Fujitsu LOOX F-07C review

For those who’ve been dwelling on the earth long enough, you may just remember a class of mobile computers by the name of UMPCs . Specifically, think Sony’s VAIO UX and the elusive xpPhone . Alas, those Windows devices were — and doubtless still are — well earlier than their time no owing to their battery life, bulkiness and infrequently cost; though for some bizarre reason, Fujitsu begs to vary. In truth, said company took one step further and released a hybrid device in Japan: the LOOX F-07C , a QWERTY slider phone which can switch between Symbian and Windows 7 at a click of a button. Interesting combination, right? Read directly to learn how this weird device fares in real life.

Hardware

To house the entire-featured Windows 7 OS, it’s no surprise that the F-07C ended up being a pretty chunky device — we’re a 125 x 61 x 19.8mm body weighing 218 grams (7.69 ounces), a miles cry from many smartphones in this day and age, especially those crazy thin ones that 7 keep 7 popping 8 up 8 in Japan. It truly is mostly to do with the Intel Atom Z600 contained in the phone, but while this chip is in a position to delivering 1.2GHz of number crunching power, it’s actually limited to simply half that clock speed at the F-07C for the sake of higher battery life and not more heat emission. That said, here’s still technically some of the world’s smallest Windows machines, not to mention one which can handle phone calls, but more on that later.

By now you would’ve discovered that the F-07C sports a landscape QWERTY slide-out keyboard — it slides up easily due to the spring-assisted mechanism (though it could possibly still be slicker), though we noticed that the space between the 2 halves of the telephone is pretty wide to boot. The keyboard has four rows of keys, garnished by a bit of black trackball at the right that may be tapped for toggling left-click, though its sunken-in nature means you could prefer using the dedicated left-click flat button on the top left of the keyboard. As for the layout, together with the standard alphabets and Fn1 symbols there’s also a suite of yellow Fn2 keys, that are just F5 to F12 keys, while there are dedicated keys near the trackball for F1 to F4.

Like many Japanese phones, the most important travel is brief thus easy to press with thumbs, but since we’ve an entire keyboard here (even Ctrl, Alt, Tab and Windows keys are included), individuals with bigger hands should make do with the relatively small keys inside the cramped space. Hey, a minimum of you will do the coolest old Ctrl+Alt+Delete combo –great thing they kept the backspace button further clear of the delete button.

There’s not much happening across the screen aside from the few buttons and LEDs. You might imagine thon there are three buttons at the bottom, but in reality, the dent below the Windows logo is merely a microphone sandwiched between two hidden blue LEDs; whereas at the left you’ve got a transparent button, and at the right there is a phone button that still acts as an influence button.

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At the right hand side of the telephone there are three keys, one among them being the only-stage (as in no half way point for focusing) camera button, while the rest two further up look like volume keys. The head one is truly a “multi-tasking” button — in Symbian it’s for quickly toggling between tasks, and an extended press triggers a user-customizable function like torch or fake incoming call; whereas in Windows it toggles a finger-friendly launcher. The lower key’s merely for locking the screen, though an extended press sets the telephone to silent mode. Alas, there aren’t any volume keys to be found at the phone.

Together with the telephone itself there’s also an optional charging dock by the name of F01, which adds four USB ports plus an HDMI-out port — this is because the dock interfaces with the telephone via the proprietary port in place of micro-USB. Most interestingly, however, is that said dock also has a built-in fan that blows gently at the phone’s back, that is a need in Windows mode.

Symbian mode

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Actually, calling it Symbian can be misleading here; like many other Japanese phones, the F-07C runs a heavily customized Symbian (presumably to make it harder for unlocking, a minimum of), so we would besides just say it has its own proprietary OS. It is usually worth mentioning that after booting up, the telephone always enter Symbian mode first, after which you are able to switch to Windows 7 by hitting the Windows key at the right literally at any time — you realize, for the occasional urgent cravings for Windows.

Going back to the Symbian phone side of items, here you simply get the fundamental features like phone calls, SMS, multimedia and other simple tools. More advanced functions similar to browsing are, just like other Japanese non-Android phones, nowhere to be found (even WiFi is missing!). Still, there are some fine details which can be worth stating here, just like the aforementioned torch and pretend incoming call tools, which includes handwriting input for Chinese and Japanese users. Also, with the QWERTY keyboard open, hit the number keys on to prepare a choice; otherwise you can hit any number as much as 60, after which scroll the trackball upwards to begin a countdown by minutes.

Earlier we spoke of the dearth of a volume rocker at the F-07C, so how will we go about adjusting the quantity? Well, it’s actually pretty easy: just visit menu, then “Settings & NW services,” then “Alerts & Sounds,” then “Adjust Volume,” after which finally “Alert/Call volume.” See? Super easy. In order to change the quantity in the course of a choice, just hit the quantity button at the screen — obviously this will be roughly a tribulation and blunder unless you’re using a hands-free. Due to the fact here is the foremost basic setting for a phone, such complicated procedure is pretty unacceptable.

