The 15th Spring IIC-China 2010 was held at Shenzhen Convention & Exhibition Center from March 4th to 5th. Microsoft, Intel , FUJITSU and many other world-famous brands participated in this exhibition, and IT.com.cn journalists also went to the site to make follow-up report on relevant contents.
At IIC-China 2010, the number of visitors was much higher than expected, and Microsoft’s booth was the focus of the exhibition.
In the Microsoft’s booth, the journalists were lucky to see the xpPhone real machines running Windows XP/WES2009（Microsoft Windows Embedded Standard 2009） operating system, which had drawn lots of public attention. It was worth to take the trip, and now we firstly reported the evaluation results of xpPhone real machines.
Editor appraisal: Although xpPhone is not completely perfect in workmanship and some details have yet to be improved through successive models, it is undeniable that the achievements made by xpPhone over the last three years do not let us down, and its smooth running speed and perfect phone function are really exciting. It truly integrates mobile phone and notebook into one and starts a new page for the mobile internet terminal industry.
   Certification of xpPhone: IECEE-CB Approval, CE Approval, Network access license (MIIT China) With CE Approval, network access license of MIIT China and IECEE-CB Approval, xpPhone also can be customized for different industries.
xpPhone is the high-tech patented product of In Technology Group Limited (ITG) through the last three years of research and development, and the global first true “mobile internet terminal integrating mobile phone, GPS and notebook into one”. xpPhone has been certified by CE Approval, network access license of MIIT China and IECEE-CB Approval recently. Through searching relevant information, the journalists find that the xpPhone EvDo wireless module model is X8133, which is also a patented 3G module developed by ITG itself. Particularly, xpPhone can be customized very quickly to meet the demands of different customers and industries. Meanwhile, it supports the three major 3G standards (WCDMA; EVDO; TD-SCDMA) and even WCDMA/EvDo, EvDo/EvDo, WCDMA/WCDMA models.
It is expected that xpPhone will be formally launched in April, including multiple versions It is also learned that xpPhone will be launched formally in April, and it is expected that xpPhone will launch xpPhone 8GXE, xpPhone 8GDE, xpPhone 8GD three models. xpPhone 8GXE has preinstalled Microsoft Windows Embedded Standard 2009 (WES2009, it’s customized OS based on the Windows XP). xpPhone 8GXE has built-in 3G EVDO wireless module, it fully supports voice communication and wake-up from standby function. xpPhone 8GDE has built-in DOS system and requires the users to install the operating system by themselves (with XP driver) with lower price. Without EVDO module and voice communication function, xpPhone 8GD is positioned as a MID.
According to the official information, xpPhone has built-in SSD with a minimum of 8G configuration; meanwhile, 16G, 32G or 64G is optional, and the HDD of higher capacity is also available if required. Its standard memory is 512M, and 1G or 2G is optional; however, the specific CPU configuration has not yet been released. The xpPhone tested by the journalists is the engineering test machine, and it could be different from retail version in appearance and even the configuration. The on-site ITG staff also said that the processor parameters of the product had not yet disclosed, but xpPhone will use the AMD CPU of ultra-low power consumption.
Bigger than ordinary mobile phones and much portable than Netbooks
The journalists’ first impression of the xpPhone real machine is that its size is significantly larger than various mobile phones available in the market, and its hand feeling is different from that of normal mobile phones. xpPhone’s exact dimensions are 175 × 84 × 25.5mm, and emphatically, it is 84mm wide without sliding out the keyboard, and it weights approx 345 grams (without battery).
During the exhibition, many visitors were attracted by xpPhone and tried it, and some people personally tried the call function. It appears unusual when putting xpPhone close to your ear during a call and it’s recommended to use the Bluetooth earset. Objectively speaking, it is much smaller in comparison with other equipment fully running Windows XP (e.g. Netbooks).
