Live from the showfloor in Hannover, Editor-in-Chief Jørgen Sundgot shares his first impressions of Sagem's new Windows Mobile 2003-based smartphone: the myS-7.
Ah, the smell of breaking new ground. Several years after Sagem first gave the Windows CE operating system a chance in its wildly unsuccessful Sagem WA3050 - a WAN handheld running Pocket PC 2000 and with a proprietary telephony environment - the company is at again. This time, the French manufacturer has picked up the Windows Mobile 2003 for Smartphone platform, and will be bringing to market a product dubbed the myS-7, which will be only the second product based on this particular platform to hit European shelves.
 | Sagem myS-7 (Photo: Jørgen Sundgot)
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Rather small and light when compared with other Windows Mobile smartphones, the Sagem myS-7 appears to have good ergonomics going for it: the keypad is comfortable, the short joystick also surprisingly so - yet there is one particularly annoying flaw. Namely, the Home and Back buttons are crammed in between the joystick and send/receive buttons on each side of this, making them difficult to press accurately. This aside, other buttons are distinct and offer good tactile and audible feedback.
The screen of the myS-7, although crisp, offers a brightness level only just above mediocre, while the SD/MMC Card expansion slot is covered with a thin, rubbery latch which is destined to either break off or vanish into the slot itself after some use - unless it's reinforced with kevlar. Still, the myS-7 rightfully deserves credit for offering SDIO functionality, and it doesn't hurt that it has a decent VGA camera either. Text input speeds were very poor, however, although this is to be expected with some time remaining before its release.
According to a Sagem spokesperson, the myS-7 will be made available around mid-year, and although a company spokesman initially commented the smartphone would sell in the 600 EUR range, the company later confirmed that a fixed price has yet to be set. Also, Sagem emphasized that the company wishes to categorize the myS-7 as a 'mid-range' smartphone.
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