Hello, is it a gigabyte?
Gigabyte is a well-known manufacturer of motherboards and has a good reputation in this market. But few people know that such technically sophisticated devices as communicators occasionally flash on its conveyors;)
Under the cut - a small overview of one of them.
The company's market share of communicators is quite small, so it is logical that very few people know about them and that they are quite rare. Nevertheless, they are there and it seemed to me very interesting - I took one model to the test solely in order to find out the level at which the company makes its devices, and in passing - share impressions. I foresee numerous “ fi, again windows mobile ”, to which I can only answer that this OS is for me the closest and for the task I set it is quite enough. By the way, just the other day on the network was the announcement of the androydofona from the same company - you see who is useful.
')
Communicator Gigabyte GSmart S1200 went on sale around October last year - at the dawn of the popularity of devices from Samsung (like the same Witu). However, GIGA did not set a goal to conquer the world) and once again went the way of miniaturization - it tried in a compact package to fit the hardware stuffing that was not inferior to competitors, while providing a small final cost.
It would be possible to write once again that the device is built on the Qualcomm platform ... but what else to build on)) Let's just look at the specifications:
Initially, the phone has Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system, which can be easily upgraded to a newer version. The screen resolution is 480x800 - this can be found only in some devices, one of which, for example, is the HTC HD2.
As you can see, the device has a very good amount of RAM (288 MB) and 512 ROMs, but not all of this will be at the user's disposal. The fact is that a very resource-intensive interface will eat up a substantial part of this volume) For the rest, this is enough for most applications.
Witnesses claim that the device is sold in a small black box of cubic shape, inside which the phone is fixed in the thick porous material. Additionally, it was in boxing (maybe there was something else, but I didn’t find it):
- Charger in the car;
- Wired stereo headset;
- MicroSD card for 1GB;
- Adapter + plug;
- USB wire;
The flash card from Transcend, all chargers on the end have a miniUSB connector, which is already a plus against the microUSB standard. As in most new chargers, there is a removable plug on the adapter, which snaps off by pressing a button on the adapter itself. If you remove the plug, you can put on a special protective cover on the bare contacts - oh, this is a concern)
The stereo headset also starts with a miniUSB plug, somewhere in the middle there is a small “remote control” and at the ends there are two black inserts (as I have lost the habit of them - I can't imagine how I used them before). Having barely inserted them into my ears, I still heard quite a decent sound, even from the radio - the headset, as elsewhere, acts as an antenna.
Now about the phone itself. When I picked it up for the first time, after the communicators (in particular, the HTC HD2), it turned out to be a balm for the soul - but for a long time I didn’t hold such small mobile phones. So small that in a large hand it can be quietly hidden in the palm of your hand or used as a tab)
By the way, the dimensions are really small - 106x52x11.4 mm (with a weight of 100 grams). This is smaller than most modern devices, be it an iPhone, Hero, Witu, or some Diamond.
Body color - black + chrome. As for the material - almost the entire front side is occupied by a widescreen resistive screen with a diagonal of 3.1 ″ (and a resolution of 800x480!), Which is clearly hidden NOT behind the glass (respectively, scratches will appear sooner or later with careless use). But it is framed by a metal frame - it is he who is chrome-plated (alas, as practice has shown, all shines with active use are peeled off after a year - whether they are on metal or on plastic). The back side is black matte (almost soft-touch) plastic.
What is nice - the phone is 11.4mm thick, honest - on both sides it is completely flat. Total - really the brand of the case is only the front side + frame around it, but due to the flat design, this is eliminated by rubbing against the sleeve.
Above the screen is a speaker, "younger" front-facing camera, a light sensor and a light indicator.
Under the screen - at first it may seem that the touch buttons. But in fact, it is hardware that are made in the same plane with the screen. Accordingly, pressing any of them, the plastic bends a little and the screen plane is slightly higher - something like this on a cheap phone looks like a screen that has a defect installed, but here such an idea was originally and looks very nice and neat.
