14 DAY TRIAL // The Taiwanese company HTC launched at the beginning of March 2006 the S200 model. The quad-band device is available worldwide at the moment and is also known as the HTC Prophet. After succesfully launching its older brothers, HTC Magician (Qtek S100) and HTC Wizard (Qtek 9100), the Asian company decided to enter the market with an 'updated' device which, at that time, could be considered a high-end device.
Design Traditionally the S200 borrowed Magician's and Wizard's designs, just that its form looks more polished and it's finishes are more rounded. S200 measures 108 x 59.3 x 18.4 mm and weighs exactly 148 grams. The body of the device is made of black plastic and a little bit of aluminium on the front cover. It doesn't look bad at all, on the contrary, but plastic is still plastic and if you drop it you'll surely have something to cry for. I guess HTC could've found a more suitable alloy for such an expensive device. Other than that users can find the power button and the stylus slot as usual, on the right side of the device, and on top side there's the slot for memory cards. On the left side it's the camera button, and on the black back of the device it's the 2 megapixel camera and a mirror for self-portraits.
The S200 device lacks a QWERTY keyboard, but instead it could be one of the fewest Pocket PC's which can be entirely controled with only 4 buttons. Great positioning of these buttons offers users an easy, user-friendly control without the need of a stylus. There's also a 5-way navigational pad and the 2 receiver buttons used for calls (green and red). Compared with the older Qtek models that featured Windows Mobile 2003SE, this device can be entirely controled with only one hand. Even if it has a stylus, the "revolutionary" position of the buttons, and the updated operating system (Windows Mobile 5.0) enables users a "one hand" control of the device.
Processor and Memory The device runs a Texas Instruments OMAP850 195 MHz processor, and includes 64MB RAM and 128MB ROM memory. This seems to be a cheap but reliable processor. HTC's choice for this processor might imply a lower cost for the device, but it looks pretty expensive even with this processor. In my opinion HTC can do better, because this processor even if it's reliable doesn't make a good "partner" for the Windows Mobile 5.0 system. You can say that the processor it's rather slow and depending on what software you use, you can easily have lags when opening applications. Even if it says that the device integrates 64MB RAM and 128MB ROM, you only have 47MB RAM and 44MB ROM. That's low and makes an expansion card a necessity, if you want to use applications or store music files, photos and videos. All in all, the device runs smoothly as long as you don't use too many applications at once or complicated software that eats too much memory to run.
Multimedia The camera integrated in the device might be the only innovating thing. Not necessarily because it's a 2 megapixel camera, but because of the quality of the photos. In fact we can hardly talk about quality for the moment, but the camera has some interesting points and features. Compared with mobile phones cameras the HTC's S200 camera is somewhat mediocre if not worse. Anyway, users can take pictures with the maximum resolution of 1600 x 1200 pixels, but is not limited to this, so you can have photos taken with 1280 x 1024 pixels, 640 x 480 pixels, 320 x 240 pixels, and 160 x 180 pixels resolution. New features include two modes that are new for HTC devices: Sport, which allows about 30 photos one after another in a VGA resolution, and Burst, which is a series of photos in a VGA resolution, which lasts till you press the shutter button. The camera has also a macromode that you can switch to manually. After switching to this mode you will be able to take pictures for no more than 15 cm. Because of the clarity that it offers this mode is mostly used for shooting text pages. Users can also use the camera to shoot videos. HTC has much to work on this until they will manage to make a competitive camera, but this is a start, a good one. The lack of autofocus, normal flash, a good software image developer, makes the camera rather mediocre.
The S200 features Polyphonic-40 voices sound, which makes it a good MP3 player to listen music with. The 2.5mm jack headset offers great experience for music lovers. It's only drawback might be the lack of two more loudspeakers, so you can hear your phone ringing even if you are outdoors in noisy places.
The device includes a TFT, 65K colors touchscreen, which features handwriting recognition.
As for the multimedia applications, S200 features Windows Media Player which runs pretty smooth. More than that, Qtek S200 is able to fit in an entire movie or a series of shorter videos as long as there is enough free memory.
Communication Qtek S200 features almost the whole range of communication types, with the exception of 3G technology. That includes the long waited Wi-Fi, plus Bluetooth, GPRS, USB and IrDa (Infrared). The Wi-Fi card supports the standard 802.11b, which means users can make data transfers with up to 11Mb/s. The device is especially made to be online most of the time, using services such as email, MSN (including Hotmail access) or Skype. Also, the device can be used as a modem. The EDGE technology replaces the fast UMTS and offers speeds of up to 120Kbps. Windows Mobile 5.0 OS offers some choices for the users when it comes to instant messaging: ICQ, Jabber, AOL or any other chat program, plus a great integrated email client. There are also other clients integrated especially for Windows Mobile, which provide access to FTP servers and Terminal Service.
The Good I'd say the new operating system (Windows Mobile 5.0) makes the finest achievement of this device, togheter with the Wi-Fi technology. Also, the easy-to-use interface and the "revolutionary" control buttons makes it desirable for people that are not used with such devices. Not the least, it's solid and stylish design is a substantial improvement from the older HTC devices. HTC is getting more and more features to its devices and this can be seen on this device too, especially if you look at the 2 MP camera. This is a nice one from HTC and I just hope things will only get better.
The Bad Slow processor and low memory comes first. I'm sure HTC is aware that the processor is good BUT old. The costs for a better processor are higher but I'm sure that the final product won't be much more expensive than S200. The lack of a QWERTY keyboard can be also a drawback. Regardless the fact that it looks stylish, S200 is more fragile than you think. The back of the device is pure slim plastic. HTC can do better than that.
Conclusion The Qtek S200 is a must for a businessman on the go. It has almost all the features needed to be considered a high-end device. It features Pocket Office (Word, Excel and Outlook), Notepad, movie and mp3 player, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity, EDGE technology, all running on Windows Mobile 5.0 system. If you have an older Qtek device I strongly recommend an "upgrade". The device is available in Romania through Omnisoft Company, and if you want to buy this device (or any other Qtek device) you can check here.
Standard kit includes:
- Smartphone - Charger - Wire stereoheadset - USB cable for synchronization - Horizontal waist case - CD with software - Documentation
