Review: XDA Atom Life (Part IV)

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This review was made possible by PNW Communications who are selling it for $375. You can contact them at +1 (425) 344-6577 or view the items they have for sale here.

This will be the last part of the O2 XDA Atom Life review series. I had actually planned for this series to be a 5 parter with the last part covering the results requested by users but it seems that there were none so I’ll end with this part which is on user experience. In case you missed it, Part I introduced the device, Part II covered it’s hardware and outlook and in Part III I discussed the software that O2 packed with the device.

But all that does not mean much if the device does not function as well as it looks on paper right? Well that’s just what this part is all about. How does all the aspects of the device you’ve come to read about affect the user experience?

There were some hits and misses with the Atom Life but rather than give you an overall score, I would let you come to the conclusion. I’ll share with you my experience on the various functions and features of the device so you can make a decision. Who knows? You might just have a different opinion.

Call Quality

What good is a Pocket PC if it does not function well as a phone. That’s what I believe and so do many users. So instead of telling you it’s alright or it works great, I decided to do some recordings to let you hear for yourself the call quality experienced by those on the other end of the line.

What Callers Hear

To do this, I called my GrandCentral number fromthe Atom Life and left a voice message. I did it in a few locations such as an empty room, in the busy city and even when it was windy. The recordings were done at different times but I have combined them all into 1 so that it is more convenient for you.

When I was in the room, my voice sounded softer than when I was outside where was relatively quiet. My voice sounded the loudest when I was by the road where it was noisy. This had nothing to do with me adjusting any settings on the Atom Life. In fact, besides the difference in location, everything else was identical in the test calls including the pitch at which I spoke.

So I guess the reason my voice had varying degrees of loudness could be due to the Atom Life adjusting the microphone volume depending on the situation I was in. It has a pretty good level of noise cancellation (for your callers that is) because when I was outside by the road, you could barely hear the traffic and my voice was louder and still as clear.

It does not really perform well in windy conditions as heard from the recording when I was outside and it was relatively quiet. And that was just with a small breeze. As such, making calls in windy conditions with the Atom Life is not something that is recommended.

What You Hear

Unfortunately for this scenario, I could not do any recording to test so instead. However, I find that it works alright. Prakash mentioned that the volume is really low on the Atom Life, even lower than what he experienced on his ETEN. I am not sure which model of ETEN he is using so I can’t comment on that.

But I am using the Glofiish X500 and it suffers from the echo problem that many ETEN users claim as well. That means the sound you hear sounds hollow and at times, can be hard to hear your callers, especially when you are in a noisy environment.

For me, I did not experience such hollowness on the Atom Life so I would say that it does perform better than my ETEN devices. Depending on how noisy the environment, you can still carry out a decent conversation when outside with cars zooming and people walking by. Your callers would be able to hear you very clearly as you should be able to tell from the recording above but you might not be able to hear them clearly enough, depending on the noise level.

Data Connection

Since the Atom Life is equipped with 3G and WiFi capabilities, I decided to run some speed tests. Below are the results:

Some background data on this before I explain the results. For the 3G connection test, I had to use a AT&T prepaid card and access the MEdia Net services provided. As for the WiFi, the device was connected to my home network which is on the Verizon Power plan that is download speed of up to 3Mbps and upload speeds of up to 768Kbps.

The reason I decided to do both a 3G and WiFi speed test (instead of just a 3G speed test) was so that you can compare the results based on the server conditions at almost the same time. So if the server was loaded which resulted in a slower rate, then it would reflect in both results.

That being said, it appears at first glance that the Atom Life does not hit 3G speeds. However, when I was looking up other 3G tests being done on various devices on the AT&T/Cingular network, results were fairly similar in some cases and very different in some. As such, I came to the conclusion that the device is indeed capable but it’s most probably due to AT&T’s settings that might have limited its potential.

This is a little weird. When I was using the mobile browser, it felt slow at times and I thought it was because the WiFi chip was not configured properly. But then I ran a speed test and this is the result I got.

So it seems that the slowness I encountered from time to time is most probably due to other factors and not the device itself.

Camera Quality

I don’t use my Pocket PC for taking photos. I have a digital camera for that. Also, I have the assumption that the camera on Pocket PCs are not up to mark (and I am not sure if they will be anytime in the near future). But for those of you who need a good camera on your Pocket PC, here are some sample photos I took.

