Editors' Rating
| Design |  |
6.0 |
| Features |  |
8.0 |
| Performance | |
6.0 |
Published: 07 Oct 2008
We've seen plenty of Windows Mobile devices, and at times they all start to blur together — same story, just different packaging. However, a new company called Velocity Mobile has recently caught our eye, impressing us with a fresh approach to the user interface. Recognising that Windows Mobile isn't the easiest operating system to master, the company developed the Odyssey interface (somewhat similar to HTC's TouchFLO), which lets you access your frequently used applications via a shortcuts toolbar and perform actions with various finger swipes. The idea is to create an easy-to-use experience and offer an extra level of personalisation.
Velocity Mobile first smartphone, the Velocity 103, is now available for pre-order from BT, Clove Technology and Expansys. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. The Odyssey interface isn't as intuitive as the company would have you think. Right out of the box, you wouldn't even know the shortcuts toolbar is available, until you read through the manual. Plus, there are some performance issues, and the speakerphone is plain horrible. That's not to say the 103 is a complete dud. It's got a gorgeous VGA display and is packed with features, including over-the-air software updates. However, with other touch-screen smartphones like the HTC Touch Diamond and the Apple iPhone offering a better user experience and better performance, we think the Velocity 103 is going to have a hard time keeping up.
Design
Like the latest touch-screen smartphones, the Velocity 103's design centres around the display and features minimal tactile buttons. The 103 is a fairly attractive device with a sleek, all-black chassis and compact frame (58mm wide by113mm deep 15mm thick, 130g). It is slightly larger and heavier than HTC's Touch Diamond, but has a solid construction and nice soft-touch finish on the back.
The Velocity 103 uses a touch interface, like the HTC Touch Diamond (right).
The star of the show is the Velocity 103's 2.8in. VGA touch-screen. With 18-bit colour depth ( 262,144 colours) and 640-by-480 pixel resolution, the display is a feast for your eyes, as images and text look amazingly sharp and vibrant. You can, of course, customise the Today screen with various background images and themes, adjust the backlight and more. Unfortunately, the Velocity 103 suffers from the same fate of the original HTC Touch, in that it has poor text entry methods. You get a full QWERTY on-screen keyboard, but it's the tiny version that requires you to use the stylus, so this phone definitely isn't the best for messaging fanatics.
Like HTC with its Touch devices, Velocity Mobile takes advantage of the touch-screen and offers a proprietary user interface (UI) to provide simpler and more personal and way to use the smartphone — in theory, anyway. Called Odyssey, it's somewhat similar to HTC's TouchFLO 3D UI in that you can perform certain actions with finger swipes and access numerous applications with a single touch. To start, a quick flick upward from above the Velocity logo a quarter of the way up the display will bring up a single line of applications, which you can scroll left to right and select with a tap. Alternatively, if, like us, you find the response time of the touch screen a bit slow, you can press the toolbar shortcut on the left side of the phone.
The differentiating factor between Odyssey and TouchFlo is that you can swap applications in and out of the toolbar on the Velocity 103. With a longer swipe of your finger (from bottom to top), you can access a full menu of programs. To add a shortcut to the tray, just tap and hold an icon and then you can drag it up to the tray; removing an item works in the same way. We like the fact that you get so much customisation and aren't limited to certain applications, in contrast to the Samsung Omnia.
That said, we had some major complaints about the Odyssey UI. Although it's designed to make the Windows Mobile smartphone easier to use for all types of user, it doesn't quite succeed. Right out of the box, it's not clear that the shortcuts menu is available to you. It's hidden and we only knew about it because we were given a demo beforehand. For a new user, we'd imagine you'd have to read through the user's manual on the software CD to even be aware of its existence. We'd much prefer that the toolbar to be present on-screen all the time.
Below the display, you get Talk and End keys and a trackball navigator (like the BlackBerry Pearl's). You can press the trackball to select an item, but we had some trouble as it was set fairly deep beneath the phone's surface.
Below the display, you'll find Talk and End keys as well as a trackball navigator.
The left spine holds a camera activation key, a volume rocker and the aforementioned toolbar key, while there's a microSD expansion slot on the right. However, to access the latter, you have to take off the back cover, open the protective flap and insert the card. On the bottom of the unit, you have a mini-USB port, a back cover release switch, a 2.5mm headset jack and the stylus. There's a power button/lock on top, while the camera lens is located on the back along with a self-portrait mirror and speaker.
