HTC 7501 First Impressions

I live and work in the Czech Republic. For about a year I owned a QTEK 9000. It was a wonderful phone. But it wasn't fast enough for me. I pretty much filled it up and when I would add a program it slowed down the phone a lot. I had been watching the HTC Athena very carefully in all the development stages.

I bought a Sony Vaio UX series UMPC with Vista installed. The QTEK was always somewhat problimatic when using it as a modem for a laptop. The long and short was I couldn't make it work as a modem at all with the Vista machine.

I decided not to buy the HTC 7500 because it was WM 5.0. And it was my experience that WM 5.0 was just incompatible with Vista, certainly using the phone as a modem. Also, with 5.0 it was impossible to set up a bluetooth pan on the phone.

Blogs announced that the 7501 would be available in the states, first thorugh amazon.com with WM 6.0 installed. I preordered one through Amazon Prime. Fortunately, it arrived at a friend's house in New York the day before he came to Prague. He brought it to me along with a Nokia E90 for a work colleague.

Right out of the box, I was very pleasantly surprised by the size of the 7501. I thought it would be a lot larger than it is. It doesn't seem that much bigger than the QTEK 9000. I'd fretted about how I would carry around the 7501 beast. It fit perfectly in the Lowepro case I'd used for months with the Qtek 9000 (Lowepro D-Res 120) One problem solved.

I fired the 7501 up. Up came the dreaded message: Test Only, Not For Sale. I'd learned about this by watching forums.

First thing I noticed about the 7501, it is like the QTEK 9000 on steroids, crack, and speed all combined. It is very fast. Oh, I forgot to mention. The Qtek died and had to go in the shop. To get by, I bought an HTC s-710, a tiny phone with WM 6.0. It's a SmartPhone. And only connects to the internet at 'G' speed. I made a Bluetooth PAN connection right away to the Vista Vaio, worked perfectly and was easy to set up.

I sat up the Internet with the 7501 and it just flies when your are in an area with fast coverage. It is also very easy to connect to WiFi hotspots. I LOVE the Comm Manager on the WM 6.0 devices. It is quite easy to turn on and off Flight Mode, mode, WiFi, and syncing.

I connected the 7501 to my XP desktop and it snyced up very easily through Active Sync 4.5. It transferred all my contacts, bookmarks, calendar, tasks, and notes. I now have everything completely up to date on both the 7501 and the S-710.

A lot of reviewers have noted there's not much difference between wm 5.0 and 6.0. They are full of balony. There are so many more features on WM 6.0 that aren't on 5.0. For example setting up an email account, you just enter your email address and WM 6.0 offers to try and find the settings for you. Took about two seconds with my gmail account. When I filled in user name and password gmail worked flawlessly. I sat it to sync gmail every 10 minutes. It's just as good as Blackberry as far as I'm concerned and costs nothing. (Over a year ago, I tried to get Blackberry and it wasn't avialable at that time in CZ. Who cares whether it is now?)

I then sat up my my hotmail and windows live accounts. They worked fine.

I work in photography, so I am on the move all day. The 7501 is perfect for me. In the morning, I download my favorite US and UK newspapers into memory. I save all ariticles into text files. Then I take my dogs to a coffee shop, where I read all the articles that interest me. After that we trek up Petrin Hill (where Prague Castle is located) and down again. I used to load the articles on the Vaio. That ended the first morning with the 7501. The Vaio takes ages to load up. With the HTC 7501, you just open it up, and it's running.

I also installed all my SPB programs on the 7501, they work flawlessly. I have the same layout as I had on the QTEK, except I've changed to a windows green color scheme from an artic blue one on the QTEK. Agile messenger did not work. I had to buy a new lifetime service for it, and it took two days to active. Once it was activated, it's worked flawlessly.

So, far, the Achilles heel, if there is one, with the 7501 could be the magnet attached keyboard. When I am taking the 7501 out of or putting it into the case, I feel the two might possibly slip apart, and the phone go crashing to the floor. I am very careful, but mistakes can happen. That said, I think HTC had to face some very severe design choices. I don't see how the 7501 would work with a hinge. Maybe they could have done something like they are showing on the prototypes of the Shift.

