A few years ago you would have struggled to find yourself a good PocketPC phone. These days the market is littered with devices from the likes of HTC, Eten, Palm etc. The only problem with this is complacency. Manufacturers are content to release devices that are, at best, average. There are very few devices out there that make you think “you know what, that thing is awesome”. However, as with all things in life, there’s always someone waiting to cash in…

Enter Gigabyte, a world renowned manufacturer of desktop PC components, who recently decided to take a stab at the communications game. Their initial foray into the mobile market has generated some interesting devices. The most notable of which being the g-Smart, a PocketPC phone packed with features in a pleasing form.

Today we’ll be taking a look at the retail version of the g-Smart with its final firmware. As usual there’ll be some interactivity and I’ll even be including a video! Remember, you need Quicktime for the interactivity and Flash for the video.

The g-Smart sports an impressive array of hardware for such a compact device. TV tuner, 416Mhz Intel CPU, 802.11b Wi-Fi, 2.1MP Camera and a 2.4” Touch Screen can all be found in the g-Smart making it quite a contender in the current Windows Mobile market

As mentioned, the g-Smart runs on 416Mhz CPU as opposed to the incredibly poor 200Mhz CPU that a lot of the newer HTC devices use. The result of this is a device which is quick and responsive, even after you’ve filled it up with all your favourite apps.

The g-Smart comes with 64MB RAM and 64MB ROM. It’s a bit of a shame it doesn’t have more but it doesn’t seem to hamper performance in any way. The g-Smart also has a miniSD slot for adding more storage to the device.

Surprisingly for such a small device, the g-Smart includes Wi-Fi. However, this is not the 802.11g (54Mbps) Wi-Fi found in newer HTC devices. Instead the g-Smart uses the slower 802.11b (11Mbps) standard. I personally don’t think this is a bad thing. For average things like web browsing there is absolutely no difference. The only time you would notice a difference is if you were downloading very large files to your device, which I doubt very many of you do. You would, however, encounter a problem when trying to access 802.11g-only access points.

The g-Smart comes with a dual-mode (NTSC and PAL) TV tuner and a radio tuner. Don’t think for a moment that this will be like having one of those pocket TVs though. With either the telescopic antenna or the headset, I have never been able to get a good signal. I’ve tried in the house, in the car (no, I wasn’t driving at the time), in the street, in Uni, in restaurants (yes, very anti-social I know but I was bored) and pretty much everywhere I’ve been since they sent me the phone and I’ve only been able to pick up a signal a few times. I didn’t manage to hang onto it for long either and most of the time I had to hold above my head. In fact, the only time I got a watchable signal was when I took the end off my house aerial and touched it to the antenna. Then it was great but obviously, this is not practical. The radio tuner was, however, a lot better.

The g-Smart is one of the first PocketPC phones that features and 2.1 mega pixel camera. It has a flash and even has a macro (close-up) feature. Unfortunately it would seem that all manufacturers these days are getting their cameras out of the same parts bin. Just like the majority of HTC devices, the camera on the g-Smart is very poor in low light conditions, even with the flash. This won’t matter to everyone (it doesn’t to me) but there will be some of you out there wanting to use this thing for taking pictures…don’t bother.

Size isn’t everything guys and gals, it’s what you do with it that counts. This small device may have a small screen but it’s still usable and compared to the majority of Samrtphones out there, it’s massive! The only time you may find it a bit on the small side is when using the on-screen keyboard.

As with all good devices, the g-Smart has a mini-USB connector for charging and syncing. However, the headphone socket is proprietary. This, I assume, is due to the TV aerial. It isn’t really a big deal though as the g-Smart comes with not only a headset but also a headset adaptor which allows you to plug in your own 3.5mm headphones! All connectors and slots are also covered, which is nice.

Any decent WM5 PPC device has the OK/Flag(Start Menu) and the g-Smart is no exception. It also has a joystick as opposed to the normal d-pad style which makes it look even more like a Smartphone than a PPC. Oh and if you get one of these, you might like to know the voice command button is part of the volume jog wheel (not a proper jog wheel, just up and down). You have to press it in to open voice command and it can be a bit fiddly but it’s nice to have one thing doing three things! The g-Smart is also one of the only PPC devices to have a sliding keypad which again makes it look even more of a Smartphone. I’m a bit puzzled about the stylus though. It’s the same extendable type a few devices seem to be using these days but in the first g-Smart I had (pre-production model), the stylus came out relatively easily. With the new retail one, you really have to put the effort in as it is quite stiff.