Photos are thumbnails of actual ones taken. Click to see the full version.

Outdoors

Not too bad I would say but if you look closer, it seems that the details are smudged. This was taken after a rainy day so the outlook was dark and not because of the camera.

Indoors

The one on the left was taken with the flash turned off and the one on the right had flash turned on. A world of difference as you can see though it does appear blur to me.

Night Mode

Same shots of the above but with night mode turned on:

Night mode seems to be better for indoor shots compared to normal mode and with flash, it works even better. However, it seems that the shutter opens for a longer period of time so you’ll need to be able to hold it steady for a clear shot.

Macro

The Atom Life has macro mode and unlike most devices with macro mode which I have come across, the switching between normal and macro mode on the Atom Life is done via a software.

Don’t be fooled. The shot on the left was taken with normal mode and that on the right with macro mode. Both were taken from the same distance which was less than 5 inches away from the subject. As you can see, macro mode works really great and you can really make out the words.

Conclusion

The Atom Life does not come with a great camera. I would still prefer to use my digital camera because even at 2MP, it takes much better photos. That being said, the camera of the Atom Life is good for one thing and that is macro shots. Instead of taking notes, you can just take macro shots of it and have it with you wherever you go. Pretty convenient if you ask me.

Video Quality

Just as I use a digital camera for taking photos, I have a camcorder for video recordings. But sometimes, you need to use your Pocket PC to capture the moment so having one that can do video properly is a big advantage. Here are two videos I took with the Atom Life using the highest settings possible.

This video is was taken in 3GP.

This video was taken in MP4 format.

Conclusion

The highest resolution available was 320×240 which is not high when you think about it. YouTube shows videos in a higher resolution which explains why the videos look a bit pixelated. It was not so (though I wouldn’t say it was sharp) in the original recording.

I am not sure why the 3GP turned out like that. On my computer, the play was just as jerky as well and not a format I would recommend that you use if you want to use the Atom Life was a video recorded. Use MP4 instead.

With regards to the dark video in MP4 at the start, that was because the sun was behind some clouds and later came out which was why the video looked brighter towards the end.

Sound capture was not too bad but it also picks up wind noise (which I expected). Even with objects from afar, it can pick up the noise pretty well, although a bit muffled.

Like the camera, videos are not too shabby and what you would expect from a Pocket PC. So if it’s something important, I would recommend the camcorder. However, for those spur of the moment situations when you don’t have one, you can be assured that the Atom Life would do an OK job.

Multimedia Capabilities

Since the Atom Life is touted as a very capable media device, I decided to see just how well it performed.

Video

It was a joy to watch videos on this device. The 624MHz might have helped but the lack of a VGA screen and at 2.7″ of screen real estate, some might prefer not to do so. However, if you do not fall into this category, you would enjoy it. Why?

Thanks to the stereo speakers mainly. Sounds are much richer if you use the device speakers (you would not notice if you have always been using earphones because it’s always in stereo). I am not much of an audiophile so I don’t really know how best to describe it but enough to tell you there are differences when you compare it to a device with only mono speakers (which is what you find on most Pocket PCs).

One thing to take note of when it comes to watching videos on the Atom Life (or any other device for that matter), is to code it properly. I would recommend the XVID format over the WMV and qVGA over VGA. Encoding it in VGA is not really useful because the Atom Life only supports qVGA resolution so you do not notice any difference in video quality on it. In addition, coding it in VGA might slow the device down. I say might because you’ll need to refer to the video benchmark in the next section.

Video Benchmark Results

Using a fresh installation of TCPMP with no settings changed, I ran the benchmark test on 4 different formats of videos: WMV format in qVGA and VGA resolution as well as XVID format in qVGA and VGA resolution. Here are the results.

