we bring you another Windows Mobile 6.0 Professional phone from the Asus stable. Asus products are known for their build and the rich features they pack. Let’s see what the Asus P526 has to offer.
Features & Design
The metallic grey toned body will fit right in to your corporate boardroom. The 2.6 inch touch screen supports 65k color. Below the screen is a thin metal that performs different functions, they are not user-friendly initially but don’t take much getting used to either. Below the screen is a regular alphanumeric keypad. The absence of a directional key is made up by a 3-way Jog Dial along the side. The memory card slot, reset pinhole, camera capture button and keypad lock switch are all conveniently stacked up on the side. It also has a miniUSB port that supports only USB 1.1 and a 2.5mm jack port for stereo headset. A basic 2MP camera is housed at the back and the stylus is also at the bottom corner.
We like the bundled Office Mobile that can create, edit and view Office documents but creating presentation files is not possible. The installed 64MB of RAM and its 200MHz processor speed falls short of the mark. The generous 128MB internal memory should satisfy most users. The main USP of the P526 is its built-in SiRF Star III GPS chip, which turns the phone into a GPS device. However, you have to install your own software maps to use it as no software is pre-installed. Like other Asus phones, the P526 came with a Remote Presenter to make presentations via Bluetooth.
The P526 is quite limited in terms of connectivity. There is no WiFi or 3G as the phone only supports EDGE and GPRS. It’s sad that the phone docs not support WiFi considering the price. It bundles a fair amount of accessories— a car-holder, a car charger, stereo-headset, data cable, Software CD and a nice leather pouch. However, there is no memory card included.
Performance
The P526 took 46 seconds to boot up which falls short of the average. The displays is bright and sharp, but it’s hard to see what’s on the screen under sunlight. The insufficient RAM and rather low speed processor is noticeable when multi-task-ing and using its multimedia features. The keypad is comfortable to use but lags slightly. The virtual keypad requires close attention because of its tiny size and one-hand operation is almost impossible. Call quality was great and we did not face much breakup or drop on calls. Despite some lagging issues, Office Mobile handled our Office documents well. For e-mail, it supported IMAP4 and POP3 server apart from the Microsoft Exchange Server. On the multimedia front, the P526 is adequate. With Windows Media Player, the audio output is good but the volume could have been higher. Video playback is smooth and what its 2MP camera captured was just good enough for contact pictures or MMS clips. On normal usage the phone with a 1300mAh rated battery lasted us for an impressive 3 and half days.
Verdict
The inclusion of Wi-Fi and a QWERTY keypad will definitely make it a good buy.