The world's smallest Smartphone
The latest "hotness" (as someone referred to it) amongst the geeks in the Northwest is the new smartphone from AT&T - the Audiovox 5600. It is also known as the Orange SPV C500 (and others depending on carrier) and originally known as the HTC Typhoon. It is manufactured by Huawei Technologies of China (thus, the HTC moniker), a company featured in a recent Business Week innovation edition.

It is one of those devices that you just want to touch and feel (or fondle). It is tiny (around 2mm longer than the much raved about Ericsson T616) and packs a dual core 200MHz OMAP processor and 64MB of RAM. It is powered by Windows Mobile and has a mini SD slot, mini USB, decent battery life, Bluetooth, 640x480 camera (with video recording), 2.2" screen and good robust phone features.

I got mine a few days back and I can't stop playing with it, fondling it and customizing it. While it is synchronizing my corporate mail, calendar and contacts over the air, I can be logged into MSN Messenger while looking at the current and predicted traffic on 520 while listening to "Jump" by Van Halen through its stereo headphones. It plays Doom and Quake besides Solitaire and Snake and plays Windows Media - DRM'ed music and video and TV shows recorded on a Media Center PC. And did I say, it is a great phone as well.

The coolest use of this phone that I came across was as a talking GPS device that you can use in your car. All you need is software like Mapopolis and the Pharos Bluetooth GPS device to which your phone pairs with. You could leave the GPS device in your glovebox while your phone gives you directions. Drool!

One thing that annoys me is the RF interference it generates with speakers. I was told that this isn't anything to do with this phone but all GPRS devices cause interference with poorly shielded speakers. Oh well, my car speakers make sounds like an alien is trying to contact me. Maybe I need to buy a new car.

Disclaimer: I would have blogged about it anyway (like I did with the SpotWatch and VOIP), but I got the phone for free with the caveat that I promote it, so I had to do it to clear my conscience. ;)

posted by Farookh at 6:38 PM Comment (0)