Parameter	WMV qVGA	WMV VGA	XVID qVGA	XVID qVGA
Average Speed	225.39%	87.90%	299.61%	121.33%
Video Frames	7438	7445	7435	7373
Audio Samples	10063959	9862642	9658576	9655029
Amount of Data	15574 KB	28263 KB	16008 KB	28927 KB
Bench. Time	2:19.532	5:50.633	1:39.263	4:03.067
Bench. Frame Rate	53.31	21.23	74.90	30.33
Bench. Sample Rate	72128	28128	97303	39721
Bench. Data Rate	914 kbit/s	660 kbit/s	1.3 Mbit/s	974 kbit/s
Original Time	5:14.498	5:08.207	4:57.399	4:54.919
Original Sample Rate	32000	32000	32000	32000
Original Data Rate	406 kbit/s	751 kbit/s	440 kbit/s	803 kbit/s
Size	15944860	28935210	16393062	29621574
Video output	DirectDraw 240×320 16bits	DirectDraw 240×320 16bits	DirectDraw 240×320 16bits	DirectDraw 240×320 16bits
Video zoom	320×176 -> 176×320	640×368 -> 184×320	320×176 -> 176×320	640×368 -> 184×320
Audio output	Wave Output 32000Hz 16Bits 2Ch.	Wave Output 32000Hz 16Bits 2Ch.	Wave Output 32000Hz 16Bits 2Ch.	Wave Output 32000Hz 16Bits 2Ch.

To understand what all these data means is not necessary. All you need to know is that if average speed (which is in the first row) is at least 100%, then the video will play back without any problems on the Atom Life. If it’s under 100%, you tend to get a jerky video playback.

What was surprising is that the Atom Life is capable of playing videos in VGA resolution without any slowdown or jerkiness. It is surprising because a lot of Pocket PCs that I encounter are not able to do that. I guess this is one of those instances where you see the power of the 624MHz coming into play.

MP3

Just as the stereo speakers made watching videos on the Atom Life a pleasure, so too does it make listening to MP3 (or any other music file for that matter). That is of course if you choose to hear such files through the phone’s speakers. Using a pair of earphones, as usual, would not result in any immediate differences because the sound is in stereo.

I say immediate because there’s the Equalizer program I was mentioning earlier in my review. You can use it to tweak the sound such as increasing the bass or center to get the much richer sound that you prefer.

FM Radio

Well it does what it’s suppose to do. Nothing fancy here. Reception was not too bad outdoors but indoors, there were some static here and there. Maybe it was because I prefer to have my headphone wires rolled up.

I could not test the RDS function of the FM radio as I did not have a navigational program that was capable of using the said feature.

Images

For viewing photos on your Pocket PC, it’s decent. You can’t expect much from a qVGA device but that does not mean the pictures are not clear. What it means is that if you are looking at the picture zoomed out, it’s fine. Zooming in is when the pixelation woudl start.

Battery Life

It’s hard to say if a device has a great battery life or if it’s power management is just plain disappointing. So instead, I did some battery tests.

After fully charging the device, an episode of a show (about 40 minutes) was loaded onto it and I played it in a continuous loop with Windows Media Player in full screen until the battery went dead.

There were 2 configurations I used for this test. Configuration 1 had all the radios (phone, Bluetooth, WiFi) turned off. Configuration 2 had all the radios turned on. The phone was connected to a Bluetooth headset and WiFi access point. In both configurations, backlight was set to maximum.

And here are the run times of the 2 configuration:

Configuration 1: 247 minutes (4hrs 7mins)

Configuration 2: 239 minutes (3hrs 59mins)

There were not much difference in the 2 configurations and I was surprised by this at first. But I later realized that it could could be due to the CPU Settings that you find in the Atom Life. In this setting, which had been set to Auto for both configurations, the device will decide how much power to use based on the stress placed upon it.

So my guess is that the device was smart enough to choose how to manage it’s power. In a sense, this is a great feature because running a device constantly at 624MHz would drain the power really quick but if the device scales that accordingly, then it can keep you going longer.

So in terms of power management, the Atom Life is up there with it’s CPU (automated) settings (which you can also change to better performance or better power if you want). As to how well that compares to other devices, well you can run a similar test on your device and compare it with the results here to decide.

I also did the battery test found in Spb Benchmark so you can refer to that as well.

Spb Benchmark Tests

For those who are interested in the Spb Benchmark results, here they are:

Raw Data

Click on image above for larger picture

Table of Results

Click on image above for larger picture

Comparison Graphs

Click on any of the images above for a larger picture

Battery Discharge Graph

In this battery test, the device ran for 5hr 25mins.

Thought On Spb Benchmark Tests

These tests are not the final say. That is, even if a device ranks higher or lower does not mean that it performs better or worse respectively. For example, when I reviewed the Glofiish M800, it had a low graphics index (as you can tell from the results above). However, the device was snappy during my usage so I am not sure why it scored so low.

