Short review of GIGABYTE g-Smart i128 communicator
Standard kit:
- Communicator
- USB data cable
- Extra stylus
- Charger
- Charger for the extra battery
- Extra high-capacity battery
- Wrist lace
- Corded headset
- Headphones adapter, 3.5 mm
- Antenna adapter
- External antenna (information pending)
- Carrying case
- CD with the software
- User Guide
GIGABYTE Communications is making first steps on the
market of Windows Mobile-based communicators. Despite being a newcomer
to the market and lacking experience, the manufacturer already has great
products and announcements – the first and the only communicator with
the analog TV-receiver, the first VGA-communicator. The cooperation with
operators pays off for GIGABYTE as well - O2 XDA Stealth is GIGABYTE
g-Smart packing its filling into the operator’s custom casing (revamped,
different materials used, set of additional operator’s applications).
GIGABYTE has chosen the way its competitors picked
earlier - to release updated models with minor differences in specs
compared to the original proposals. The manufacturer devotes little
resources to the development – it improves one or two features (usually
larger memory size and new wireless adapter version), adds new index and
packs it with a new standard kit. Thus the company does almost nothing
and gets a “new” model. On top of that it doesn’t have to alter the box –
only apply new sticker.
As you see, GIGABYTE g-Smart is a slightly upgraded
edition of GIGABYTE g-Smart i, which we’ve already reviewed. So here we
will just focus on innovations and the moments skipped in the previous
articles. You can find the rest in the following reviews.
The employees of GIGABYTE Communications, especially
the marketing department, will have to learn the term Guideline. The
document describes the rules to apply the logo and the name to the
devices, any inside or outside documentation, including official sites;
for example, the Guideline for the new HTC logo is a detailed 37-pages
document.
So far we have a feeling that the company is playing
the game “who will write gSmart in many possible ways”. Initially the
name was written in joint way “gSmart” (the logo with the uppercase
green “G” implies the joint spelling, other letters are lowercase). Now
we often meet the spelling “g-Smart” in press releases and news blocks.
The official site offers (to choose?) up to five spelling variants:
GSMart, Gsmart, g-Smart, g-smart, gSmart. We can see this variety in
press releases, in product descriptions, so we can’t refer it to a
careless mistake of the Web-designer. The professional designer engaged
in corporate style design might have a heart attack at seeing this.
There is another interesting story dealing with the spelling of the
trademark GIGABYTE, I’d say that the official name of the company is
GIGA-BYTE Communications.
No doubt that the mess with the spelling doesn’t affect
the quality of the product, this is just the sign that the company is
young and inexperienced. A big manufacturer with strong position on the
market won’t let it happen.
The communicator has a rich sales package, as far as I
can remember, this is the first such communicator. See the list opening
this review (it doesn’t specify a storage card, it depends on the
region, this is a 256 MB miniSD card by default). Besides the set of
additional programs is also rich. Let’s speak about standard accessories
from the kit, which we haven’t mentioned before.
With the headphones adapter you can plug your 3.5-mm
headphones. This is the major plus, however there are two minuses.
Firstly, the sound in the headphones is very quiet, even if you are in
absolute silence and switched the sound volume to the maximum. I don’t
speak about listening to the music in the underground or walking by a
noisy street. Secondly, there is no integrated microphone in the
adapter, so you’ll have to remove the headphones to talk.
While unpacking the antenna adapter (indoor or outdoor
aerial), I had an instant moment of dreaming. My imagination drew plenty
of channels, high definition of the picture and so on. The first search
with the outdoor antenna resulted in my first disappointment – the
device found just one channel “Sport”. I watched for a while a football
match and changed some settings (I chose the widest band instead of the
settings for Russia) and found 8 channels. By the way the picture
definition was far from being crystal, and the ordinary TV set found
more channels. Alas, I expected the miracle with the outdoor aerial, but
it hasn’t come true.
The extended battery ensures up to 3.5 days of work on a
low load (20 minutes of calls, about 10 text messages, one hour of
other functions use). If you use the device actively, it will be good
for 1.5-2 days. This is quite typical result for a Windows Mobile
communicator.
The key hardware improvement concerns larger ROM size.
Now the device carries 128 MB ROM onboard, that’s why it got the index
i128. Now the user can make use of 117.29 MB to store data. Let’s
examine the current prices for miniSD flash memory and estimate this
update. The wholesale price (FOB, Taiwan) for a 128 MB miniSD card with
the adapter in the kit makes up $5.6, i.e. extra 64 MB cost less than
$2.8 – a half percent of the retail price for the communicator. Is it
worth going for that, taking into account that the prices for miniSD
cards are very low? I’d answer yes. If we have a look at Spb Benchmark
results, we’ll see that the file system speed running on a new chip is
2.53 times higher, and on the face of it the device works much faster.
We tested a commercial edition of the communicator, so
we applied strict requirements to its performance. Regrettable, we can’t
say the device works flawlessly all the time. Without additional
programs I’d had to make a soft reset once a day, several times the
network signal was lost. Let’s hope the state of affairs is getting
improved with the upcoming firmwares. The localization is provided by
Microsoft with all the ensuing consequences.
All in all the i128 brings to the table a minor update
of GIGABYTE g-Smart i and larger memory bank. We can’t say that the
first attempt failed. The device stands out owing to its design, good
functionality, TV- and FM-receivers, and awesome sales package. As for
the flaws, they are the small display, unstable operation, quiet sound
in the headphones and missing EDGE.
Related links:
Description:
- Class: television Windows Mobile-communicator;
- Form-factor: candy bar;
- Rivals: HTC Prophet, O2 XDA Atom, E-Ten M600+;
- Material used: plastic;
- Position in the line-up: above GIGABYTE g-Smart i;
- Operating system: Windows Mobile 5.0 for Pocket PC;
- CPU: Intel XScale PXA272 416 MHz;
- RAM: 50.32 MB;
- ROM: 117.29 MB;
- Connectivity: miniSD (SDIO), Bluetooth 1.2, Wi-Fi (IEEE802.11b/g), USB for charging/ synchronization;
- FM-receiver;
- TV-receiver: NTSC/PAL or SECAM;
- GSM 900/1800/1900, GPRS;
- LCD: 2.4” 240x320 pixels, 65K colors, 5 backlight levels;
- Camera: 2.1 Mpox with flash, macro mode, video capture;
- Battery: removable Li-Ion, 920 mAh (extended battery 1300 mAh in the kit);
- Dimensions: 106.6x53.2x19.8 mm;
- Weight: 136 g.
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