Sharp W-ZERO3 mini-review
Engadget Japanese brings us some hands-on impressions of Sharp's W-ZERO3 for Willcom in Japan. Opera v8.5 (with an improved rendering engine) is available for the unit, and it is the first version of Opera designed specifically for Windows Mobile 5.0. The W-ZERO3 also takes advantage of Willcom's new W-SIM technology. The browser offers a pleasurable experience with tabs and smooth operation even while loading pages, yet the keyboard takes some getting used to. And there's still no Bluetooth. Click on for the rest of our impressions.
The above is an image of Engadget Japanese in the function-limited version of Opera, with full-screen and screen size matching. This is what it looks like without any sort of magnification or shrinking, as is one feature of Opera.
Although the screenshot itself is a bit smaller than the actual rendering (making the characters a bit fuzzy), the real thing is as easy to read as you see in the shot at the right.
Rendering is quick (as quick as your connection speed, anyway), and even on pages busy with images, there are no problems with navigation. When you scroll, space is reserved for images that haven't loaded to be filled in later. Because more preference is given to painting the part of the document you're currently on, navigating even long documents presents no problems. Likewise, as long as you don't run out of memory, there are no issues with loading large documents in multiple windows and changing between them via the task switch. The function-limited version is temporary; Opera expects to put out a fully featured version on January 15th.
A screenshot of the same page was taken using Internet Explorer, but since there is nothing to compare, it has not been included.
(Taking a screenshot is done by pushing Fn Shift C, and is saved as a bitmap file directly under "My Device" instead of My Documents, sequentially numbered with SCRN00xx.)
A comparison with a Nintendo DS, for some reason. The "too big for a mobile phone" W-ZERO3 can hide in the shadow of the gigantic DS.
The thicknesses are similar. It is a number of millimeters thinner and overwhelmingly lighter, so under normal circumstances, one-handed uses isn't a problem. However, we'd certainly forgive them if they decided to put Bluetooth in the next model, regardless of how awkward or heavy it becomes.
The keyboard backlight is brighter than this picture makes it out to be. The offset of each key row isn't something we noticed until we tried (half) touch-typing, after getting used to the original layout (as shown in the above picture, the E key sits immediately above the S key, for example). At first, things were all the more difficult as we tried to use just our fingertips to type, but we then found that you can use the flat of your finger without accidentally inputting two keys at the same time. Since there are those of you out there with large fingers and hands, this is something you'll have to try on a display unit.
It was no use trying to take a screenshot of this feature, but playback of 640 x 480 DivX files at 25 frames per second with 128kbps MP3 audio was possible under the TCPMP media player. However (at least by default), since the framerate drops in scenes with a lot of movement, you'll want to drop down the image quality to something lower than the default when you're watching VGA-quality video or something with a lot of action. Subtitles can be read even with the image quality at "Low."
Displaying Engadget under Opera:
And in portrait mode.
It's easy to see the, uh, ads.
We haven't really used the phone portion too much yet, but for the time being, all we can say is that "we were able to talk normally." Our apologies.
A bonus. The included soft sleeve is nice in that it includes a protection sheet, but it's extremely tight; we were unable to take the W-ZERO3 out of there even after violently shaking it. So you'll want something else. So let's try using this soft case.
It's a tad big, but the thickness is just right, so it has a nice and loose fit to it. It's good for when you put it in your bag.
One issue we did happen to notice is if you were to jiggle the screen in a particular direction other than the track on which it normally slides, you'll find it is relatively loose. While at the WPC Expo, Willcom said they'd fix this, but the way it closes hasn't really been improved at all. Manufacturing discrepancies means that individual models may vary; it's not really a problem under practical use, but we're concerned about the way the slide operates in the long term. Finding a balance that allows for easy opening and closing is difficult, but this is something we'd like to see made tighter. Of course, too tight isn't really good either.
The digital camera on the unit is at the "it's just there" level, below even digital cameras of other mobile phones that have the same pixel count. It's fine if you're just taking 1.3MP pictures (such as scenery, portraits, or conveying the atmosphere), and certainly not giving out surrealistic images, but we'd at least like to be able to use macro mode and take character for quick memo pictures and such.
[Via Engadget Japanese]