A lot of people don't like the 701's keyboard. I think it's great. There is no backlight which is a problem. It does have a very nice tactile feel when punching the keys, regardless of what others have found. The predictive text works wonderfully. It's not a full keyboard, there are many keys that can only be accessed after pressing a function key. These keys are all colored blue, impossible to read in dark lighting. Already, I've memorized the ones I use over and over. Another nice thing: It is quite easy to type handheld. If you require a function key, you depress the function key, and it remains active until after you have pressed entered the key. So, if you have to enter a number, press the function key, you can take your finger away, and then press the number. Same thing happens with the Caps key, it remains active until after you have pressed the next key. You don't have to turn on and off caps lock.

For a couple of days, I thought I'd be able to use the 7501 as my sole phone. It hasn't worked out that way. It pairs quite easily with bluetooth headsets. The voice dialing works pretty well. I like the corded headset, sort of. Quality is much better than Bluetooth. HTC in trying to be helpful, put a 3.5mm headphone jack on the device. That means you can use your highquality earphones with the 7501. Trouble is: All of the corded headsets I've found have come with a 2.5mm jack. While there are lots of adapters for the the 3.5mm female to the 2.5mm male, I'm having a very hard time finding an adapter going from 2.5mm male to 3.5mm female. Hence, I've not been able to use a third party corded headset with the 7501.

With the phone calls, the problems began. Some forum posts stated that with the pre-rlease software, the 7501 would go to sleep and wouldn't come out of sleep unless you hit the hard reset. That wasn't true, it would go to sleep, and you could hit the soft reset button on the back, and it would come back alive. (If you have to hard reset a device, it returns it to factory condition, ereasing everything you've put on the device. Not something that should be done every time a device crashes.) I think it did this to me a couple of times. I am not sure this is true. The 'on off' button on the right side of the device is very easy to press, and I might have accidentially pressed it when putting the device into the pouch. I'm not sure, but I'm keeping an eye on from now on.

I thought I would be able to carry the device in the pouch, and make a phone call by using voice dial from either bluetooth or wired headsets. All my problems would have been solved. Unfortunately, once the device has gone to sleep, voice dialing no longer works until you wake the device up again. Meaning, if you're walking, you have to take it out, assemble the keyboard, and press any button. That's a real bummer. So, far, I've found when there's an incoming call, the 7501 will wake up, and I can answer it from the headset. It has half of what I want.


I contacted HTC support, they wrote back a very helpful letter:

'Thank you for your inquiry in regards to the start up display message "Test Only, Not For Sale" and your HTC advantage X7501.



I can understand your concern to resolved these problems, We'll be more then happy to assist you.



It appears the HTC 7501 you purchased, is running a test version of the Software ROM. To remove this message, please install the software ROM download for this device. This download can be found at: http://www.america.htc.com/support/advantage7501/software-downloads.html

Please make sure to synchronize your device before doing so. All personal settings and data will be lost. Please download Microsoft Activesync 4.5 (for Windows XP & lower) or Windows Mobile Device Center 6.1 (for Windows Vista). Both software works together with Microsoft Outlook to synchronize your data. The link for all three software can also be found at the website link above, please make sure you are using the compatible version.

Please inform HTC if you are still receiving the test display message on boot up. To investigate the matter further, please send your IMEI number and S/N from the back of your device.



We're very sorry to hear once your HTC Advantage X7501 is in sleep mode it is frozen unless the battery is removed. This can be caused by a software or hardware glitch. Please complete the following troubleshooting steps to resolve this issue:

Turn on/ off power save mode.
Soft reset.
Hard(master) reset.
To turn on/ off Power Save:



1. Tap start and select Settings,
2. Select the Systems tab,

3. Tap Power and select the Advanced tab.

4. Under the: On Battery Power option, check/ uncheck: Turn off device if not used for,

5. Select: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 minutes for time out to power save.

6. Once your device has entered power save, please press the power button on your device to re-power your device.



To perform a soft reset

.

Use the stylus to press the RESET button found on the back of the device. Your device restarts and displays the Today screen.


To perform a hard reset

Warning!

Your device will be set back to factory default settings. Please ensure any additional installed programs and/or user data are backed up before a hard reset is performed.


1. Slide the Volume slider down and at the same time, use the stylus to press the RESET button at the back of your device.

2. After a brief period of time, two choices will appear on-screen. Press the CENTER OK button to perform the hard reset.

3. Press the POWER button.

Note If you do not want to perform a hard reset, press the CAMERA button to exit.



You ca locate complete instructions in your User's Manual. For your convenience, This is the direct link: http://www.america.htc.com/support/advantage7501/default.html.