Build quality on the g-Smart is great. Gone is the flaky paint from the pre-production model and the whole device just feels nice and solid. No creaking, cheap feeling plastic here. However, the slide action of this retail device is a lot looser than it was on the pre-production device. My device isn’t exactly brand new though as they did have to take it apart to put in the dual mode TV chip. Maybe that is the cause?

Bar the fairly poor TV tuner, the g-Smart has some great hardware.

As you’d expect from any new WM device, the g-Smart runs Windows Mobile 5.0 as its operating system. More importantly though is that, as standard, the g-Smart has Microsoft’s AKU2. Not only does this mean it is push email compatible but, unlike HTC devices (at the moment), it is also capable of stereo Bluetooth (A2DP). Another nice little feature that Gigabyte requested from Microsoft is the inclusion of a battery meter in the top bar. This, however, is not the awful Microsoft batter meter you get in pretty much every other PPC though. No, this is a custom battery meter which actually shows the percentage of battery left. Albeit in increments of 5%. Due to this, Gigabyte had the percentage removed from the Settings > Power menu which is a tad annoying but not overly so.

Apart from that, it’s all pretty much standard WM5. Although there are some nice little touches such as prompting you to reboot when you change certain things to make sure they get changed properly. HTC devices don’t do that as much as they should. It also stops you running high-drain applications, such as the radio and TV software, when the battery gets too low.

This is another area where the g-Smart really shines. Gigabyte have included some great software with the device.

The radio software allows you to add favourites, record shows, save them to miniSD and listen to the radio through the main speaker! It even keeps a little, movable icon so you can do other things, keep the radio running in the background and turn it off if necessary.

On the face of things, the g-Smart TV software is quite good. You can enter a channel number manually or choose an “available channel”, adjust colour, brightness, contrast and again output the sound through the system speakers. It even has a handy little help menu telling you what all the icons mean. However, it takes forever to perform a channel scan and very rarely will you get anything to watch. Unfortunately I couldn't take a picture of the TV interface as when I tried, all I got was a black screen. You'll see what I mean in the video.

There’s always one person you know who can sometimes be, well, a bit much. They’re great in small doses but after a while enough is enough. That’s where Gigabyte’s call blocker comes in very handy. Not in the mood to speak to a particular person today? Block them! The process of blocking someone is very easy: you can select a number from your contacts list, call history, SIM card contact list or enter a number manually. As you can see, the application has been well thought out. Once you’ve added someone to the list, if they try and call you, after a couple of rings they are “rejected” which usually means they’ll be sent to your voicemail. The only gripe I have with this app is that it isn’t part of the settings menu like the rest of the “handset applications” are.

Another of Gigabyte’s great apps is an answering machine, a great way to cut the costs of calling voicemail and a great way to keep a “hard” copy of any important voice messages. Once enabled, you can choose for it to cut in after 10, 15 or 20 seconds and also choose from a pre-recorded male/female message or record your own. After a message has been left you get a notification on the device informing you. When you click to hear it you are taken to the file explorer which then shows you a list of all the messages that can then be listened to in Windows Media Player.

Recording a phone call can be quite handy, providing you first inform the other party they are being recorded. However, it’s not the simplest of tasks to accomplish on the g-Smart. First you have to enable the option in the settings menu and then you have to hold the jog-dial/wheel in to open the recording app. Unfortunately recording isn’t automatic and you can’t press a hardware button to start recording, you have to get the stylus out and touch the screen. Not something you want to be fiddling with while you’re on a call.

A long press on the windows/flag button brings up a quick menu which allows you to select a profile (a lá Smartphone), close the current program, close all programs, rotate the screen, turn off the backlight (holding the power button actually turns the device off, not just the backlight!) and adjust the backlight.