Between the “touch” buttons (they are called Call and End) there is a round “Menu” button. Why the manufacturer did not dare to place a trackball there - it is not clear ... after all, one could not only click, but also navigate the menu.
Bottom - a microphone and a miniUSB connector, which are inserted into the charging or headset. Accordingly, if you want to use foreign headphones, you will have to buy an adapter. Above is the second speaker and the power button (it turns the device on and off when held, with a simple press it turns off the display - something I’ve been used to terribly since the days of the HTC P3300).
On the left is the volume rocker, on the right is the camera button (below) and a slot for a microSD card. On the one hand, this is super - you can pull out the card at any time without any autopsies and insert it into the computer (to download something), on the other hand - a lot of software works from the card) And 1 more moment - a slot without a plug.
On the back side everything is smooth)
The battery cover is made of a single panel, in which there is a small hole for the camera - sooo uh, it looks like a cutout in HTC Hero;)
Under the back cover of the device there is a 1010 mAh lithium-polymer battery (3.7V, 3.737Wh), a piece of the telescopic stylus and a connector for the sim card. Interestingly, under the battery there are two pairs of contacts.
The device is turned on by holding the button on the upper end - it is minimally protruding and rather tight, so you will not accidentally press it. It takes a long time to turn on - 50 seconds ... but at the very first turn on, the display’s juiciness ’and a total lack of pixelization’ are noticeable - small fonts, pictures, buttons - everything is perfectly smooth and even (I remind you that the screen resolution is 480x800 (same on HD2 ), and the physical screen size is 72x40mm (for HD2 it is 94x56).
Immediately after switching on, a juicy alpine clipart appears in front of the user, on which animated pictures appear periodically - airplanes, kites, cows, etc. ) If you drive on this screen with your finger, then a small train of glowing balls is formed ... and in general, the picture changes depending on the time of day and the weather. It seems to be self-indulgence, and it is beautiful - such “liveliness” hardly hurts anyone. Also on the screen - the clock, weather, large status icons (network, battery, etc.), and below - a couple of icons such as phone, calls and SMS. By clicking on the start (or on the button below the screen) with the effect of lightning (the one that is on clothes), a screen with 12 icons appears. More precisely, there are three such screens - you need to move through them with strokes. The icons are so colorful (by the way, looking at them for some reason, the symbian involuntarily comes to mind) that the screen sometimes seems AMOLED, but it is not. The 65k color limit is not felt at all.
As it was already written in the specs, the Windows Mobile operating system is installed here - the same one, the latest versions of which Melkosoft tried to optimize in every possible way, but only half did it, leaving the rest to the conscience of the equipment manufacturers. And if HTC with its HTC Sense went far, honestly completing (and even exceeding) the task, then Gigabyte engineers were a bit lazy) Simply put, the stylus is sometimes very necessary. For example, when typing on a standard keyboard, it is very difficult to print on it even in a calm environment (although there are a lot of larger and more comfortable keys). For some reason, more attention was paid just to all sorts of decorations - in particular, 7 themes were available to the user (only one of them was described above).
And this is not just a change of wallpaper on the desktop and backgrounds, and all the menus and principles of navigation on them. On the one hand, it is beautiful, unusual, and you can find Temko “to fit your habits,” on the other hand, getting used to one of the departments, it will be difficult on another topic. I will not describe the navigation on each topic, but to be honest, we really tried and made it beautifully.
Perhaps the most unusual, functional and quick theme is the GSmart Touch theme theme - text lines (messages, music, photos, etc.) are displayed on the main desktop along which a transparent frame moves under the action of a finger. By selecting the desired item, you can use a horizontal stroke to select an action for this menu. A nice feature turned out to be an additional menu on the taskbar - a pop-up window (when you click on the cross), where you can change the brightness on the go, rotate the screen, adjust the profile, melodies and even something else. There are widgets - to make it very beautiful and for specific requirements - everything has to work out of the box, although I prefer third-party software, which has been tested for years and under which you can always find a lot of tasty things on the forums;)
And yet, the beauty is beautiful, and the WM interface unveiled in many places is already really pretty tired - the sms, mail, settings window is brrr.
