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Is the HTC Advantage really the most powerful mobile office?

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I posted my first impressions of the HTC Advantage about 10 days ago and have been using it as my primary device ever since it arrived. I actually wrote 90% of this review on the HTC Advantage with a Think Outside Sierra Bluetooth keyboard. Yes, I have even been using it as my mobile phone, even though the form factor is not optimized for this and HTC really doesn't even advertise its mobile phone functionality. Surprisingly, it actually performed as one of the best quality mobile phones I have ever used, but there are trade-offs that I'll talk about later. The HTC Advantage is the most powerful and full-featured Windows Mobile Professional device on the market and it is the largest Phone Edition I have used before. HTC's retail box states that the HTC Advantage X7501 is "The most powerful mobile office" and after over 2 weeks with the device I tend to agree it is an amazing device in a form factor that meets a great balance of compromises. Do I think it is worth the US$850 retail price (Amazon.com price) and will I be buying one for myself after sending back the evaluation unit?
 Image Gallery: Check out 80 product photos and screenshots of the HTC Advantage.  Image Gallery: HTC Advantage Image Gallery: HTC Advantage keyboard 
Hardware - What are the real specs of this device?: The HTC Advantage was released in Europe and other countries as the Athena or Ameo and had some different specifications (front facing camera for video conferencing, Windows Mobile 5, different included software, etc.) than we see on the HTC Advantage X7501. There was also the X7500 device that was previously released with Windows Mobile 5 and some other differences. I received a few questions from readers about the specs and was asked if I could clear up some of the confusion so I'll list the specs of the device that you should receive here in the U.S. if you purchase it from one of the retailers, currently CompUSA and Amazon.com. Here are the hardware specs that I can confirm are on this model, the HTC Advantage X7501: You'll find the list of included applications a bit later in the review. Hardware - What's in the box?: I covered most of what comes in the retail box in photos I took in my first impressions post, but I'll list what I had in the box here. Hardware - buttons, ports, slots: Starting on the front of the device, since that is the first part you will see when you pull the device out of the box, we can see the navigational control/joystick in the upper left of the display. This is actually a very nice joystick that has a rubber end for better gripping to your finger or thumb. There is an indicator light around the directional controller that lights up orange when charging and green when fully charged. Pressing in on the joystick also activates the OK or selection chosen. Moving down the left side you will find an OK button to confirm entries or minimize/exit the program in use. Below this button is the Start menu button. At the bottom of the left side is a hole for the onboard microphone. Along the top of the 5 inch VGA display you will find the HTC logo on the left and a set of indicator lights along the right top. There are GSM/BT/WiFi/ and Alert indicator lights that show green and blue at different times. Moving down the right side of the front you will find the web browser/VueFLO button that actually has Opera assigned by default. Pressing and holding the button while in a browser toggles the VueFLO functionality. That is everything on the front of the device. There is nothing along the top of the device, so let's move along the bottom and find the miniSD/SIM/battery cover and copper keyboard connector, along with 3 screws that I imagine can be used to open the device. The cover along the bottom secures the miniSD card so you won't have to worry about a large capacity card falling out. It actually took me several minutes to figure out how to get to the SIM slot since you have to slide open the battery latch/prong and remove the battery. Then you have to flip open a white SIM card latch that again securely holds the SIM card in place. The battery is a 2100 mAh model that I have found gets pretty amazing battery life, which is one major reason the Advantage may work better for you over a UMPC. Someone asked if miniSD accessories could be used and due to the large door that slides closed after inserting the battery, SIM, and miniSD card I do not think it is practical or reasonable to add anything but miniSD cards to the slot. Starting at the top of the right side (as you look at the device) we find the stylus silo. They stylus is about 3 inches long, made of black and clear plastic, and is way too light and short to actually use it as the primary stylus for the device, IMHO. You will then find the camera button that can be used to start the camera and capture photos and video. Below this is the right stereo speaker, Communications Manager/Voice Recorder button (default press and hold set to launch Voice Recorder), and then the power button at the bottom. A simple press puts the device into sleep mode and a press and hold actually powers it off completely. At the top of the left side you will find the volume slider, left stereo speaker, proprietary VGA out/USB port, HTC ExtUSB port (for charging/syncing and USB stereo headset), and 3.5 mm earphone jack. The last face of the device is the back and along the top you will find the 3 megapixel camera and flash light (makes a great flash light when walking in the dark). Car antenna and GPS antenna connectors can also be found under small rubber