If Only I Had It

Gizmodo has done a review for the PocketSurfer 2, and it turned out to be more negative than positive for all of its features. They broke it down into a few points here as follows after the jump:

The Gadget - It is a handheld Internet browsing device that uses poor GPRS data connection. We’re all talking about 3G or higher G nowadays, but PocketSurfer 2 is still using GPRS. Well, although it’s an good alternative at places where you can’t find WiFi to hook up, but GPRS is really damn slow in speed. Anyway, the PocketSurfer 2 is claimed to have additional compression technology incorporated which makes surfing Internet over extremely slow GPRS data connection much speedier than usual. Datawind seems to be working for implementing an accelerated form of GPRS, but the gadget can only support in its version 3.

The Build - They claim that it’s not a gadget that fits well into your pocket as the entire device measures 152 x 75 x 15 mm, meaning it’s a little bit too big in size to go comfortably in your pocket. The 640 x 240 screen resolution wouldn’t give a good experience of browsing especially when coming to view high-res images. There is a little positive view on its full QWERTY keyboard, but you need some time to get used to it if you aren’t familiar with RAZR-type keypads. But once you’re about getting used to it and clicking, it seems to work extremely well if you ain’t mind about the clicking sound. And the backlights seem to be kind of annoying!

Getting Around - Poor navigation, no scroll wheel, you can only rely on the four-way direction pad to get you around webpages, which is kind of not feasible on a device with 5.2? wide screen. Generally, the gadget is kind of good-to-hold. But the gadget has some poor quality such as ports that do not fit well when inspected thoroughly.

Functionality -The Datawind compression software that helps speed up the poor GPRS connection seems to be in consistent and buggy, such as startup is lengthy and a number of occasions failed to connect such as time out or server error. (Well, sounds similar to what I’ve faced with certain 3G modems ocassionally). But when it does work, the compression and caching works impressively fast for a GPRS connection. Besides, the connection problem, the browser is also short of form of video codec compatibility and of course the screen as mentioned sucks with high-res images and provides no way to zoom out to get the whole picture. Surprisingly, Google maps seem to work well on the few occasions it loads up without fault, thanks to proper pseudo-GPS information.

Overall, it fails to gain the love of the Gizmodo guy. Well, I strongly agree that the device is behind in terms of technology implemented. Especially with its data connection relying on poor GPRS and depends on software caching and compression, hoping to get the users to feel the Internet connection is fast on it. Well, advanced users nowadays will need to have multiple screens and streaming data simultaneously, making use of software will definitely fail to handle mass data transmission. I bet the device would be taking lots of processor resources or burning hot while you’re having heavy download on it.

For the price, Pocketsurfer 2 is available for £179.98 in UK, with 20 hours of web surfing/month included in the asking price. For those in the States, it will be made available via T-Mobile for $29.99 per month for unlimited data plan, but will be bound with a 12 month contract. And the hardware will cost an additional $299.