ASUS P735

The Asus P735 is the company's latest PDA-phone, and features 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity. Unlike many of its dedicated handhelds, this model doesn't come with GPS built-in. With so many PDA-phones on the market in this form factor, does the Asus do anything to stand out from the pack?

Design

Though primarily housed in plastic, this handheld has a solid feel to it. There's a brushed metal finish on the front, dark metallic grey around the display with a lighter shade for the buttons below that. Not including the navigation pad and selector, there are six buttons in total. A single panel with four depressible corners contains two soft-keys and two shortcut keys. On either side of the panel are the green call and red reject buttons. Though neatly arranged, the keys suffer from being too stiff and too noisy; every one of them giving audible clicks when pressed.One feature we did like, though, is the hold switch on the right side of the device. These switches are more commonly found on MP3 players, preventing users from accidental button presses, and it works well as a key lock on the P735.

The buttons on the P735 felt stiff when pressed.
On the bottom of the P735 is a 2.5mm audio jack, a mini-USB port for charging and syncing, as well as a microphone. Along the top are the power button and miniSD slot. The unit's metal stylus fits into a silo in the top right-hand corner. Seeing as the stylus is the Asus's main input tool, we would have preferred it if it was heavier, for better feel, and extendable.
The P735's form factor makes it fall into the same class as the O2 Atom Life and the Dopod D810. Even though the Asus is marginally lighter than those two handhelds, it is pertinent to note that it has fewer features and, at 109 x 59 x 19mm, is larger in all three dimensions. At AU$999, the Asus is marginally cheaper than the Dopod, and about AU$300 less than the O2.

Features

Because it was announced and released so recently, the P735's lack of HSDPA connectivity is somewhat disappointing. Otherwise, we did not face any problems connecting to the Internet with 3G. Video calls are also a cinch to do using the front VGA camera found above the display. One gripe is with the placement of the speakers at the rear, which isn't optimal for speakerphone use.
Among the P735's other connectivity options are Bluetooth 2.0 (with A2DP support for wireless stereo headsets) and 802.11g wireless LAN. Having Wi-Fi is good not only for surfing the Internet at wireless hotspots, it also means Skype communication is possible. In fact, Asus has provided the software on a CD with the P735, saving you from downloading it.
The main camera at the rear has a 2-megapixel sensor and comes with autofocus. The camera software boasts quite a few features, including white balance control, metering and macro mode for close-ups. Photos taken with the camera turned out generally sharp with adequately accurate colours. Operating the camera required steady hands, though, as the shutter speed is slow by default, even in brightly lit indoor spaces, making some photos unnecessarily blurred. The standard photo light alleviates the problem somewhat but it brings about a new problem, namely bright glare. As a bonus the photo light can be turned on independently, so you can use it as a torch in dark places. This is achieved by pressing and holding the mode switcher shortcut button at the front.
Alongside its 2-megapixel autofocus camera is a LED light and a preview mirror.
The main purpose of the mode switcher button, though, is to quickly jump between the Today screen and Windows Media Player, as well toggle between portrait and landscape modes. This is useful to an extent, but we feel a dedicated OK key to get out of menus would have be more useful.
There are a number of add-on applications bundled with P735. With the My Secrets application enabled, a folder is hidden and encrypted from view in File Explorer whenever the device enters sleep mode. The folder will only reappear, unencrypted, when the user clicks a tiny icon in the Today screen and enters the appropriate four-digit password.
Also in P735's application suite is Remote Presenter, which allows you to use Bluetooth to control a notebook during presentations. This requires desktop software to be installed on the computer and, of course, Bluetooth connectivity. Not to be outdone by its competitors, the P735 also comes with WorldCard Mobile, which allows the user to enter a contact's details just by taking a photo of their business card with text recognition doing the rest. This should make tedious text entry tasks a thing of the past and although it isn't 100-percent accurate, it's nothing a quick check and edit won't solve.

Performance

The Intel 520MHz processor in the Asus did well to handle all the applications we tried on it. Even with all of Asus' add-on applications running in the background, we noticed very little lag in the menu interface. Though the P735's 1,300mAh Lithium-ion battery is rated for 4 hours on a 3G network, we managed to make it last for about 2.5 days on a 3G network with intermittent Wi-Fi usage.

By John Chan