After spending a day with my brand new Vox I thought that I’d share some of my thoughts regarding this device. In the past I have always been a Pocket PC/PDA kinda guy but when I saw the HTC S710 (aka the HTC Vox) I decided to splurge on a Smartphone device. Of course these names are now defunct and what I have is actually a Windows Mobile 6 Standard device. Although I have only just started on my journey into Smartphone land I still think that I’m going to need a lot of convincing that it is the way to go. However, if you are already a Smartphone user then the Vox maybe your perfect device! Anyhow enough talking, lets get into some images….
Thanks Expansys – looks like the packaging has remained intact!
HTC have gone the black look and I tell you now it looks sexy. None of the i-mate white box (typical of geek gear) this packaging is very slick indeed. Actually this reminds me of Hugo’s OQO O2 unboxing where the packaging was awesome.
Inside the box is nicely presented with a funky looking manual and a “Read Me First” shortcut guide to getting started with your device. Being a good developer I decided that I should read that last and just get on with powering up the device 😉
Underneath the manuals are all the bits you would expect – device, usb cable, power adapter, headphones (oh, and yes it is a usb headphone/mic cable)
The device itself is very slick. In this image you can see the external MicroSD slot (with a rubber cover) on the left and the camera button on the right.
On the other side of the device you find the volume and voice note buttons.
Sliding out the base of the unit reveals the keyboard which isn’t as nice IMHO as the K-Jam keyboard I’m used to. There are some nice aspects, like the Cap and Fn lights (top left of the keyboard) and the left/right menu buttons (top of keyboard). Unfortunately the whole keyboard isn’t quite centred – if you look up from the space bar you will see that the H and U keys are immediately above it instead of the space being in the middle of the G-H and Y-U keys. Whilst doesn’t seem a big thing, when you start typing an SMS it can be really off putting and takes a while to get used to.
Getting started with this device absolutely rocks! After putting the battery into the rear of the device you don’t have to open it up for anything else. The SIM card fits into an external slot – which there is a fixed cover to ensure it isn’t dislodged.
As seen earlier the MicroSD card also goes in an external slot.
Check out the camera – 2.0 Mega Pixels and despite no flash it seems to take really good photos even in low light.
The USB socket in the based of the device replaces the headphone/mic jack on earlier devices. This should result in better sound quality through the headset.
From the top of the device we can see the camera button on the left and the power button on the right.
The keypad on the front of the device is very slick – I really like the position of the home and back buttons. This combined with the phone buttons being on the lower left and right makes for a really usable device for t9 texting etc.
Hey, I had to go the 2Gb SanDisk MicroSD card so I could fit all that music on my device and not have to worry about lugging my iPod around.
Pocket Controller already has a skin for this device! The HTC homescreen layout is very slick, reducing the application icons allowing plenty of room for task and appointment notifications.
The camera viewer is just cool – full screen with only minimal clutter to show you the zoom (top left), brightness (middle of the button) and other settings.
If you need to adjust settings it appears as an overlay of what you are currently viewing – very slick.
The device also comes with Audio Manager so you can organise all that music.
Of course viewing the [Intilecta] website rocks using Deepfish on this device.
My favourite application of the moment, Skype, seems to run quite well on this device. Particularly since this is one of the few smartphones that has wireless. Although there isn’t a specific HTC S710 link on the Skype page you can download the application for the WM5 smartphone instead.
Skype also integrates into the home screen (although it got rid of the HTC home screen which I wasn’t so happy about) showing your connectivity status.
Alternatively you can customise Windows Live (ie Live Messenger for Windows Mobile 6) to take up real estate on your home screen. This is particularly useful if you do a bit of searching and want to stay logged into Messenger on your device. The left and right arrows allow you to easily cycle through Windows Live functionality.