With the recent introduction of VGA screen on PDAs, we finally see the Pocket PC overtake the Palm when it comes to screen resolutions. Toshiba was the first one to release a VGA Pocket PC, however, during the past couple of months we’ve seen most of the major manufacturers such as HP, Dell and ASUS avail their devices as well. One more manufacturer that adds their name to this list is Fujitsu Siemens with the introduction of their Pocket Loox 720.

Packaging

The unit we recieved came in a nice blue box packed with all the things you'd expect. Besides the PDA, we found two styli, a carrying case, the cradle which supports charging an additional battery at the same time and cables- for USB host and connecting to your PC. There was no software included in the box, however, the retail version should have ActiveSync and some other goodies. We do wish that an extra battery or a stereo headset was provided.

Features

The Pocket Loox 720 has a very impressive set of features. Starting off, it supports both CompactFlash and SD type of storage devices giving you plenty of room to grow. If that’s not enough, the device is also capable of playing USB host allowing you to connect almost any USB device directly to it such as Flash drives, keyboards etc.

Connectivity-wise, you have Bluetooth 1.2 as well as Wi-Fi support built on the device. The Loox720 also features a Consumer Infra Red port that not only allows you to transfer files through infrared, but also lets you control devices such as your television and DVD player. Surprisingly, Fujitsu-Siemens doesn’t bundle any application to take advantage of this feature although they include a coupon worth 5 points to download software from their website and an application called VITO Remote Control is available for 2 points- in fact, most of the software is 2 or 3 points.

Hardware-wise, the unit uses Intel’s PXA270 series processor running at 520 MHz. While this is not the fastest available processor, we really did not feel the unit to be sluggish and it handled everything gracefully including playback of Divx encoded movies. The amount of RAM featured on the device is 128MB which is pretty decent while the ROM measures at 64MB

Usability

Starting off, we really love the size of the Pocket Loox 720. Measuring 4.8 x 2.3 inches with a screen size of 3.6 inches, its one of the smallest VGA devices on the market. While some people might find the screen size to be a bit small, especially when using actual VGA mode, we were quite comfortable with it and prefer it over the bigger sized screens which also increases the overall size of the unit. Speaking of screens, the unit we received had a very slight yellowish tint to it, but we must say that we found the screen to be drop-dead gorgeous. Everything appears extremely sharp and crisp- VGA is definitely the way to go if you’re planning on getting a PDA.

The device features four buttons besides the D-Pad on the front which makes navigation easy. The four buttons can be assigned two functions each with a short press and a long press. The left side of the unit features a jog dial and a button which can be used to pop up the navigation menu as well as the camera. We found the FSC menu a nice option as it quickly lets you navigate and select options which can be customized to your liking. One more button on the right side of the unit brings up the notes application for voice recording.

We’ve already mentioned the connectivity options of the Pocket Loox720 and they are pretty much everything you could want. The unit comes with built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 1.2 capabilities allowing you to easily use a hot spot for accessing the internet or your Bluetooth enabled mobile phone where a wireless network is not available. We paired the device with a headset and a PC through Bluetooth as well and found absolutely no problems and were able to use both the wireless options simultaneously.

While most units provide BT and WiFi support, the Pokcet Loox 720 doesn’t stop here and goes an extra mile with their Connect Mobility – E2C application that is also ready to support GPRS connections through the CompactFlash. With its dedicated second speaker, the Pocket Loox 720 is also advertised as a device tailored for VoIP applications such as Skype- which works very well. The unit also has a standard 3.5mm jack on top to connect headphones or headsets.

USB host capabilities of the Pocket Loox 720 are also something worth talking about as it lets you attach a USB device easily. We tested this feature with a couple USB drives and it worked perfectly. The drives appear as “Hard Drives” in File Explorer and you can easily cut and paste files to and from it. As we mentioned earlier, we would’ve preferred for the USB port to be on the device instead of connecting it through a cable.

Lastly, the Pocket Loox 720 features a 1.3 Mega Pixel camera with flash that takes decent pictures. Don’t expect it to replace your digital camera but the 720 allows you to take quick and casual pictures of decent quality. It works well in low light conditions and the flash, when used from an appropriate distance, does an ok job. Here are some shots taken from the camera:

Battery Life

We tested the Pocket Loox 720’s 1640-mAh Lithium Ion battery that took about 2h:20 to charge under a variety of scenarios using the SPB benchmark. Under standard usage and maximum back light the unit lasted for 3h:12m while changing the backlight to a medium level which we feel is highly usable, gave us 4h:03m. Turning on Bluetooth and Wi-Fi reduced about 40 minutes from the battery life and lastly, playing a video on the unit with full brightness drained the battery in under 4 hours.

Performance

Again, using SPB benchmark, we came up with the following numbers

Large File Copy	649.70
Namy Files Copy	1200.00
GAPI (Games Graphics)	8.36
Pocket Word	8049
Pocket Internet Explorer	3586.3
CPU Speed (Mflops)	3760.1
Compression (Zip)	3563.6

This is our first PDA review and thus we cannot really comment or compare these benchmarks with other devices, however, from reading other reviews that measure performances, we believe that the scores posted above are reasonablly fast.

Conclusion

The unit provided to us by Fujitsu-Siemens was a pre-production one and we think that an actual retail sample might work a bit better. Even then, we are extremely impressed by the Locket Loox 720. It’s smaller than most of the PDAs in its class with a gorgeous screen and multiple options for connectivity and storage. The unit should be available towards the middle of December for approximately 2200 Dirhams (US$ 600)- definitely a bit pricey but well worth the money in our opinion.