Asus P750 review

Asus P750 Review

Reviewed by: Sandra Vogel

Reviewed on: 30 January 2008

Asus provides two GPS-aware applications. Location Courier allows you to send an SMS containing your latitude and longitude to up to five recipients at once. You can send messages manually or set the software up to automatically send positioning information at regular time intervals. The second application, called Travelog, captures your GPS footprint as you travel. This can be exported in a format appropriate for use with Google Earth.

The P750 also has two cameras. The front-mounted VGA-resolution camera above the screen is designed primarily for video calling, while the the main camera is on the back of the device. This is a 3-megapixel unit that lacks both a self-portrait mirror and a flash, but offers a good range of settings -- for a handheld -- and an autofocus mode.

The autofocus mode comes in handy when using the WorldCard application, which converts a photo of a business card into an entry in the Contacts database. This works surprisingly well.

Another business-focused application is the rather obliquely titled Ur Time, which can put up to five world clocks on the Windows Mobile Today screen. In a similar vein, Meeting Time Planner can juxtapose a set time in up to three world cities on-screen, allowing you to find suitable times for meetings or phone calls. Simple, but potentially useful for international travellers.

Other bundled applications include Remote Presenter, which lets you control PowerPoint presentations via Bluetooth; an RSS reader; a backup and restore utility; MySecrets for keeping documents, pictures and video in a password-protected area; and a graphical icon-driven alternative to the Windows Mobile Today screen.

Performance
Although we've not seen the 520MHz before, it performed well during our tests. Applications launched quickly, and we could keep several programs open at once without noticing any significant performance degradation.

As far as the P750's battery life is concerned, Asus claims 6 hours of 2G talk, and 240 hours of 3G standby. You can alter the processor speed to conserve power, with four settings available: Turbo Mode, Standard Mode and Power Saving Mode are supplemented by an Automatic Mode that adjusts the processor speed according to its loading.

We used Automatic Mode in our battery test, which involved setting the P750 to play music non-stop from a microSD card with the screen forced to remain on. Under these conditions, the device managed just over 12 hours.

This is impressive battery life for a Windows Mobile 6 Professional device, although realistic usage patterns involving a mixture of GPS, Wi-Fi and 3G mean that you'll be lucky to achieve it in practice.

Conclusion
The Asus P750 may be chunky, but it packs in a huge array of features. Combined with an equally impressive software bundle, the result is an excellent multifunction handheld that should appeal to a wide range of mobile professionals.

Additional editing by Shannon Doubleday