Years ago, when Smartphones first came out, a lot of people, including myself, wanted startup/shutdown animations. Unfortunately all we could do was hack the reg and change the startup image. PPCs are pretty much the same but Gigabyte have added an application to show an animated .gif while the device is shutting down. “Shutting down?” I hear you ask? Yes! The g-Smart is one of the few PPC devices that you can actually turn off completely by, as mentioned earlier, holding down the power button! I for one love anything that helps you make a device your own and shutdown animations do just that. You can even choose a shutdown sound! No vibration option though.

You’d expect that having a shutdown animation would mean that you also have a startup animation…well it doesn’t. Gigabyte are of the opinion that people don’t want anything adding to the time it takes to boot the device but if it’s replacing the normal images then what’s the problem? I asked them if it wouldn’t be a better idea to include the option and let the user decide whether they want it or not. They seemed willing to add it but later decided not to (more on that a bit later).

For those moments when you want to pretend you’re not really where you say you are… background effects to the rescue! Using the background effects is simple: enable them from the settings menu, choose you effect and make a call! From the moment your call is connected, your chosen background effect kicks in helping you appear to be “elsewhere”. You can choose from airport, car, concert, meeting, movie, MRT (hospital?), office, school, train station or street and even adjust the volume of the effect. Could this phone get anymore “James Bond”?

The g-Smart is one of the very few devices that has the ability to switch between Activesync and USB Mass Storage built it! Unfortunately this function is limited to show the contents of the miniSD but seeing as this is where you will be transferring large files to, it’s not much of a problem.

Now I assume this function allows you to charge the device more quickly than normal when plugged in to your laptop/PC but it doesn’t appear to.

The 3DMMI is Gigabyte’s flashy 3D animated menu with links to some of the more frequently used apps. It’s difficult to explain how cool it looks and static images just don’t do it justice so I’ve knocked up a little video (see below) ;)

Gigabyte have done a great job adding some very useful software. My only complaint is how easy it is to use. I’d have like to have seen all of their “handset applications” included in the quick menu to make it easier to get to them. I even requested that Gigabyte do this and again, at first they seemed willing but have since informed me that after the last update (which fixed a few bugs I found), they will no longer be making ROMs for the g-Smart or g-Smart i and instead will be concentrating on their third device which, as yet, we know little about.

This is VERY disappointing as not only had they promised to add a few features that I suggested but, more importantly, they promised to add some kind of predictive text for the keypad. Yes, that’s right, no T9! No Phonepad either, that seems to be a HTC only SIP (soft input panel) as it also isn't on the Eten G500.

I love this phone so much but there are two problems that make it less than perfect; the lack of predictive text and the loose slide action. Without predictive text the keypad is absolutely awful to use, so much so that it becomes unusable. Don’t think I mean it’s like going back to the pre-T9 days either, that I could handle! There are no options to shorten the multi-press timeout (trying to get the same letter twice takes about 3/4 seconds!!) and, in general, the text entry is slow and unresponsive. So why not just use the on-screen keyboard? Well, the device’s biggest plus point, it’s small size, is also it’s biggest downside when it comes to text entry on the move. Tapping out a text message on the move is pretty much impossible and typing one on the keypad is so frustrating that you just won’t bother. What’s the point of having a keypad if you can’t use it? Also, because of the lack of predictive text, you can’t just type the first few letters of someone’s name to get to their phone number.

This device is so close to being the most perfect PockePC phone ever. It’s small, light, feature packed and looks pretty damn good too. However the lack of predictive text, the incredibly poor TV tuner and the big question mark hanging over the slide action and whether all retail devices suffer from it being quite loose when closed really takes it out of the running.

To be perfectly honest, I think the slide action may be an isolated problem with my device. I hope that is the case anyway. It was perfectly fine in the pre-production model and certainly didn’t slide open every time I took it out of my pocket, unlike the retail device.

The fact that Gigabyte are unwilling to fix the last few remaining problems with this device is unacceptable. If they only added predictive text I’d happily give this device my seal of approval as it is a very well rounded device. However, they won’t.

I know I’m making a big deal about this but it’s like someone selling you the best car in the world with a wheel missing and a hub that would only let you mount a special wheel that you couldn’t buy.