Supporting multiple call modes and compatible with Bluetooth earphone
The on-site technical personnel revealed that xpPhone supports call answering with receiver directly (the receiver is located inside the inverted triangle logo on the top of the screen and designed in the shape of “in”, and the microphone is located at the bottom of the xpPhone), but answering the call in this way is kind of unusual and it is recommended to use the Bluetooth earphone. xpPhone also supports wired earphone (with microphone); however, the earphone jack’s specification of the xpPhone on exhibition is 2.5mm instead of the most common 3.5mm. Some fans on the site made suggestions for improvement in respect of this detail, and the ITG staff expressed that the earphone jack specification can be changed according to the requirements of the industry customization.
The front face adopts piano lacquer, and the side frame of the screen is slightly bigger
The xpPhone displayed on site was the black version, and its front face is processed with piano lacquer and thus has high gloss; however, it is difficult to avoid the fingerprint problem. According to xpPhone’s official website, there are also silver, white and red colors available, and the black color version will be firstly launched.
xpPhone has a large 4.8-inch touch screen, but the real machine displayed on site still has a slightly big side frame, and it is hoped that the successive products will narrow down the side frame and slim down the overall size.
Dual resolution display” technology, small visual angle of the screen
According to the explanation of the on-site technical personnel, the journalists learned that 4.8-inch screen is the standard configuration of xpPhone, and the products of 4.3-inch screen can also be customized for industry users. As everybody knows, the desktop and notebook users can generally select a different display resolution in the display settings, and it is gratifying that xpPhone also successfully achieves a similar application. xpPhone default resolution is 800x480, however it can support 1024x768 clearly with “dual resolution display” technology. The HD resolution plus 16.7 million colors provide the users with excellent display effect; however, the journalists found that the baking finish on the xpPhone’s surface easily makes the screen reflective, resulting in relatively small visual angle of its screen.
The final appearance of the back face leaves us in suspense
What does the back face of xpPhone look like? It is firstly thought that the mystery will be revealed after seeing the real machine; however, the back face of xpPhone displayed on site is totally blank, then where is the camera? Of course, the camera as referred here is the main camera instead of the 0.3 million-pixel video chat pre-camera on the front face.
Side face details
For the riddling back face of xpPhone, the on-site technical personnel expressed that the xpPhone on exhibition is an engineering test machine, and the material of the back face is similar to the mixture of metal and plastic materials, but it can be revealed that a camera of different pixels will be configured on the back face (5 million pixels maximally).
As a mobile phone with powerful functions, xpPhone is configured with a wide variety of functional interfaces on its side faces, and let’s introduce these interfaces from upper side to lower side and then from left side to right side. First, let’s have a look at the upper side, which can be regarded as the simplest side with only one sling hole on the left and right corners respectively, so as to facilitate the users to sling ornaments.
Long battery life, optional standard battery and large-capacity battery
For the lower side of xpPhone, the photo of the real machine taken by the journalists just captured the blue light effect when the On/Off button flashed; moreover, there is a microphone and a battery lock on the lower side.
As it is not allowed to remove the battery of the machine displayed on the site, the journalists can not further witness the true size of the legendary 2150 mA battery. On the basis of official data, xpPhone can last for 7 hours with standard battery( various functions can be used normally, such as watching movie, Internet surfing etc.) and 12 hours for large-capacity battery, its continuous talk time is up to 5 hours with a standard battery, and its standby time reaches up to 5 days. According to these data, it can be said that xpPhone’s battery life is very long and will not be a drag on its powerful functions.
Let’s continue to look at the side faces of xpPhone. For the left side, the volume control key, air vent (for cooling), DC jack, VGA port, USB 2.0 port and 2.5mm earphone jack are set from top to bottom, wherein the bottom three interfaces are covered with protection plastic; however, the VGA port is of nonstandard specification, which requires a conversion line to output to large LCD screen or TV, and its maximum output resolution is up to 1920 × 1440 pixels.
The cooling effect is significant
For the right side of xpPhone, the SIM card slot, wake-up key, air outlet (for cooling) and GPS antenna interface are set. When trying the xpPhone for some time, it was just a little hot, making the journalists much admire its significant cooling effect, and it was also necessary to know that the machine had been tried by visitors for nearly three hours before the journalists evaluated it (this is told by the on-site technical personnel).
