At by by inches and ounces, it's bigger than the palmOne Treo 650 but smaller than behemoth Pocket PCs like the Audiovox XV-6600, and it's slim enough to fit in your pocket. Side buttons control volume, voice recording, and voice dialing. They're easy to press, almost too easy, so it's good that there's also a key-lock switch on the side.
Sliding down the bottom half of the device reveals a keyboard that contains long, oval-shaped keys. It's far superior to the membrane keyboards on some other Pocket PCs, and is at least as usable as the Treo's. The 320-by-240 screen is gorgeous—rich, sharp, and viewable in sunlight.
As a phone, the i730 is just acceptable. The earpiece is loud and clear, but at the other end of the line, the reception was much quieter than we'd have liked. The speakerphone is loud, but has sound-distortion problems at high volumes. We paired the phone easily with Nokia and Plantronics Bluetooth headsets, and even did voice dialing over Bluetooth.
There's some great software on this gadget, backed by a 520-MHz Intel PXA272 processor, the fastest on any PDA/phone. VoiceSignal's no-training voice dialing is the best in the business. The Picsel File Viewer lets you read Microsoft Office documents and PDFs with full formatting; it occasionally complained about low memory, but we viewed files of up to about . A ringtone manager lets you sort, test, and pick ringtones (yes, you can use your own MP3s). You can use the device as a TV remote control. And Windows Media Player 10 syncs music, video, and TV shows with a PC. The Dave Matthews Band and The Fast and the Furious sounded and looked terrific. You can store media in the 64MB of RAM (57MB available), 86MB of flash ROM, or on an SD card.
Verizon includes Intellisync for push e-mail. It connects to POP3/IMAP accounts directly or to Microsoft and Lotus corporate e-mail through a desktop redirector application.
The i730 accomplishes a never-before-seen goal—it gives you fast Internet connections via Wi-Fi in hot spots and Verizon's broadband-speed EV-DO network outside those hot spots—but the network software is a mess. In cities without EV-DO, the device connects to Verizon's 1X network, running at speeds a little faster than dial-up.
We like the little Bluetooth/Wi-Fi status line on the main Today screen. Unfortunately, Wi-Fi and the phone networks (voice, CDMA 1X, and EV-DO) can't coexist; you have to turn one off to use the other. So if you're surfing with Wi-Fi, you can't receive phone calls. We had trouble telling when we were actually connected and when the system was just trying to connect. To go from EV-DO surfing to making a phone call, we had to hit the "hang up" button three times. And no, you can't use this device as a modem for your PC.
Also, it took us a few tries to get PCs and Macs to detect the device using Bluetooth, although headsets worked flawlessly. Once connected, we could transfer files and do Bluetooth ActiveSync. The i730 also supports Bluetooth keyboards.
The Samsung i730 is available to business customers today and will be released for consumers on July 7. It's expensive, at $599 with a two-year contract ($200 more than either the Treo 650 or the Audiovox XV-6600), but we expect the price to come down somewhat. As with all Verizon devices, unlimited data use costs $ per month with an existing voice plan, or $ per month without voice.
The i730 could be a killer device. We'll give the battery a few twirls, settle into the phone a bit more, and come back with a rating in the next few days.
For now, view the i730, palmOne Treo 650, Audiovox XV-6600, i-mate JAM, and Siemens SX66
side by side
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