BenQ P50 Review - Features

Features

Anyone considering a Benq P50 would be doing so for its extensive feature set.  Running Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC SE (a version of the Win CE operating system), the P50 comes with mobile versions of MS Word, Excel, Internet Explorer, and Outlook pre-installed, and is capable of running hundreds of other productivity and entertainment applications.  It should be noted that newer devices, including the TMobile MDA, now run Windows Mobile Version 5; the P50 cannot be upgraded to WM 5, though the forthcoming Benq P51 should run it.

The operating system is what sets a smartphone/PDA like the P50 apart from your average cell phone.  Mobile data and document management is a big draw for smartphone users, and the P50 will let you view and edit Word and Excel documents, photos, Emails, calendar entries, and more wherever you are.  While using a smartphone isn't as fast or easy as using a full-on laptop computer, it does open up a world of possibilities for on-the-go productivity on a day-to-day basis.  The P50's 416mhz Intel Xscale processor coupled with 64mb of both RAM and ROM provides plenty of horsepower for most anything you'd want to do with the device, though you'll want to add additional document storage memory via an optional SD memory card as the 12MB of built-in memory allotted to user storage will fill up quickly.

The Benq P50 is one of a small handful of Pocket PC devices to offer both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity.  Bluetooth allows the P50 to communicate with wireless headsets, computers, and other devices over short range.  802.11b Wi-Fi lets the P50 connect to wireless computer networks and Internet Hot Spots for broadband Web surfing, emailing, and other computer-like networking functions. 

Having Wi-Fi on a phone is something of a dual-edged sword.  On the one hand, while I was waiting for someone at a store the other day I was able to find an open Wi-Fi network, hop online, and check my email.  How cool is that?.  On the other hand, prolonged use of the Wi-Fi antenna is a real battery drain; after about an hour of Web surfing the P50 warned me that I'd better connect it to a charger or else risk some serious data loss. 

Email and Web surfing both worked very well on the P50, though the layout of the QWERTY board makes it hard to use the available "landscape "(horizontal) screen layout mode, which is more naturally suited to browsing Websites.  The Pocket PC version of Internet Explorer can't handle every Java and Flash-rich Website out there, but it let me see most pages I really wanted to view on the go.

With the proliferation of high-speed EDGE and EVDO data services in the United States, I can't help but wonder if paying an extra five dollars or so a month to T-Mobile would be a better way to access E-mail and basic Web services on the go than using a Wi-Fi phone like the P50.  While Wi-Fi is certainly faster, open networks aren't as widely available as carrier-sponsored mobile web coverage, and EDGE connectivity (or EVDO in the case of Verizon or Sprint) uses battery power less quickly than Wi-Fi.  Unfortunately, while the P50 supports GRPS data transfer, it lacks the faster transfer speeds offered by EDGE-capable devices.

The P50 is also a very capable multimedia device, using either the pre-installed Windows Media Player or a number of third-party and shareware media players now available.  The integrated speakerphone is good for voice calling but doesn't do much justice to music or other stereo audio content.  Photos and movies looked good on the QVGA screen, and the included stereo headset worked very well for music playback as well as handsfree calling.  It's too bad Benq built the P50 with a 2.5mm audio jack, as a 3.5mm port would have allowed the use of any standard stereo headphones without the need for an adapter.

Camera
For a 1.3 megapixel sensor with flash, the P50's camera actually isn't all that impressive.  Images captured by the camera are often blurry with somewhat washed out colors.  Though the camera software offers myriad image settings and the included Pocket Studio application is capable of quite a bit of in-camera image editing, they ultimately couldn't compensate for weak hardware.  The camera is certainly serviceable for taking photos for caller ID and mobile messaging, but far superior quality is available from other handsets with 1.3mp cameras.

The camera can also capture video in MPEG-4 format at resolutions up to 320 x 240.  Again, the image quality here is serviceable but not particularly impressive.  Given the P50's wealth of other features, the lackluster camera is either a major disappointment or not that big of a deal, depending on whether you're looking at the device as a multimedia powerhouse or pure business tool

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