The Velocity 103 comes packaged with an AC adapter with several adapters, a USB cable, a wired headset, a soft protective pouch, a software CD and reference material.
Features
In the features department, the Velocity 103 competes well with other smartphones. It's a quad-band world phone and comes with a speakerphone, speed dial, conference calling and text and multimedia messaging. The address book is only limited by the available memory (the SIM card holds an additional 250 contacts); each entry can hold multiple numbers, work and home addresses, email, birthday and more. For caller ID purposes, you can pair a contact with a photo, a caller group or one of four polyphonic ringtones. Bluetooth 2.1 is onboard with support for mono and stereo headsets, handsfree kits, dial-up networking,and more. You won't need a Bluetooth GPS receiver, either, since the 103 has assisted GPS.
The Velocity 103 is also a 3G handset with HSDPA and HSUPA support, allowing data transfer rates of 7.2Mbps download and 2.2Mbps upload given suitable network coverage. Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) is also integrated, providing an alternative method for surfing the web.
The smartphone runs Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional Edition and comes with the full Microsoft Office Mobile Suite and support for Microsoft's Direct Push Technology for real-time message delivery and automatic synchronisation with your Outlook calendar, tasks and contacts via Exchange Server. The 103 can also be configured to access your POP3 and IMAP email accounts.
The one advantage the Velocity 103 offers over other Windows Mobile devices is over-the-air software updates. You can configure your device to automatically download the updates (whenever available) every time you fire it up, or you can set it so you receive a notification before you download. Either way, there's no need to connect the Velocity 103 to your PC to get updates, which is a nice convenience.
Other PIM tools include a PDF reader, a remote desktop client, a task list, a unit converter, a notepad and a calculator. There's a Task Manager to help optimise CPU and memory usage. The Velocity 103 comes with 128MB of DDR SDRAM and 256MB of NAND Flash storage.
Multimedia features on the Velocity 103 includes Windows Media Player 10 Mobile, which supports a number of music and video formats, including AAC, MP3, WAV, WMA, MPEG-4 and WMV files, to name a few. Plus, if you have TV shows recorded on your Windows Media Center PC, you can transfer them to your device for on-the-go viewing or stream your home's TV programming right to your device with a Slingbox and SlingPlayer Mobile.
On the back, you'll find a 2-megapixel camera and self-portrait mirror.
The Velocity 103 features a 2-megapixel camera with video recording capabilities. Options are a bit more limited than other camera phones we've tested, but you do get a self-timer and flicker adjustment. Still images can be shot in one of three resolutions and one of three quality settings. Unfortunately, there's no flash and also no way to adjust the white balance. You can, however, add various effects. In video mode, you have the option of two video formats and two resolutions.
Photo quality was pretty good, but we wanted a bit more richness in colour.
Performance
We tested the quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900; HSDPA 850/1900) Velocity 103 in San Francisco using AT&T'S service and call quality was decent. We heard a slight background hiss during calls, but overall we enjoyed loud and clear audio quality. We had no problems using an airline's automated voice response system. Our friends reported similar results, but there were a couple of mentions of voice distortion. Unfortunately, the speakerphone was pretty abysmal. We could barely hear our callers, even with the volume at its highest level. It was so bad that we didn't even realise the speakerphone was on when we first activated it. This was in a quiet room, too, so we imagine you wouldn't be able to hear anything in a louder environment. We were able to pair the Velocity 103 with the Logitech Mobile Traveller Bluetooth headset and the Motorola S9 Bluetooth Active Headphones.
The Velocity 103 is powered by a 400MHz Qualcomm MSM7201 processor, and general performance was OK. The smartphone felt slower than the Touch Diamond, as there was some lag when using the touch-screen and various applications. Multimedia performance was also affected by the weak speaker. Song playback was very soft and sounded tinny. We watched a couple of short WMV clips, and video and audio were always synchronised and looked better than on other devices, thanks to the smartphone's VGA display.
The Velocity 103 comes with a 1,410mAh Li-ion battery with a rated talk time of 4 hours and up to 8 days of standby time. We are still conducting our battery drain tests but will update this section as soon as we have final results.
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