Swiping between the screens of desktops is not so willingly and smoothly, as we would like, but also without brakes. The rest of the animation is quite pleasant. Sometimes there are small slowdowns, they are felt, but the nerves do not pluck)
From non-standard WM-software found SPB Backup, NF Browser, Voice Commander and PRO.City. The first program is for backup, the last one is like a navigator, but it was just a trial version, which I was late for :)
Voice Commaner allows you to control the device by voice - regular commands are recognized well, but for some reason they did not work everywhere. For example, by launching a player with a voice and going to the main menu, I did not manage to pause playback with the appropriate command.
NF Browser (NetFront) - it is possible that this browser has already met somewhere, but I saw it for the first time. After 10 minutes of its use, I, of course, put on a more familiar Opera, but, one has to admit, it is not bad at all.
First, it processes the layout pretty well. Secondly, it allows you to conveniently navigate through the open page. But what's inconvenient - the convenience of the location of the elements is almost absent. No address bar - the page address must be entered in a separate window, where you must specify the http protocol, etc. )
I liked the radio - looking at it, for some reason, I remembered the Pocket Player. We insert the headset, launch the application and a playlist appears in front of us, instead of track names in which the names of radio stations are presented over the entire range. Very convenient, the management itself also liked.
The camera (3.2 megapixels with autofocus) is launched by pressing a button on the end, after which you can take a picture with the same button, with the button in the center of the bottom of the phone, or by moving the corresponding element on the screen; The most convenient option is the central button.
It's bad that after the shutter is released, the camera thinks for about a second - in this case, the sharpness of the moving objects disappears. For the rest, it fotkaet quite well - with a maximum resolution of 2048x1536. Several effects are available - sepia, negative and a couple of other “light filters”. Well, a few settings, such as white balance, exposure compensation, sensitivity, etc.
You can shoot clips with a resolution of 640x480. What is nice - there is a front camera that allows you to hold all sorts of conferences. Anyone, by the way, ever spent? :)
Sample photo:
Video example (True, 320x240; 2Mb)
Everything else, in principle, is typical of WM-communicators. As for working time, in standby mode, the phone easily withstands a little more than a week, and with very active use - two days, sometimes a little more. A good indicator is that with similar devices (HTC Diamond, it is on the same hardware platform) the operating time is slightly longer, but the screen is smaller there.
pros
- miniUSB connector;
- Compact size and low weight;
- Practical case materials and excellent assembly;
- Bright screen with high resolution;
- Good performance;
- Support for memory cards;
Minuses
- Despite the “finger-optimized” latest WM, the stylus is sometimes very necessary;
- There is no hole for the lace and 3.5mm audio jack; no camera flash;
- No navigation software included;
- Small brakes are sometimes found;
With all the pros and cons mentioned above, the price of the device starts from 14,800 rubles.
Price dynamics with Yandex.Market:
Despite the non-core device for the company, it definitely succeeded. For this price, you can find devices similar in functionality, but almost all of them will lose in something (except, perhaps, for the software component “out of the box”). The same Witu and HTC Touch2 lose at least on the parameters of the screen, which GSmart has at its height. If the company's engineers were not too lazy and put on a full marafet, then the “stranger” would be on equal footing with the competitors. However, you can finish the software yourself - for that, many WM hate)
In the meantime, I got the impression that the device was designed for tech-savvy girls - who have little functionality of regular mobile phones, but who don’t want to carry a huge candy bar. At the same time, all kinds of beautiful only confirm this) However, there is no clear sex on the phone. As for the quality of workmanship - a solid five, was pleasantly surprised. The rest is another communicator, albeit a very pleasant one)
At its price, the balance of the device looks favorably against the background of any Witu, which are increasingly difficult to find on store shelves. But against the background of a developing androyd, a small operating system, it is becoming more and more difficult to work out your bread. So the device is for WM fans who need a good screen and adequate performance, but no money for some HD2 or Acer neoTouch)
Successes!