For further assistance with your HTC Advantage X7501, please feel free to contact HTC Advantage Technical Support at: 1-877-878-7922.



I hope we have answered your question in detail. Feel free to contact us again if you have any further questions.



Thank you for contacting HTC Technical Support, Have a excellent day Mr. Higgins.




http://www.america.htc.com/ - HTC's website.

http://www.htcwiki.com/ - HTC's User's base forum '

The problem with this solution is, I would have to hard reset the 7501 and then resinstall everything again. I decided to soldier through with the prerelease software. Then I had what appeared to be a crash, where I had to soft reset before the device would come back on.

Then I received the following email from Amazon.com

Greetings from Amazon.com.

We're writing about your recent purchase of an HTC Advantage 7501 purchased from Amazon.com. We've learned that some units were shipped out with pre-production software. If you received an HTC Advantage from Amazon.com and are experiencing any problems or errors, please be sure to upgrade to the latest firmware/software to avoid issues.

The download URL and instructions can be found on the right side of the following page:

http://www.america.htc.com/products/advantage7501/default.html

We hope this information is helpful. Thank you for shopping at Amazon.com.


Sincerely,

Customer Service
Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/

After that I decided to bite the bullet and do he software update. It took about 15 minutes. Then I had to reinstall all programs and settings. Surprisingly, the entire operation took only a couple of hours.

There were two hitches: I couldn't set up the hotmail and live account again using the WM 6.0 wizzards. Guess they don't want me to use Hotmail and Live.com. I will look on the Live website, when I get around to it, and look for ways to set the account up manually.

With the test software, included was an Opera web browser. I couldn't find it on the final version. However, the IE button was set to Opera, and I'd get a message every time I pressed it saying Opera couldn't be found. That was easy enough to solve, I went into settings and remapped the button to IE.

Then I downloaded the Beta version of Opera. It is valid until October. Truthfully, IE on WM 6.0 has been so improved, I'm not sure how much I'll use the Opera browser. Oh, yes, I downloaded the Opera program over the phone and installed it while having coffee, without using Active Sync. It is also possible to uninstall programs from the 7501 without going through Active Sync. There are some nice things about the Opera Browser 8.65 Beta: Grab and Scroll. Works well! Import IE Bookmarks, also works well. I have not found out how to copy text yet. It was not possible to do this with previous versions. I just did a Google search and found out how to select and copy text with the Beta Opera. Unfortunately, to do this you have to disalbe grab and scroll. Bummer. But the select and copy feature works well.

I'd read that it is not possible to create new Word documents with WM 6.0. Not true. I create them all the time.

I use the Stowaway Sierra Bluetooth keyboard with the 7501. First I bought the Stowaway Ultr Slim Bluetooth keyboard. The Sierra is virtually a full sized keyboard. When the two keyboards are folded up, the have virtually the same profile. True the Ultra-Slim is slimmer, but it has greatly reduced functionality.

I type very long documents with the Sierra keyboard. Works wonderfully with the 7501.

The 7501 is power hungry. I bought a Macally external battery. When I am sitting with bluetooth and wifi going I plug in the external battery, and it keeps me going for hours and hours.

I'm sorry I haven't posted any photos with this blog, but will do so soon. This is particularlly bad because I am a photographer.

I love the HTC 7501. Yes, there are problems. But if you are heavy into office uses, on the go and don't want to carry a laptop, this is the beast for you. It is great for Internet. Speeds are very fast. It's easy to connect to wi-fi. Email and IM are fantastic. Oh, yes, the screen is fabulous.

The problem is the phone. Speaker phone works great, but speaker phone in a public place? I tried once holding it to my ear, never again. The cord headset works well, unfortunately it is stereo, the cord is too long, and just gets in a tangled mess. I have not found an adapter so I can use third party corded headsets. HTC please make one 2.5mm female, 3.5mm male. It is not really possible to make phone calls when the phone is in its case. Bluetooth works OK. I don't like to leave Bluetooth running all the time because of battery drain. After a few days, I got out the HTC S-710 again, got a second number, and use it for making phone calls when I am not stationary. I hope I can find a soluton to the phone call problem.

Otherwise, I love the HTC 7501. I was planning on buying an HTC Omni when it comes out. I don't think I will now, because the screen on the 7501 is so much nicer.

I'll update this blog as I find out more about this amazing device.