vma
3rd May 2007, 06:29 PM
Hi,
I finally got an Athena in my hands today (no I did not buy it, just tested it in the store).
Here is what I have to say - bear in mind that I have an BA (Qtek 9090) for more than 2 years and for about one month I have an Universal.
1) Screen: fantastic! Big, 640x480, bright. But... I thought it was 800x600? Anyway, the screen looks much better than the one of my Universal.
2) Keyboard: when I first saw pictures and read about the "magnetic" keyboard, my first thought was: what a piece of shit! It will never hold... Today I was corrected: the magnets are great and it is very stable. Unfortunatly I could not try it out as a cover/in closed state, due to the security-device of the store, which was glued on the inside of the keyboard.
3) Software: it had WM5 installed. Hmmm... my Universal is running WM6. WM5 is yesterday! I checked the HTC webpage and there is a new Athena model, with the only difference being the shipped WM6. This is at least ridiculous! Can existing Athena customers upgrade? The one I had did have a portuguese WM5, which was nice to see. If they bring out a portuguese WM6 for Athena, could that be used in some way for my Universal's cooked WM6?
4) Features: I did not try the camera and the GPS receiver did not work inside the store, but the feature-list is impressive.
Overall opinion:
Good
- screen is fabulous
- keyboard seems ok, even being attached by magnets only
- impressive hardware specs (CPU, RAM, GPS, WLAN, etc.)
Bad
- should have WM6
- only few pre-installed programs
- and... IT IS BIG, IT IS REALLY BIG
If you thought that the Universal is big - take a look at the Athena!
This is not a phone, it is a small tablet PC.
And here is the problem: I think it is cheaper/more functional to purchase an Asus R2H and a regular phone (or just stick to the Universal).
This way you get a real tablet PC (a small one), but with Windows XP, which means you actually get software for it!
1100 Euro is a lot of money for this device.
Cheers,
vma
I finally got an Athena in my hands today (no I did not buy it, just tested it in the store).
Here is what I have to say - bear in mind that I have an BA (Qtek 9090) for more than 2 years and for about one month I have an Universal.
1) Screen: fantastic! Big, 640x480, bright. But... I thought it was 800x600? Anyway, the screen looks much better than the one of my Universal.
2) Keyboard: when I first saw pictures and read about the "magnetic" keyboard, my first thought was: what a piece of shit! It will never hold... Today I was corrected: the magnets are great and it is very stable. Unfortunatly I could not try it out as a cover/in closed state, due to the security-device of the store, which was glued on the inside of the keyboard.
3) Software: it had WM5 installed. Hmmm... my Universal is running WM6. WM5 is yesterday! I checked the HTC webpage and there is a new Athena model, with the only difference being the shipped WM6. This is at least ridiculous! Can existing Athena customers upgrade? The one I had did have a portuguese WM5, which was nice to see. If they bring out a portuguese WM6 for Athena, could that be used in some way for my Universal's cooked WM6?
4) Features: I did not try the camera and the GPS receiver did not work inside the store, but the feature-list is impressive.
Overall opinion:
Good
- screen is fabulous
- keyboard seems ok, even being attached by magnets only
- impressive hardware specs (CPU, RAM, GPS, WLAN, etc.)
Bad
- should have WM6
- only few pre-installed programs
- and... IT IS BIG, IT IS REALLY BIG
If you thought that the Universal is big - take a look at the Athena!
This is not a phone, it is a small tablet PC.
And here is the problem: I think it is cheaper/more functional to purchase an Asus R2H and a regular phone (or just stick to the Universal).
This way you get a real tablet PC (a small one), but with Windows XP, which means you actually get software for it!
1100 Euro is a lot of money for this device.
Cheers,
vma