Under the cut - a small overview of one of them.
The company's market share of communicators is quite small, so it is logical that very few people know about them and that they are quite rare. Nevertheless, they are there and it seemed to me very interesting - I took one model to the test solely in order to find out the level at which the company makes its devices, and in passing - share impressions. I foresee numerous “ fi, again windows mobile ”, to which I can only answer that this OS is for me the closest and for the task I set it is quite enough. By the way, just the other day on the network was the announcement of the androydofona from the same company - you see who is useful.
')
Communicator Gigabyte GSmart S1200 went on sale around October last year - at the dawn of the popularity of devices from Samsung (like the same Witu). However, GIGA did not set a goal to conquer the world) and once again went the way of miniaturization - it tried in a compact package to fit the hardware stuffing that was not inferior to competitors, while providing a small final cost.
It would be possible to write once again that the device is built on the Qualcomm platform ... but what else to build on)) Let's just look at the specifications:
Initially, the phone has Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system, which can be easily upgraded to a newer version. The screen resolution is 480x800 - this can be found only in some devices, one of which, for example, is the HTC HD2.
As you can see, the device has a very good amount of RAM (288 MB) and 512 ROMs, but not all of this will be at the user's disposal. The fact is that a very resource-intensive interface will eat up a substantial part of this volume) For the rest, this is enough for most applications.
Equipment
Witnesses claim that the device is sold in a small black box of cubic shape, inside which the phone is fixed in the thick porous material. Additionally, it was in boxing (maybe there was something else, but I didn’t find it):
- Charger in the car;
- Wired stereo headset;
- MicroSD card for 1GB;
- Adapter + plug;
- USB wire;
The flash card from Transcend, all chargers on the end have a miniUSB connector, which is already a plus against the microUSB standard. As in most new chargers, there is a removable plug on the adapter, which snaps off by pressing a button on the adapter itself. If you remove the plug, you can put on a special protective cover on the bare contacts - oh, this is a concern)
Appearance
The stereo headset also starts with a miniUSB plug, somewhere in the middle there is a small “remote control” and at the ends there are two black inserts (as I have lost the habit of them - I can't imagine how I used them before). Having barely inserted them into my ears, I still heard quite a decent sound, even from the radio - the headset, as elsewhere, acts as an antenna.
Now about the phone itself. When I picked it up for the first time, after the communicators (in particular, the HTC HD2), it turned out to be a balm for the soul - but for a long time I didn’t hold such small mobile phones. So small that in a large hand it can be quietly hidden in the palm of your hand or used as a tab)
By the way, the dimensions are really small - 106x52x11.4 mm (with a weight of 100 grams). This is smaller than most modern devices, be it an iPhone, Hero, Witu, or some Diamond.
Body color - black + chrome. As for the material - almost the entire front side is occupied by a widescreen resistive screen with a diagonal of 3.1 ″ (and a resolution of 800x480!), Which is clearly hidden NOT behind the glass (respectively, scratches will appear sooner or later with careless use). But it is framed by a metal frame - it is he who is chrome-plated (alas, as practice has shown, all shines with active use are peeled off after a year - whether they are on metal or on plastic). The back side is black matte (almost soft-touch) plastic.
What is nice - the phone is 11.4mm thick, honest - on both sides it is completely flat. Total - really the brand of the case is only the front side + frame around it, but due to the flat design, this is eliminated by rubbing against the sleeve.
Above the screen is a speaker, "younger" front-facing camera, a light sensor and a light indicator.
Under the screen - at first it may seem that the touch buttons. But in fact, it is hardware that are made in the same plane with the screen. Accordingly, pressing any of them, the plastic bends a little and the screen plane is slightly higher - something like this on a cheap phone looks like a screen that has a defect installed, but here such an idea was originally and looks very nice and neat.
Between the “touch” buttons (they are called Call and End) there is a round “Menu” button. Why the manufacturer did not dare to place a trackball there - it is not clear ... after all, one could not only click, but also navigate the menu.
