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Paul Reviews... the UBiQUiO 501


Guest PaulOBrien

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I've had the 501 for over 6 months now. Overall I am happy however some bugs have seeped in.

The keys are starting to wear and the characters arent all entirely visible. This isnt too bad as I remember where things are however even worse the keys are sticking or not working totally correctly, leaving text messages like :

"hiii immm neeeeeeely theeereree. Seee ou soon x"

You can of course still use the on screen keyboard but that leaves you with a screen the size of a 1999 mobile phone.

- the cpu is incredibly slow, it just about manages Tom Tom 6.

- Dont expect it to manage video of a higher quality than streaming gprs.

- the casing is incredibly creaky.

- the firmware needed attention on purchase

- the screen is soft and pressure seems to discolour the screen like an old plasma

- the soft screen is easier to scratch that its brothers

- the recessed screen collects dirt and grease like a scoop and is hard to clean.

- the text on the keys wears off slowly.

- People think it's a blackerry

- no docking station.

- no case

- one extending stylus supplied

- typically poor camera for Pocket PC's.

+ incredibly thin

+ good size

+ mass storage

+ high quality, bright display

+ compact jack of all trade design

+ sturdy from knocks

+ no moving parts to worry about breaking (keypads)

+ manages built in msn messenger, Internet explorer and hotmail / SMS texts, almost at the same time. On WIfi. Not bad for a slow CPU.

+ reasonable battery life. I manage a weekend of usage without a recharge. (easily manages a 5 hour trip with tom tom & phone running)

+ Can be charged from a usb / pc connection which is handy for work.

+ reasonable costs.

+ most stable pocket pc with phone i've used.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Guest dt_matthews

Just to say:

Expansys now have a free wm6 upgrade for the 501 -- has anyone tried it and got any comments on how it went and how the device performs post-upgrade etc?

Cheers,

dan

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Just to say:

Expansys now have a free wm6 upgrade for the 501 -- has anyone tried it and got any comments on how it went and how the device performs post-upgrade etc?

Cheers,

dan

Installed it on mine after reading your post. looks slightly better, works much the same. Installation process was faultless for me though I did lose my mobile memory / contacts so its worth backing these up first.

comes with three themes, dark blue, guava red and wm6 green. slight improvements to IE and media player though the CPU is too slow to be useful for anything good.

Thankfully still compatible with tom tom 6 i was running on wm5 though all the GPS settings, gprs, mms, email and wifi settings, need to be readded.

Feels slightly more rigid in terms of software but unless you're taking advantage of the HTML mail and anything more technical in the new release, dont expect anything much more than an asthetic facelift.

Personally speaking, I don't see how this is justified as a seperate release rather than just a firmware update to wm5.

With all the hype wm6 received I am a bit disappointed but I'm sure somebody who knows more of what it's capable of will be able to give you a better idea.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Guest surfturtle

DO NOT BUY Ubiquio 501 or i-mate JAQ3

they work great if you just want to use office applications but it will not run any games except for the really simple ones like solitaire.

I tried running 50 games on it and only one worked properly.

There is a problem with the graphics driver which causes problem in games and video playback. There is no official solution for it. And I could not find help for it anywhere else either.

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Guest MitchellO
I tried running 50 games on it and only one worked properly.

Mate it is pretty obvious that most games won't work on them because they are landscape devices. Most games are designed for portrait 240x320 only, so to say don't buy them for that reason is ludicrous.

Edited by MitchellO
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Guest surfturtle

I enabled the portrait mode on my Ubiquio 501 and it still the games would not run properly. The games do load but there is some problem with the graphics driver which makes the games extremely slow. Its so slow infact that it seems like your watching a slowmontion replay.

This is a Pocket PC not a smartphone which means it will run the games in whichever mode they are designed. This is not an issue for games which are designed to be played by the stylus but in some games where keys are required there might be a comfort issue since you will need to titl the phone to view it properly and the keys will be out of reach. But apart from that landscape and portrait is not an isse with Pocket PCs.

I have an imate JAM and k-jam and I use the same games in both landscape and portrait modes without any problem.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Goodness! Looking at my previous post in this forum it looks like I have had my Ubiquio 501 for nearly a year now. In the interim I have upgraded the firmware twice with the official builds to its current Windows Mobile 6. The fact that I have not moved on to another phone is a testament to how well it suits my needs. I just wanted to add a few comments to ipub's 6 month view:

The keys are starting to wear and the characters arent all entirely visible.

The print on only one of my keys is starting to wear down, especially the 'alt' key in the lower left corner which switches from number to alphabet mode on the keyboard. This is pretty good for a phone which I leave in my pocket with no case at all.

This isnt too bad as I remember where things are however even worse the keys are sticking or not working totally correctly, leaving text messages like :

"hiii immm neeeeeeely theeereree. Seee ou soon x"

I don't have a problem with my keyboard except for that 'alt' key which means that my sentences come out "I''' -11 (") -""?J" instead of "I'll see you soon!" It means I have to keep an eye on the screen rather than just bash out the text quickly.

- the cpu is incredibly slow, it just about manages Tom Tom 6.

- Dont expect it to manage video of a higher quality than streaming gprs.

320x240 video in mpg or wmv just doesn't run smoothly using Windows Media Player or TCPMP unless you use a very low framerate. I find that I just encode video into 3GP and that seems to work fine.

- no docking station.

- no case

It may not come with a docking station, but they do exist. I have the one without the extra battery slot.

It has been a year and I am still very happy with the device. It is easily the most stable Windows Mobile PPC phone I have ever used. Now, of course, I am starting to itch for something new, and could do with 3.5G rather than GPRS...

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  • 4 years later...
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