Equipped with QWERTY keyboard, touchpad and left & right mouse buttons
In view that xpPhone’s system is not the common operating system of smartphones and it is difficult for the touch screen to meet all the operating requirements, so it adopts the side-sliding Qwerty keyboard with the keys arranged in four rows, together with the arrow keys, touchpad, left & right mouse buttons and a dedicated numeric keypad, which greatly enhance the operating and input efficiency.
Regarding the layout of the standard English keys, xpPhone keeps consistent with PC, whereas the specially added left & right mouse buttons are located on the upper left corner of the keypad in sequence, and the four-way navigation keys are located below them.
On the right of the keyboard, the numeric and F1-F12 shortcut keys are set in four rows and three columns, which are the same as that of ordinary mobile phones. As the xpPhone displayed on the site is of English version, it is unclear whether the Chinese version can directly achieve the same Chinese input as that of ordinary mobile phones through the numeric keys. Of course, xpPhone has a full alphabet keyboard with great typing feeling, and it is also quite fast for text input while sending SMS.
On the left of the numeric keypad, there is a square area without any character, which is the touchpad of xpPhone and whose function is the same as that of notebooks, but the location of the left & right mouse buttons is different, and it takes some time for the users to adjust to it. Moreover, xpphone is equipped with a USB 2.0 and VGA port, which can be directly connected to a mouse and a standard keyboard and an external LCD Screen respectively, then xpPhone becomes the host of a desktop.
Introduction of other shortcut keys
To observe the layout of xpPhone keyboard carefully, we will find some considerate shortcut keys, which are mainly located on the fourth row of the keyboard area, including the fast mute switching key, horizontal screen/vertical screen switching key (Allegedly, xpPhone has no gravity sensing function), WIFI and Bluetooth keys, GPS shortcut key, camera shortcut key, etc. In addition, the brightness of screen backlight can be fast adjusted through the key combination, and more shortcut controls are left to the users for exploration in their daily use.
Phone software details, and the patent of awakening from standby mode
Through running the program named “xpPhone” on the desktop, you can quickly enter the dedicated communication mode, which mainly consists of message, phone, contacts, call log, network connection and other basic communication functions; in fact, these UI have been previously exposed through the Internet, and the difference is that the xpPhone tried by the journalists is of English version.
When inputting short messages in the communication mode, xpPhone supports full alphabet keyboard input; meanwhile, text input can also be achieved through touch screen.
In reliance on the patented technology of awakening from standby mode, xpPhone will pop up a prompt in the taskbar in case of an incoming call or message, even if no dedicated communication programs are running. In the standby mode, xpPhone can make or answer a call at any time, unlike VILIV S5, which can achieve telephone function only if it is turned on and the dial-up software is used. In fact, the products based on X86 architecture can not answer incoming calls in standby mode, and xpPhone’s technology of awakening from standby mode is a revolutionary application here.
Other Functions Brief
xpPhone has built-in WiFi 802.11b/g wireless surfer module, with blue tooth 2.0+EDR, a VGA port and USB 2.0 port, meanwhile, WiMax is optional, and xpPhone supports the highest operating system Windows 7 (industry-specific). It is reported that the standard retail version will include a hand-written pen, a special leather sheath and a cloth sack. As the evaluation engineering machine has certain discrepancy compared with the final retail version in terms of the hardware configuration, the journalists don’t make specific test on its performance.
Everyone who’s familiar with Windows operating system knows that the software resource of XP/WES2009 is quite rich, data showed in xpPhone official website is 150,000,000, the quantity is absolutely incomparable than other mobile phone operating system. However, the journalists are a little concerned that wherein how many software can be compatible with the telephone function, let’s wait and see.
After trying xpPhone preliminarily, the journalists truly experienced the convenience to everyday life brought by the integration of mobile phone/notebook/GPS into one, and also applauded its high degree of freedom in respect of industry customization. Although xpPhone is not completely perfect in workmanship and some details have yet to be improved through successive models, it is undeniable that the achievements made by xpPhone over the last three years do not let us down, and its smooth running speed and perfect phone function are really exciting. It truly integrates mobile phone and notebook into one (its size is a little bigger) and starts a new page for the mobile Internet terminal industry. Finally, it is hoped that xpPhone will be successfully launched as scheduled, and then IT.com.cn mobile phone channel will bring you more in-depth details.
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