Asus P735

The Asus P735 is the company's latest PDA-phone featuring 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity. Unlike many of its dedicated handhelds though, this model doesn't come with GPS built-in. With so many PDA-phones in this form factor, what sets this Asus apart from the rest of the pack?Design
A combination of brushed metal, gray and silver make up the colors on the P735. Though primarily housed in plastic, this handheld has a solid feel to it. The brushed metal finish is only on the front, with dark metallic gray around the display and a lighter shade for the buttons below that. Not including the navigation pad and selector, there are six buttons in total. A single panel with four depressible corners contains the two softkeys and two shortcut keys. On both sides of that panel are the green and red Call and Reject buttons. Though neatly arranged, the keys suffer from being too stiff and noisy, every one of them giving audible clicks when they are pressed.

One thing we did like is the Hold switch on the right side of the device. These switches are more commonly found on MP3 players to prevent accidental key presses, and work well as a key lock for the P735.

	The buttons on the P735 felt stiff when pressed.

Found on the bottom of the P735 is a 2.5mm audio jack, a mini-USB jack for charging and syncing as well as a microphone. At the top, are the power button and miniSD slot. The unit's metal stylus fits into a slot on the top right-hand corner. This stylus is the device's main tool of input, so we would have preferred an extendable and heavier one for better feel.

The form factor of the P735 makes it fall into the same class of products as devices like the O2 Atom Life and Dopod D810. Even though the Asus is marginally lighter than those two handhelds, it is pertinent to note that it has fewer features and at 109 x 59 x 19mm is larger in all three dimensions than its two competitors. At S$1,248, the Asus is marginally cheaper than the Dopod, and about S$200 less than the O2.

Features
Because it was announced and released so recently, the P735's lack of HSDPA connectivity is somewhat disappointing. Otherwise, we did not face any problems connecting to the Internet with 3G. Video calls are also a cinch to do using the front VGA camera found above the display. One gripe is with the placement of the speakers at the rear, which isn't optimal for speakerphone use.

Among the P735's other connectivity options are Bluetooth 2.0 (with A2DP support for wireless stereo headsets) and 802.11g wireless LAN. Having Wi-Fi is not just good for surfing the Internet at hotspots, it also means Skype communication is possible. In fact, Asus has provided the software in a CD with the P735, saving the need to download it.The main camera at the rear is a 2-megapixel one with autofocus. The camera software boasts quite a few features including white balance control, metering and macro mode for close-ups. Photos taken with its camera turned out fine with adequately accurate colors and were generally sharp. This required steady hands, though, as the shutter speed is slow by default, even in brightly lit indoor spaces, making some photos blurred due to shaky hands. The photo light may alleviate that problem somewhat, but it does lead to a bright glare in many situations. As a bonus, the photo light can be turned on independent of the camera for use as a torch in dark places. This is achieved by pressing and holding the mode switcher shortcut button at the front.

	Along with its 2-megapixel autofocus camera is an LED light and a preview mirror.

The main purpose of the mode switcher button, though, is to quickly switch between some applications and tasks. Pressing it once will bring up a menu with four icons from which you can access the Today screen, Windows Media player instantly, and also toggle between portrait and landscape display modes conveniently. This is useful to some extent, but we feel a dedicated OK key to get out of menus is more helpful.

Another addon is the My Secrets application. This encrypts a folder in the memory when activated and locks it whenever the device goes into sleep mode. A simple four-digit password holds the key to accessing the encrypted folder, which disappears from view in File Explorer under the My Documents folder. To make it reappear, the password has to be entered after clicking a tiny icon in the Today view.

Also in the P735 is a Remote Presenter application, which uses Bluetooth to control a notebook for presentations. This requires desktop software to be first installed on the computer and, of course, Bluetooth connectivity. Not to be outdone by its competitors, the P735 also comes with WorldCard Mobile, which allows the user to enter contact just by taking a photo of a namecard. Text recognition will then do the rest, making tedious text entry tasks a thing of the past. It isn't 100 percent accurate, but that's something a quick check and minor edits will solve.

Performance
The Intel 520MHz processor in the Asus did well to handle all the applications we tried on it. We noticed very little lag in the menu interface, even with all the Asus addon applications running in the background.

The P735's rated battery life on the 3G network is 4 hours using its 1,300mAh Lithium-ion battery. We managed to make it last for about 2.5 days on a full charge, which included constant connection to the 3G network and intermittent Wi-Fi usage at hotspots.

Though our review comes with Windows Mobile 5.0, Asus has informed us that all units sold will come with Windows Mobile 6 Professional. It will be available in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. In Singapore specifically, it will be available from next week at the PC Show 2007.