However, I am still adding these tests results so that one can use it for comparison purposes. The raw data, in my opinion, would be the most useful while I would recommend taking the scores with a pinch of salt.

Speed & Performance

The Atom Life is equipped with a 624MHz processor and 64MB of RAM. In my opinion, the RAM is the limiting factor, especially when you are multi-tasking or forget to close applications properly.

However, if you do use a proper close button application or task manager, the 64MB of RAM should not bother you too much. I did experience slowdowns from time to time, especially when I just turned on the device. I guess this is due to a limitation of the Windows Mobile 5 platform as the next version addresses this issue (among others).

I also set my CPU settings to Auto. That way, I get the power I need when I needed it though most of the time, this was not necessary. For those who set it to maximum performance, you would definitely notice a reduction in battery life (like I did). Those who set it to maximum performance, well the device might appear unresponsive or slow when using it for resource intensive applications. My advice: Auto works best and when it doesn’t, you can always do a manual switch. Just remember to switch back.

Other Issues

Here are some of the issues that I found when using the Atom Life which do not really go into any of the categories I mentioned above.

Windows Mobile 6

As the Atom Life was released just a couple of months before Windows Mobile 6 was rolled out by many manufacturers, there is a ROM upgrade that will give you WM6 (according to PNW Communication). I would recommend you upgrade to it as soon as you can as WM6 is a much better platform (in my opinion) which should give you a better experience as well.

No Windows Mobile 6.1

However, those looking for WM6.1 would have to look elsewhere as there would be no upgrade. While I would prefer for one, this practice (of only providing one platform upgrade) is one that is utilized by all the big names that I hear of.

Don’t Remove Battery!

That seems to be the lesson I learnt when using the Atom Life. If you do, well, your device seems to go lose a bit of memory. By that, I don’t mean you lost your PIM data or installed applications. Rather, your device resets itself to Jan 1st 2007, 12.00am.

I understand that WM5 had some memory problems and then if you want to do a soft reset, you should power off your device and wait 15-30 seconds before doing it so that it doesn’t lose any recent changes you made to the system but even when I followed that rule, I encountered that problem when the battery was removed. It seems to me that the cause of this was a lack of a backup battery (which become optional with WM5 devices). So if you plan to buy spare batteries for the Atom Life, do bear this in mind.

No US Configuration

Not a big deal but I’ll mention it anyway. Because the Atom Life did not enter the US market, there are no configuration for US carriers. So when you pop in your US SIM card, the device might not recognize it properly and might even recognize it as belonging to another country (which was what happened to me). While this had no major impact on usage, I did have to change my Regional Settings whenever I switched SIM cards.

Some might call this a smart device because there’s almost zero configuration. I would too but considering that it does not have US settings, it can be more of a pain if you keep switching SIM cards, than an advantage.

TriBand Limitation?

When I first found out that the Atom Life came with only triband GSM, I was skeptical. But after using the device for a while, not once was I in a region of no reception. Then again, I am on T-Mobile which uses the 1900 band.

If you are on AT&T and live in a rural area, then this phone is not for you because many claim that only the 850 band work in such areas. However, if you live in the city or areas surrounding it, then it switches to the 1900 band and the Atom Life is a phone you can consider.

Really Bright Backlight

They say that ETEN devices have one of the brightest screens in the market. I agree when I first got my Glofiish X500. It was so much brighter than my HTC Universal (though the pictures were not as sharp as the former was qVGA and the latter VGA).

But when I used the Atom Life, I had to change my perception. That’s because the Atom Life as a screen that’s even brighter than that of my Glofiish X500. Both were set to maximum brightness and the Atom Life was so much brighter. This translates to it being easier to view in a bright sunny day.

Conclusion

The O2 XDA Atom Life is a pretty decent Pocket PC. Depending on what kind of a user you are, certain drawbacks I experienced might play a bigger factor in your decision making than it did for me. However, the 1GB of ROM and 624MHz of CPU processing power is definitely welcome by any user, no matter what your needs.

If you have been holding off jumping into the Pocket PC world, the Atom Life would be a great device for you to try out. It’s been out for a year at least so the price for an unlocked version (at $375 by PNW Communications) is something that is not too hard to swallow.

This review was made possible by PNW Communications and they have it for sale at $375.00, among other devices. You can contact them at +1 (425) 344-6577 or view the items they have for sale here.

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