Bottom - a microphone and a miniUSB connector, which are inserted into the charging or headset. Accordingly, if you want to use foreign headphones, you will have to buy an adapter. Above is the second speaker and the power button (it turns the device on and off when held, with a simple press it turns off the display - something I’ve been used to terribly since the days of the HTC P3300).
On the left is the volume rocker, on the right is the camera button (below) and a slot for a microSD card. On the one hand, this is super - you can pull out the card at any time without any autopsies and insert it into the computer (to download something), on the other hand - a lot of software works from the card) And 1 more moment - a slot without a plug.
On the back side everything is smooth)
The battery cover is made of a single panel, in which there is a small hole for the camera - sooo uh, it looks like a cutout in HTC Hero;)
Under the back cover of the device there is a 1010 mAh lithium-polymer battery (3.7V, 3.737Wh), a piece of the telescopic stylus and a connector for the sim card. Interestingly, under the battery there are two pairs of contacts.
Turn on and work
The device is turned on by holding the button on the upper end - it is minimally protruding and rather tight, so you will not accidentally press it. It takes a long time to turn on - 50 seconds ... but at the very first turn on, the display’s juiciness ’and a total lack of pixelization’ are noticeable - small fonts, pictures, buttons - everything is perfectly smooth and even (I remind you that the screen resolution is 480x800 (same on HD2 ), and the physical screen size is 72x40mm (for HD2 it is 94x56).
Immediately after switching on, a juicy alpine clipart appears in front of the user, on which animated pictures appear periodically - airplanes, kites, cows, etc. ) If you drive on this screen with your finger, then a small train of glowing balls is formed ... and in general, the picture changes depending on the time of day and the weather. It seems to be self-indulgence, and it is beautiful - such “liveliness” hardly hurts anyone. Also on the screen - the clock, weather, large status icons (network, battery, etc.), and below - a couple of icons such as phone, calls and SMS. By clicking on the start (or on the button below the screen) with the effect of lightning (the one that is on clothes), a screen with 12 icons appears. More precisely, there are three such screens - you need to move through them with strokes. The icons are so colorful (by the way, looking at them for some reason, the symbian involuntarily comes to mind) that the screen sometimes seems AMOLED, but it is not. The 65k color limit is not felt at all.
As it was already written in the specs, the Windows Mobile operating system is installed here - the same one, the latest versions of which Melkosoft tried to optimize in every possible way, but only half did it, leaving the rest to the conscience of the equipment manufacturers. And if HTC with its HTC Sense went far, honestly completing (and even exceeding) the task, then Gigabyte engineers were a bit lazy) Simply put, the stylus is sometimes very necessary. For example, when typing on a standard keyboard, it is very difficult to print on it even in a calm environment (although there are a lot of larger and more comfortable keys). For some reason, more attention was paid just to all sorts of decorations - in particular, 7 themes were available to the user (only one of them was described above).
And this is not just a change of wallpaper on the desktop and backgrounds, and all the menus and principles of navigation on them. On the one hand, it is beautiful, unusual, and you can find Temko “to fit your habits,” on the other hand, getting used to one of the departments, it will be difficult on another topic. I will not describe the navigation on each topic, but to be honest, we really tried and made it beautifully.
Perhaps the most unusual, functional and quick theme is the GSmart Touch theme theme - text lines (messages, music, photos, etc.) are displayed on the main desktop along which a transparent frame moves under the action of a finger. By selecting the desired item, you can use a horizontal stroke to select an action for this menu. A nice feature turned out to be an additional menu on the taskbar - a pop-up window (when you click on the cross), where you can change the brightness on the go, rotate the screen, adjust the profile, melodies and even something else. There are widgets - to make it very beautiful and for specific requirements - everything has to work out of the box, although I prefer third-party software, which has been tested for years and under which you can always find a lot of tasty things on the forums;)
And yet, the beauty is beautiful, and the WM interface unveiled in many places is already really pretty tired - the sms, mail, settings window is brrr.
