Glisten Review Part 2

   In my last post on the new iPAQ Glisten, I focused on the unboxing and hardware aspects of the phone (go here to check it out). In this post, I’ll review some of the basic WinPho (or is it still WinMo?) capabilities. I easily connected with it to my WiFi network, downloaded a few programs from the new Windows Marketplace, checked my e-mail and briefly surfed the web. I also uploaded some pix, videos, and music to the phone. The Glisten is very responsive, and I have had no major issues with it thus far (locking or hanging up). Still, the Windows Phone operating system can still prove frustrating every now and then, and some glitches did appear. Read on to learn more about my experience with this new Windows Phone from HP.

Connecting to the Glisten

I connected the Glisten to my Windows 7 Gateway laptop through the included USB cable (micro B port on the Glisten), and after a brief system tray alert indicating that the new device was being configured, up pops the Windows Mobile Device Center. I had installed a 1GB microSD card when installing the battery, so wanted to add some tunes and some off-the-shelf WinMo programs for testing as well.

I chose not to set any DC sync-specific settings (contacts, calendar or e-mail), but I did allow my device to connect without configuring. This gives you the ability to use your PC’s network connection to pass through and connect to the internet on your phone. It is handy if you may not have cell coverage (or WiFi) in an area but still want to move files from the PC or connect to the PC-connected network (i.e., the PC has a wired Internet connection available). This is probably a good idea for new phone users in general. This way you can register your device, get updates, install and backup programs and sync data all before actually connecting to a cell or WiFi network for the first time. You can buy, set up and use a Windows Phone, and never use DC, but it has some worth if you want to sync data between your desktop and device. The app running in front of DC in the screenshot above, and almost the first app I install on every WinMo device is My Mobiler. It’s a great way to control your device from your PC and get good screen shots. Even works over WiFi. The main program runs in your system tray, and works fine in Windows 7. Part of running/connecting will initialize a small client app install on your device. It is compatible with WinMo 6.5 as well.

Mail

I personally do not use a client-side application for mail in Windows (I tried using Evolution in Ubuntu, but over time forgot about it). I use the Chrome browser and gmail (meaning the web app mostly), so syncing mail and contacts from my home PC (any of them) using Outlook and DC is out of the question. I use Outlook at work, but my work-related mobile mail service is through my Blackberry, and security aspects make it difficult to use non-RIM devices. I used the old-fashioned method of configuring my gmail account on the Glisten (I presume POP).

The Windows Phone 6.5 OS is a little easier to configure in the internet mail department than previous versions. There are still a bunch of tiny settings screens to sift through afterward, however. I noted that the home screen did not show the latest mail message I had received after the initial configuration, and mails were not automatically updating. I finally scrapped trying to use the native internet mail configuration and configured Google Sync instead (still in beta).

This allows you to use Active Sync on your device to connect to Google’s Exchange mail services (go here for setup info). One thing that would make Windows device configuration less painful is a smarter input correction program. When entering FQDN info, e-mail addresses, etc. it is annoying when the word completion tries to add words to your entries (.com becomes .complete). I also noted that the lock screen was not reporting the correct number of new mails (it said 4, when I actually had 35)? Google Sync is in beta, but I don't think this was the problem, since the home screen was reporting the correct number. Also, it seems that sometimes the updates just stop, well updating, which I now have to troubleshoot…sigh.

Adding Multimedia

  I wanted to throw some music on the Glisten, some pix, and videos as well, and here again was chagrined to get erratic results. Windows Media Player will let you easily drag-n-drop multimedia files to your device (so it would seem), but not ones on other shared media libraries (my computer in the  basement, for example), which would be infinitely cooler.

I grabbed some local music, vid, and pix files and dragged them to the storage card I installed, which shows up separately from the Glisten’s own storage (The Glisten provides 512MB of internal device ROM). You can add up to 32GB of external storage via MicroSD.

Several pix didn’t show up in my pix library for some reason (in both the WM picture app and on the today screen plug-in)? The videos and music worked fine, and I was able to view and play them in the mobile WMP library, but about half dozen pictures that were moved would not show in the pix and video app. I was able to browse to the card using the HP Photosmart app, and view the pix, but not sure why only 4 pix seem to show up in the native application, other than they were in a separate sub-directory labeled “MISC”?

Maybe the Picture and Video app only interrogates a single directory at a time…? Windows Media Player video is not featured as a home screen plug-in, and you have to hunt the honeycomb to find the full player app, however when you select the Music plug-in, a soft-key item to go the Library will appear in the lower right corner. It would be nice if you could configure the home screen plug-in to display/browse different library media types. WMP has not changed appreciably since previous versions (which is somewhat a strike against it).

Installing and Running Apps 

Finally, I decided to go check out a few programs on the Marketplace, and this is definitely the bright spot in this post. The Marketplace is surprisingly easy to use on a scrunched screen. I was able to find apps, and with a minimal amount of fuss, install them on the Glisten. Gesture based navigation and large selectors help a lot here. I saw a small status bar while the apps were being installed, and nothing more. Perfect! I chose a semi-free golf game called Par 72 Golf (3 holes are playable, but you have to buy the game to play more), and Google maps.

Both ran fine and in this regard, the small AMOLED screen presents very clear, smooth rendering of animated graphics at 16-bit QVGA resolution that is better than my Curve. I wish I could drag the map display around with a finger on my BB the way I can on the Glisten. I was even able to run some of my old PPC games (see Interstellar Flames below), though some wouldn’t run or crashed the phone (resulting in my only reset so far). Obviously not the fault of the phone, as they were not designed to run at a screen size and orientation that is supported on the Glistem (a 2.5” diagonal screen).

Like the iPAQs of yore, the central buttons still work pretty well for game controlling, though they are a bit more cramped than I prefer (the ancient iPAQ 3900 had the best D-Pad in my opinion). In this area, I give the iPAQ Glisten better marks than the HTC Pure I recently reviewed. Alas, the new iPAQ (or WinMo) has no multi-touch capability, which is definitely a detractor for apps that could benefit from it (like Maps). The screen is better at detecting gestures than taps, but will occasionally refuse to do either. At any rate, apps start fast in WinMo 6.5 on the Glisten, and are generally peppy compared to earlier HP hardware I have used (the phone has an ample 256MB of SDRAM). I am not including the new WinMo web browser in this description. I am reserving judgment for my next post, when I will cover it more fully. My first impression was one of very sluggish behavior, but want to evaluate it using both Cell and WiFi connections.

Wrap-up

Well, the Glisten is so far a mixed bag, to be sure. Good things to be said for the sharp screen and thumb keyboard. The 6.5 OS runs quite well in a general sense, but is pretty minimalist for this phone. I haven’t really gotten round to the AT&T apps yet, but will start testing them in the final post. I have mixed feelings about the glitches I have encountered, because I know that with time and research there will be fixes and workarounds, but a new user will likely not share this attitude. The phone still appeals to me in many ways, but messaging and one-handed actions are still hobbled by the occasional tiny selection on the screen that will require stylus input, though there has been improvement in this regard. I am at this time giving it a overall thumbs up on hardware features, but software implementation is a 50-50 proposition, IMHO. WinMo experts and iPAQ lovers can somewhat overlook these issues, but new users should consider this carefully. I’ll probably post at least one more post on the Glisten (maybe 2 considering how long the next one is), with a basic round-up, so stay tuned.