charge at 8:00 am. Throughout the day I had Direct Push enabled and only received about 35 emails, 5 calls totaling 17 minutes, watched Slingbox for 25 minutes (via HSDPA), surfed the web with Opera for about 1.5 hours, took about 10 photos, and kept the display at 30% brightness. At 10:00 pm I went to bed and the battery indicator showed 30% battery remaining.
To simulate taking an airplane trip and wanting to use the device to watch movies, I set the display to 30% brightness, set the backlight not to go off, put a video (Dune recorded legally using the Neuros OSD device) on repeat mode playing off of the 8GB microdrive in full screen mode. Flight mode was activated so there were no wireless radios functioning at the time. After 2 hours the battery was between 60 to 70% full. After 3 hours the indicator showed 50% capacity remaining. The device then gave me low battery warnings after 4 and a half hours and then finally ended up shutting down just after 5 hours. This is just about enough to get me more than 2 movies on a cross country trip, which is much more than I can say for UMPC and laptops I have tried in the past.
On a typical work day, I get about 50 to 75 emails (Gmail does a great job filtering my spam), surf on the device for at least an hour during my daily 2.5 hour commute, receive and place about 5-8 calls, and listen to an hour or two of podcasts and music. I find the device will go all day and at the end of my day, typically around 7 pm or so it shows 20-30% remaining. This is more than acceptable to me as I just need my device to get me through a full day without having to worry about being able to be charged. An additional great thing is that the Advantage can be charged via miniUSB to USB and even works with the Proporta USB portable power pack.
There is no extended battery option and I don’t think you’ll really need one with the excellent battery life the included 2200 mAh battery gives you. You can always carry a spare and maybe 3rd parties will come out with something with slightly more capacity in the future.
Advanced functionality for die-hard mobile users: I also had the chance to try out some functions that only a few people may care about so I put them in this particular section. I setup custom Windows Media Player playlists and was able to stream my XM Satellite radio channels via the wireless connections. Radio played flawlessly and using this allows me to leave another piece of gear behind.
I wrote a bit about connecting the 4-in-1 HTC cable to my HD TV and combined with my Think Outside Bluetooth keyboard this allows me to use the HTC Advantage as a main mobile computer, especially with the storage capacity and wireless connectivity.
Video that I converted into mobile format using freely available tools played back flawlessly on the HTC Advantage, as shown in my YouTube video. The video I converted was almost 1GB in size, but I can usually reduce that down to 500 to 700 MB and still have a good quality video.
I called James Kendrick, also on an HTC Advantage, via Skype and found that we had to turn the volume down most of the way to avoid the echoing effect. After that there was a bit of lagging on Skype too. I then tried the Cardo S-2 Bluetooth headset and had no issues with echoing so use a headset if you want to use Skype on the Advantage.
Warranty for U.S. buyers: Warranties are handled by HTC America in the U.S. Procedures for the Warranty service may be found by calling 1-866-449-8358 or at the Advantage site. The manufacturer’s warranty length is 12 months from the date of original purchase. HTC does not offer any extended warranties at this time – however, other warranty/service programs may be available through the HTC retail partners at the time of sale. CompUSA usually offers extended warranties so you may want to check with them if you purchase one at CompUSA.
Conclusion: I had no serious interest in purchasing an HTC Advantage after just reading the specs online and a couple of reviews of the earlier models. It wasn’t until I was able to get my hands on one and take it for a serious test drive that I have come to realize how amazingly powerful and functional the device really is for a person who is data-centric like me. Considering I paid over US$850 for my MDA II Phone Edition a couple of years ago, US$850 for a device that packs in every wireless radio available along with GPS and an 8GB drive seems like a bargain to me. The HTC Advantage is the fastest and most powerful Windows Mobile device on the market and I highly recommend you get over to your local CompUSA and give it a try. I hope to have a bit more time to play with this device before I succumb and fork over some cash for my own Advantage so if you have any specific questions on the device that I did not answer in my review, feel free to post them in the TalkBack comments.
Matthew Miller is an avid mobile device enthusiast who works during the day as a professional naval architect in Seattle. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 08/28/07
