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T-Mobile MDA Vario III CoPilot Review

Hardware PDA

Written by admin

Monday, 28 April 2008

Page 2 of 2

Applications

Apart from the standard OS applications, such as Windows Live services, Windows Media player, Office Mobile (Word Excel and PowerPoint, which allow full editing), T-Mobile provide a couple of extras that are also found on the TyTN II.

These include a QuickGPS utility - for speeding up signal acquisition time - a WinZip style program, F-Secure Mobile Anti-Virus, audio manager, streaming media software for playing back You-Tube style videos and a basic TouchFlo control system for manipulating your screen.

T-Mobile have even added the useful Co-Pilot Live 7 software to go alongside your GPS receiver....

GPS

The Co-Pilot 7 software itself provides a simple colourful menu for plotting your routes and comes with a safety camera database and live traffic updates via GPRS.

During testing its internal GPS receiver was quick to pick up our location, however we did need to use the QuickGPS utility to boost its signal acquisition time.

Route wise the internal GPS receiver was more than capable of keeping up with our cars location and though we did not get chance to test the device in sunny conditions, the Vario III's screen did not give off that many reflections, but like we mentioned on the TyTN II review its lack of anti-glare coating may prove a problem in the summer months.

There was no text-to-speech option for speaking back road names, but its standard directions were well spoken.

General Performance

Generally the 400Mhz CPU, 116mb of storage and 66MB of free system memory could easily power the unit.

Its camera however was not so impressive, though the shot times were good and you could switch to the front facing camera for portrait shots, its image quality indoors was extremely poor for a 3MP camera and probably a result of the lack of flash support.

For mobile web browsing you have dual Wi-Fi or 3G HSDPA support and both made short work of rendering webpages, though again T-Mobile have provided a shortcut button to access their Web and Walk service, so you can get weather forecasts, access to music and YouTube videos from the front home page.

We could playback music and videos without any problems, but the internal speaker was a touch on the weedy side when it came to anything resembling base.

Battery performance was not bad, though the Li-Po 1350 mAh ratted battery feels a touch underpowered considering the sheer amount of features the device has to handle, however if you cut back on the Wi-Fi and 3G suffering you will get a few days good use out of the phone before a re-charge is needed.

T-Mobile claim a Talk time of up to 3 hr 15 mins and a standby time of up to 216hrs.

Contracts

For all the contract prices on Web n Walk, please follow this link here. (Note this places the T-mobile Vario III in a basket so it can display the tariffs).

Editor review : Final thoughts

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful


Overall rating		8.6
Features		8.0
Design		8.0
Memory		9.0
Connectivity		9.0
Performance		9.0

The T-Mobile MDA Vario III provides a good alternative to the sim-free HTC TyTN II.

The same specification is still evident, with a strong performing GPS receiver and respectable memory, but the silver finish of the Vario looks a lot better than the HTC.

It's just a pity about the weight and poor 3MP camera.

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