Multimedia in Symbian

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When compared with most other Japanese phones, the F-07C’s multimedia features definitely don’t stand out. While said phone’s 4-inch LCD manages to cram in a resolution of one,024 x 600 (make that a high 297ppi density; iPhone 4 has 326ppi), it only has a five megapixel camera at the back, and video recording only goes as much as a disappointing 640 x 480. We guess that is something to do with manufacturing costs. That said, the camera itself can capture pretty good images, though in case you decide to save images to microSD, it could soak up to 5 seconds to take action even on a category 6 card.

Here’s another image-related caveat: while browsing the captured shots, you cannot utilize the phone’s multitouch feature for pinch-to-zoom; and in case you tilt the screen slightly, you are able to already see the backlight at the edge, which are distracting. Things are no better with music playback: you can most likely tolerate the truth that you might want to drag your music right into a specific folder, but you should also get used to the dearth of a three.5mm headphone jack — there is a micro-USB to a few.5mm jack adapter within the box for this, which implies you can not charge up your phone while privately enjoying some tunes, nor are you able to plug the adapter in while the phone’s docked because the dock blocks the USB port. How thoughtful.

Windows 7 mode

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Finally, the star of the show. As with most Windows machines at the moment, the F-07C required a one-off preparation to get its Windows 7 system ready upon the primary boot up out of the box. We had leave the telephone untouched for approximately an hour for that, only to understand that it is all in Japanese; thankfully, we managed to discover a hack to throw in an English language pack. Afterwards, each bootup takes about two minutes; in case you switch to Symbian mode, the Windows side would enter hibernation mode; and going from Symbian back to Windows 7 takes about 30 seconds.

By default, F-07C’s Windows mode starts up with a custom-made finger-friendly launcher for opening Office applications (you get a two-year license for Office 2010) and controlling wireless features. As mentioned earlier, the launcher will also be toggled using the highest button at the right of the telephone, and you’ll switch off the car start-up option in settings. The Windows lives on a 32GB eMMC contained in the phone, but you can even access your microSD using an application, though for some strange reason, there is a three-minute deadline for this.

As well as the keyboard and trackball, you are able to needless to say use the multitouch screen to have interaction with Windows 7 here, but in fact, given the pixel density, it is not easy to hit the tiny buttons and links — and even pick the suitable cards in Solitaire — using your fat fingers. You must persist with the trackball for more precise control.

Performance (Windows 7)

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We’ve already warned you guys: in Windows 7 mode, the F-07C is powered by a CPU underclocked to 600MHz (supported by 1GB of RAM), so naturally we’ve got a sluggish system. Still, our handset got pretty hot while downloading some files, so just imagine what would happen to our hands if the CPU was running at its native 1.2GHz clock speed. We tried to run a few benchmark programs, but 3DMark06 stopped half way in the course of the test with a Direct3D error message, and PCMark Vantage took almost an hour to come a disappointing score of around 700 (for the sake of comparison, the 9 Intel Pine Trail netbooks 9 were hitting scores above 1,200).

We didn’t get around to trying some games at the F-07C, but put it this type: we couldn’t even get Flash videos on YouTube and Viddler to play smoothly at 480p, though they were OK at 360p. Still, Facebook games won’t be any better.

Battery life in Windows 7 mode

In step with the spec sheet, the F-07C can manage about two hours in Windows 7 mode, though we’d say it’s towards just over an hour, and clearly you get even less when using 3G data connection. So really, the Windows mode is purely suitable for urgent document tweaks or for some bedtime browsing; just don’t expect this device to assist you to play Doom while at the move. Even the facility management tool struggled to observe battery level, because it kept jumping between 30 percent and 100% when it’s low on juice. Luckily, when the battery level is critically low, the telephone forces itself back to Symbian mode, thus letting it last for much longer as an easy phone.

Connectivity in Windows 7 mode

The F-07C’s Windows mode could make use of the 3G connection using the DoCoMo Connection Manager, though good luck to that in case you are not fluent in Japanese — the Windows language pack can only fix rather a lot. Also, turning on 3G automatically kills the WiFi, and you’d need to manually start WiFi again while you close the 3G connection; likewise with 3G in case your connection drops, as it isn’t smart enough to try reconnection by itself. As for making phone calls in Windows mode, well, we did not have much luck with that, but we’ve been capable of pick up incoming calls.

Wrap-up

From our week-long experience with the F-07C, it’s safe to claim that this device is solely crammed with flaws, starting from the shortage of volume rocker, 3.5mm headphone jack and multitouch in Symbian mode, let alone the stupidly short battery life and shocking performance in Windows 7 mode. But hey, Fujitsu did say that this can be more of an evidence-of-concept device, and given this unique form factor plus technical limitations, Fujitsu’s done a superb job in this fun device. Phone collectors would almost definitely desire to get your hands on an F-07C, anyway.

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This post is tagged: bizarre reason, hybrid device, mobile computers, number crunching, windows machines