Box Contents

Inside our review box we got an AC Adaptor, Mini USB cable, Stereo Headset, Manual, Quick Reference Guide and ActiveSync CD with Outlook.

Specs

• Processor: TI OMAP 750 200 MHz
• OS: Windows Mobile 6 Professional (Upgraded from WM 5.0)
• Keyboard: QWERTY
• Network: GSM900 / DCS1800/PCS1900, GPRS Class 10
• Size: 122 x 65 x 13.5mm (ultra slim)
• Weight: 135g
• Memory: 128 MB ROM + 64MB RAM
• Display: 2.5" QVGA 65K Colour TFT
• Camera: 2M Pixel CMOS camera
• Battery: 1250mAh Li-Ion
• Connectivity: IrDA / Bluetooth 1.2 with A2DP / Wi-Fi(802.11b/g) / mini USB (1.1)
• External Storage: mini SD
• Messaging: SMS / WAP / MMS / Java (MIDP2.0)
• Applications: Pocket Office (Word / Excel / PowerPoint), Pocket IE / MSN

Design

The MWg UBiQUiO 501 still looks cosmetically appealing, though its a lot larger than say a traditional mobile device. However it does provide a rather slim profile and its weight is evenly balanced - when held one or two handed.

Around the sides of the phone you will find a 2.5mm headphone socket, infra red port, mini USB connector and a miniSD expansion port at the top (with a protective cover in place). The latter shows off the devices age, as most devices these days provide microSD expansion.

You won't find a jog wheel, but beneath the 2.5" screen lays a backlit Qwerty keyboard, which has large well spaced keys that offer great feedback when typing emails, compiling documents or inputting texts and is one of the best reasons to purchase the device.

Its 2.5" screen is on the small side, however it remains vibrant and is also touch sensitive, so with the aid of the stylus pen you can manipulate the WM6 content quite easily.

Performance

General performance was never going to be earth shattering, especially with a 200Mhz CPU and the 501 certainly produces a delay when loading large complex emails, images or applications into its 64MB memory.

After a while the device does settle down and it’s not enough to stop you from using the device effectively when emailing.

From a multimedia point of view it could not cope with our high-quality wmv test video, so encoding in 3gp or a lower bit rate is required if you want to watch movies on the fly.

The 2MP camera lacks a self-portrait mirror and flash, which certainly did not help with its image quality, though on a positive side Its camera shot times were pretty quick

With a 1250mAh battery it may sound feeble but there are not that many hi-end features to zap its life and it should give you around a day of high use or several days of light/moderate use.

Software/Connectivity

For emailing you have Exchange Direct push support and being WM6 professional it could handle full rendering of html emails (within mobile Outlook), with all images and hyperlinks displaying correctly. Plus you have the full editing capabilities of the Office Mobile applications at your disposal (Word Excel, Powerpoint).

Other than this you will only find the standard WM6 apps supplied, such as Windows Live, Media Player and mobile IE.

Form a connectivity point of view the device is a 50 - 50. Primarily you use GPRS for the majority of tasks, which is fine for emailing to a certain degree, but its lack of 3G/EDGE support will be a bigger problem for web browsing.

On a positive note you do get dual Wi-Fi support and this does make a big difference with the later and is useful for pulling down large email attachments.