Mobius Seattle 2008; First impressions of the HTC Advantage X7510

As I stated in my Mobius Seattle 2008 Day one post eric lin from HTC gave each one of the attendees the new HTC Advantage 7510 device. These may not come to the U.S. due to Qualcomm import issues, but you will be able to pick them up from U.S. importers in the next few months. My most popular post from 2007 was my full review of the HTC Advantage 7501 and to this day it remains one of my most used and functional devices. I think there is a user profile for a device like this and someone like me that commutes 2+ hours a day and travels is the perfect target market. The HTC Advantage 7510 builds on an already great device and I was ecstatic to receive one to evaluate.

Thanks to Judie at Gear Diary for taking and sharing this shot of me with 4 Advantage devices (3 new) and my REDFLY.

The most notable difference in the newer model is the new haptic feedback keyboard. The new keys are larger and flatter than the old keys, but the key makes a bloop sound and vibrates when pressed. I found a way to turn off the sound, but that seems to also turn off the vibration so I will have to look around a bit more for this setting. The new keyboard does sort of work on the old Advantage, but the keys are still mapped to the old keyboard where there was no dedicated number row like there is now so it really is not usable. unless you have an older Advantage sitting right next to you.

This device is also all black, unlike the silver 7510 I saw at Mobile World Congress from T-Mobile. I also noticed that the great joystick (front left of the display) is now gone, there are no buttons on the left side (there were two for OK and Start), and there is no communications manager button on the right side. There does not seem to be as many shortcuts on the new keyboard and there is no soft keys on the keyboard so I am not sold that the new keyboard is better yet.

The 7510 has 16GB of flash while the 7501 had an 8GB microdrive. There is still the same miniSD card slot and same internals (624MHz processor, 128MB RAM, 256MB ROM) and great VGA display.

The device package also includes the same high quality leather case with a new cutout on the back so you can actually use the "Windows Sideshow" like status window when the device is closed. HTC also threw in the 4-in-1 cable that I paid US$50 for as an accessory last time. This cable and other pieces come in a nice carrying case too.

Although not really usable in the U.S., there is a front facing camera for video conferencing and the same 3 megapixel rear camera. The device comes with cool business card recognition software so you can take a photo of a card and import that into your contacts. GPS is still included too.

The device does have Windows Mobile 6.1 with the awesome Opera Mobile 9.5 and accelerometer support (auto rotates the display as the device rotates). Threaded SMS is also included with this update.

US HSDPA with AT&T is supported and the new HTC Advantage 7510 is quite impressive. I loaded up RealVGA and am able to run it in higher resolution and connect it with the REDFLY, which is where I typed up this blog post.

I plan to write up another full review after I have had a couple of weeks with the device, but the only issue that doesn't convince me it is better out of the box is the keyboard.