Hands-On: HTC Athena / Dopod U1000

HTC Athena / Dopod U1000

HTC Athena / Dopod U1000

HTC Athena / Dopod U1000

Earlier this week Dopod Hong Kong announced the U1000. Based on the HTC Athena reference design, the U1000 is basically a Hong Kong version of T-Mobile's Ameo. Dopod warned that not all features (especially GPS) can be used in all markets, even with manual setup. They claimed that regional versions differ not only in language packs and themes but other subtle system registry differences that users have no access to.

The 624Mhz Intel Bulverde CPU worked well, but actual performance appeared to be more limited by the 128MB RAM. This is especially apparent when loading up the camera. Loading files from the 256MB ROM and the 4GB miniSDHC are noticeably faster than from the 8GB MicroDrive hard disk. When you save a file, the device will prompt you to choose between the ROM or the MicroDrive.

It might not be truly fair to comment on the streaming video quality, as that depends heavily on individual network coverage, but with that said, everything seemed to work just as it should. Don't expect too much from the ATI W2284 graphics chip, however, as it didn't really seem to make much of a difference in video quality. Since we didn't get to test the U1000's gaming abilities, we'll give the W2284 the benefit of the doubt for now. Also, the native VGA TV-out worked flawlessly, and the system does not slow down at all when TV-out is on.

The keypad was far from great, much to our disappointment. Tactile feedback was inadequate and the connection with the device was not always reliable. The magnet mechanism that holds the keyboard over the screen as a cover worked well, though.

HTC Athena / Dopod U1000

HTC Athena / Dopod U1000

HTC Athena / Dopod U1000

 

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