Review by Jonathan Cheah
At A Glance:
Local Distributor: MWG Malaysia / FMG
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Build quality: 8/10
Applications: 9/10
Interface: 7/10
Value-for-money: 7/10
Overall rating: 7.5/10
+ Large screen
+ 2MP camera
- Sluggish response
- Screen not sensitive
- Unwieldy camera controls
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MWG stands for the Mobile and Wireless Group, and they comprise former executives of O2 Asia working out of Singapore. The Atom V is the first MWG product
to be launched in Asia, and the third after the Atom Life and Ubiquio 503g which made certain US and EU markets.
In the box
- Handset Transceiver
- Battery
- Charger
- Headset
- Manuals & CD
- Data cable
The phone
The Atom V is a Windows Mobile device, operating on the Windows Mobile 6 OS and powered by an Intel XScale PXA 270 processor specified at 520 MHz.
The device is rather large and heavy, but it does feel solid in the hand. However, the stylus is rather tiny and I found it really difficult to hunt and peck on a screen
that was not too responsive. Part of this might have been the resolution, but part of it was also the screen not responding to light taps of the stylus.
There is a sliver-coloured strip around the side of the device, and most of the buttons are located here. The headset jack is on the right, while the power button is
on the top of the device. A camera hotkey and a jog dial wheel is on the left side of the device, while a micro-USB port is on the bottom of the device.
Software
There is a slight delay when you push the power button on the top of the device. This is a common quirk unique to O2 devices, and apparently is now carried
forward into the new set of MWG devices.
MWG retains the O2 practice of including many applications in the device, and runs all of these applets and applications on a Windows Mobile 6 platform. The
device comes with 256 MBs of ROM and 64 MBs of RAM, plus the microSD slot on the left side of the device that we mentioned earlier.
That was rather surprising as usually the RAM outweighs the ROM, but growing card capacities may have contributed to this. Either way, we thought it was
unnecessarily thrifty of the manufacturer as storage prices are so cheap these days.
Of course, Microsoft includes the File and Internet Explorers, and the Mobile Office Suite consisting of Mobile Word, Mobile Excel and Mobile Powerpoint which
are lighter versions of their PC-based counterparts. There was a Photo Editor and some Audio-Video software but we couldn’t find a PDF reader on the device.
Connectivity
The Atom V is a quadband device that can work on the 850, 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz frequencies. In addition to that, it also works on the UMTS 2100 MHz
frequency which is otherwise known as 3G.
WLAN support is built in, and the device supports 802.11b and g. Otherwise, you can always fall back on good old GPRS, which is supported up to Class 10 in
this device. On the other hand, why would you want to do that when there is HSDPA support with speeds of up to 3.6Mbps?
There was a curious feature call Bluetooth beam, which we mistook for infrared at first glance because the menu said beam. This is surely the first we’ve heard of
Bluetooth beam as we thought Bluetooth was an area technology.
However, try as we might, we couldn’t find any mention of the infrared function in the menu, and we couldn’t spot an infrared window on the device either.
Camera
The camera is a 2-megapixel one. Starting up the camera was slow. It took about 15 seconds of pressing hard on the camera hotkey on the side of the device to
get the screen to change to viewfinder mode. At one point, I even wondered if I was actually pressing the button down.
The funny thing is that the camera icons do not respond to the controls either on the face of the device or on the side. It turns out that the camera controls only
work via touchscreen. Now this has got to be the dumbest idea that I have ever seen on a camera phone.
First, the touchscreen is neither responsive nor accurate. To pick out a tiny icon on the viewfinder with your fingers borders on downright difficult. What’s that you
say? Use the stylus? Have you ever tried to use a camera while scratching away with a tiny plastic toothpick on the screen? You are liable to lose either the
plastic toothpick or the object of the camera’s focus.
Shooting was a slightly easier affair. The autofocus feature helped immensely, and although the shot required pressing down on the shutter button for a rather long
time, nevertheless the picture came out quite well. Just don’t go looking for any quick or action shots. The device won’t respond in time.
Games
There are two games in the phone. They are Bubble Breaker, which is also known as Jawbreaker in other PDAs. The second game is Solitaire. Both of these are
standard with Windows Mobile devices these days.
Editor’s Opinion
This device comes with an introductory price tag of RM 2368. It is one of the cheaper O2 –oops- MWG devices in recent times.
It is a decent device with many connectivity features. There is WLAN, 3G, HSDPA, GPRS and Quadband voice connectivity. The only problem is making it easy
for the user to input data into the device. I say this because the screen has all these tiny icons coupled with a not very sensitive screen that makes the device
terribly hard to use. Even the onscreen keyboard is tiny and difficult to use fast and accurately.
To buy or not would largely depend on what else is bundled together in the sales package.
Conclusion: Great ideas and features. Not so great presentation.
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