covers below the camera area. Along the center bottom of the back is the soft reset button than can be pressed with the stylus. The device has a matte black finish over most of the body that does a good job of hiding any fingerprints and staying scratch-free with a reasonable level of care. The area around the top and around the camera does have a glossy (PSP-black) type of finish and does show fingerprints quite easily. The device feels rock solid and has nice curves around the main long edges. Hardware - 8GB Microdrive: The 8GB Microdrive is a Seagate model that gives you 7625.13 MB of storage space. I loaded 90% of the 3rd party programs I tested on the microdrive and was surprised that I saw no lag in performance, especially after seeing the lag that Palm has on the 4GB LifeDrive. I watched movies that played flawlessly and synced and stored lots of music and podcasts on the drive. Photos and video taken with the camera can also be stored directly on the microdrive and this is the only time it may take a second or two to write the image to the drive. I played all of my video (when not testing) and audio content off of the hard drive and could not feel or hear any drive spinning. I was also pleased to find there was no detectable heat generated from the drive spinning. Someone asked me about hard drive upgradeability and the official policy is that HTC does not consider the drive replaceable or upgradeable by users and any unauthorized attempt by uses to upgrade the hard drive will result in the devices warranty to be voided. Hardware - VGA display: The 5 inch VGA display is the most prominent feature of the HTC Advantage. It measures 5 inches diagonally and has a resolution of 480 x 640 with support for 65,000 colors. You can easily flip it between landscape and portrait orientation with the default designed orientation being landscape. At first I was impressed by the clarity of the display resolution, but the Windows Mobile operating system really doesn't take advantage of the resolution and all the icons appear quite large. I did select the smallest default font, but I personally still want to see more information on the display. The nice aspect about the larger icons at this resolution is that the device is easy to control with your finger. Thus I looked for utilities that I remember using on the older VGA Toshiba Pocket PCs and gave the MVrTrueVGA utility a try. It did install and appeared to work at first (as you can see in some of the images I took of it on the device), however there were several parts of the device that did not support this utility. I saw most of the issues when trying to change settings. In addition, it looks like the utility is still at Windows Mobile 5 as the splash screen and G wireless icon show (there is no 3G or H) icons that appear when connected. The display is very bright and 80% of the time I have it at 20-30% brightness. I only go to 90-100% brightness when outside. Like most touch screen displays, the Advantage is not very visible in bright sunlight. I did find it acceptable with the brightness all the way up, but in all honesty I rarely use the device in sunlight (especially since I come from a region of the country that is overcast more than sunny). The display is not soft, like the Nokia N800, and works well as a small tablet device with handwriting recognition, note taking, and more capabilities. Hardware - accelerometer and VueFLO technology: VueFLO is a cool new motion sensitive feature that allows you to browse with Internet Explorer or Opera by simply tilting the Advantage forward, back, and side to side. It takes a bit of practice to figure out how much tilting you need to do to scroll around at the proper speed, but it is a convenient way to browse longer web pages. I would like to see the ability to activate the functionality in other applications like an ebook reader or when scrolling through lists. Hardware - QWERTY keyboard: The QWERTY keyboard is the first of its kind and attaches securely to the Advantage through the use of very strong magnets. You can hold the keyboard an inch or so away and it will get "grabbed" by the Advantage and secured. While not particularly designed as a thumb keyboard, the magnet is strong enough to allow you to hold the device in your hands and use it in thumb keyboard mode. I wouldn't advice this if you are moving though since dropping an expensive device may occur. It also acts as a magnetic screen cover when you place it over the Advantage. The clear plastic part of the keyboard lays over the bottom of the front of the display and when placed on the Advantage the Subdisplay appears on the device screen, very similar to Windows Sideshow. The Subdisplay lets you view notifications, music info, time, connection status, and more in an indigo like color. You can change the info that is shown by sliding the volume slider up and down. Unfortunately, there is no keyboard backlight so it is difficult to use in low light situations. Although the display does put off some good light, it is very tough to see the blue alternative keys. I primarily used the keyboard in laptop mode by using my fingers to touch type on it. There is very little feedback on the keys so it does take a bit of practice to get it right. You won't be writing novels with the keyboard, but it does work very well for entering passwords, typing short emails, or creating other shorter documents. I am faster with other thumb keyboards, like the newest HTC Professional device models, but I would rather have this one than not have one at all.

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posted by Matthew Miller
August 28, 2007 @ 5:02 am

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