Soft and performance
Swiping between the screens of desktops is not so willingly and smoothly, as we would like, but also without brakes. The rest of the animation is quite pleasant. Sometimes there are small slowdowns, they are felt, but the nerves do not pluck)
From non-standard WM-software found SPB Backup, NF Browser, Voice Commander and PRO.City. The first program is for backup, the last one is like a navigator, but it was just a trial version, which I was late for :)
Voice Commaner allows you to control the device by voice - regular commands are recognized well, but for some reason they did not work everywhere. For example, by launching a player with a voice and going to the main menu, I did not manage to pause playback with the appropriate command.
NF Browser (NetFront) - it is possible that this browser has already met somewhere, but I saw it for the first time. After 10 minutes of its use, I, of course, put on a more familiar Opera, but, one has to admit, it is not bad at all.
First, it processes the layout pretty well. Secondly, it allows you to conveniently navigate through the open page. But what's inconvenient - the convenience of the location of the elements is almost absent. No address bar - the page address must be entered in a separate window, where you must specify the http protocol, etc. )
I liked the radio - looking at it, for some reason, I remembered the Pocket Player. We insert the headset, launch the application and a playlist appears in front of us, instead of track names in which the names of radio stations are presented over the entire range. Very convenient, the management itself also liked.
The camera (3.2 megapixels with autofocus) is launched by pressing a button on the end, after which you can take a picture with the same button, with the button in the center of the bottom of the phone, or by moving the corresponding element on the screen; The most convenient option is the central button.
It's bad that after the shutter is released, the camera thinks for about a second - in this case, the sharpness of the moving objects disappears. For the rest, it fotkaet quite well - with a maximum resolution of 2048x1536. Several effects are available - sepia, negative and a couple of other “light filters”. Well, a few settings, such as white balance, exposure compensation, sensitivity, etc.
You can shoot clips with a resolution of 640x480. What is nice - there is a front camera that allows you to hold all sorts of conferences. Anyone, by the way, ever spent? :)
Sample photo:
Video example (True, 320x240; 2Mb)
Everything else, in principle, is typical of WM-communicators. As for working time, in standby mode, the phone easily withstands a little more than a week, and with very active use - two days, sometimes a little more. A good indicator is that with similar devices (HTC Diamond, it is on the same hardware platform) the operating time is slightly longer, but the screen is smaller there.
Check weighing
pros
- miniUSB connector;
- Compact size and low weight;
- Practical case materials and excellent assembly;
- Bright screen with high resolution;
- Good performance;
- Support for memory cards;
Minuses
- Despite the “finger-optimized” latest WM, the stylus is sometimes very necessary;
- There is no hole for the lace and 3.5mm audio jack; no camera flash;
- No navigation software included;
- Small brakes are sometimes found;
With all the pros and cons mentioned above, the price of the device starts from 14,800 rubles.
Price dynamics with Yandex.Market:
Total
Despite the non-core device for the company, it definitely succeeded. For this price, you can find devices similar in functionality, but almost all of them will lose in something (except, perhaps, for the software component “out of the box”). The same Witu and HTC Touch2 lose at least on the parameters of the screen, which GSmart has at its height. If the company's engineers were not too lazy and put on a full marafet, then the “stranger” would be on equal footing with the competitors. However, you can finish the software yourself - for that, many WM hate)
In the meantime, I got the impression that the device was designed for tech-savvy girls - who have little functionality of regular mobile phones, but who don’t want to carry a huge candy bar. At the same time, all kinds of beautiful only confirm this) However, there is no clear sex on the phone. As for the quality of workmanship - a solid five, was pleasantly surprised. The rest is another communicator, albeit a very pleasant one)
At its price, the balance of the device looks favorably against the background of any Witu, which are increasingly difficult to find on store shelves. But against the background of a developing androyd, a small operating system, it is becoming more and more difficult to work out your bread. So the device is for WM fans who need a good screen and adequate performance, but no money for some HD2 or Acer neoTouch)
Successes!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/81535/
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