As its name suggests, the MWg Zinc II is the follow-up to the O2 Xda Zinc. Unlike the Atom series, this device has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, an essential tool for a group of users who prefer not to peck at onscreen keyboards. With models like the HTC TyTN II and i-mate Ultimate 9502 out there, all with similar features, let's see how this one stacks up.
Design
Decked out in black, the Zinc II is professional-looking. It has a silver strip running around the side, similar to what you see on the O2 Xda Atom Life. The front of the Zinc II consists of mostly the QVGA screen, a directional pad and two buttons. This simplicity gives it a clean look, with the only outstanding feature being the MWg logo below the screen. There are more buttons, but these are found around the sides. A microSD card slot sits on the left side, while the stylus can be found on the bottom right corner. Like many other handhelds these days, there's no dedicated audio jack but a single mini-USB one for both charging, syncing and attaching a wired headset.
At 179g, the Zinc II is pretty heavy. It has dimensions of 109.5 x 59 x 18mm, which isn't huge, but puts it in the thick range. That's expected for something with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and should not bother those who are used to having such a form factor.
The back of the Zinc II has just the battery cover, a 2-megapixel camera lens and speakers. Like parts of the front, the black surface has a soft-touch finish, which feels good in the hands.
The front portion of the Zinc II slides toward the right to expose the QWERTY keyboard. What you see from there is pretty attractive. Each key on the keypad has a blue outline, while the surface of the keys has a brushed metal feel to it. This makes the keyboard look like it belongs in the Tron movie--very retro-futuristic.
Though it looks good, it doesn't work well. The problem here is the layout. While most thumb-operated QWERTY keypads use four rows of keys, this one has just three. This messes up the QWERTY layout completely. For example, the B key is found right below the J key. That never happens in a regular keyboard; it's either the N or the M if you are going to align the keys vertically. The lack of a fourth row means you have to mix in all the extras like the Windows and Fn keys together with the letters, thus creating this Franken-QWERTY layout. What's more, the lack of buttons means commonly used punctuation marks like the full-stop and comma are relegated to being secondary to certain letters, requiring two keypresses to activate. Overall, the QWERTY keyboard on the Zinc II is a disaster. You may be able to get used to it in time, but the question is: Why should you have to? MWg could have done much better in this aspect.
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