Asus' first entry into the U.S. smartphone market is a GPS powerhouse. Does it live up to its international reputation?
Review summary of the Asus P527:
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 If anything, the Asus P527 has us more interested in Asus' next phones for the U.S. market. The phone shows a lot of potential, especially in the top-notch navigation software, and the attention to battery life. Unfortunately, the phone borders on being unusable after only a brief period awake, as open apps pile up and crash the Windows Mobile interface. Even without all the open programs, the phone is so underpowered, with a slow processor and a dearth of RAM, that the best of Asus' custom apps won't even load reliably. Still, with all this potential, we're curious about what's next out of Asus' stable, including the upcoming Lamborghini phone. That one has to be faster, no? Release: March 2008. Price: $550.
Pros: Excellent navigation software. Nice feature set, with some good extra apps thrown in. Light phone. Great battery life.
Cons: Terribly underpowered. Can hardly run included software. Dedicated buttons aren't intuitive, don't open some necessary apps.
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Full Asus P527 Review:
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Design - Good
The Asus P527 doesn't take any risks with design, but it does have a lot of nice design features. It is a simple slab phone with a numeric keypad, a touchscreen, a tiny nub joystick and a side-mounted rocker switch for navigation. We liked the rocker switch best, which says something about the keypad but says even more about the stubby joystick.
The keypad is enigmatic. Asus uses 20 keys, but eight of them are dedicated keys that launch specific apps or settings. We think a SureType keypad might have been a more interesting option, and wouldn't have taken up more space. Mostly, though, we had problems with those extra buttons. Two of them launched location-based apps, but not the excellent Asus Go navigation software. FM radio gets a button, but how about Windows Media Player instead? And Asus has included a quick launcher that gets its own button, but considering the performance issues we had with this phone, a Task Manager button would have been a much better choice to quit the open apps that piled up.
Asus included their own program launcher, but it honestly did more harm than good, even to Windows Mobile. Though it undoubtedly looked nicer than the standard Start menu, it hid common applications, like Internet Explorer, under an extra layer or two of menus, which made usage even less convenient.
Calling - Excellent
We really have no complaints with the Asus P527 as a phone, and in many ways we found it to be outstanding. Windows Mobile is much easier to use with a full QWERTY keyboard, but the P527 doesn't lack any of the excellent address book or contact search features we've come to prize. The speakerphone was perfectly adequate, and pairing with our various Bluetooth handsfree devices was a snap. We even found speaker-independent voice dialing to be accurate. Best of all, though, was the P527's battery life. We made a phone call that lasted more than 12 hours, which is truly remarkable, especially on a smartphone. Only BlackBerry's devices have managed to come close to such long talk times.
Messaging - Good
Without a QWERTY keybord, the Asus P527 was never going to be one of our top messaging picks, but we still would have liked to see a few more options. Notably, more support for popular IM clients, beyond the Windows Live service preloaded on the phone. SMS and MMS messaging worked just fine, though, and of course the phone also features Microsoft's Mobile Outlook, which works well, especially when paired to an Exchange ActiveSync server.
Navigation - Excellent
The Asus Go navigation software is a great application, among the best pieces of navigation software we've seen shipped with a mobile phone. The software was responsive, even on the phone's cripplingly slow processor, and tracked us nicely. We liked the wide selection of voices for guidance, and the point of interest database seemed well-stocked. The sensor took some time to find us, and had more trouble in the skyscraper canyons of New York City than many other phones we've used, but once it had a lock on us, its grip was tenacious.
Asus also includes a couple other pieces of location-based software, but these aren't nearly as easy to use or helpful. The Travelog is basically a geotagging app. It tags pictures you take on the phone and keeps a map of your journey. But it was very difficult to use, with an interface that looked more like a scientific instrument than a fun phone app. The Location Courier seems to be an LBS SMS messaging app, though we didn't dig into it enough to truly figure it out.
Camera - Good
Photos taken on the Asus P527's autofocus, 2-megapixel camera looked okay for cameraphone pics, but won't replace your point and shoot any time soon. The autofocus definitely helped, but pictures still came out with blurred, oversaturated colors, giving pics a digitized watercolor effect. Too bad, considering the rich GPS options tied to the camera.
Multimedia - Mediocre
With all the help Asus gives the standard Windows Mobile interface, we would have hoped to see an improved media player, but standard Windows Media Player is all we got. For some reason, the player had a button that opened Internet Explorer, but didn't do anything intelligent with it, like jumping into a search for the current playing artist or song title. Otherwise, it did what we've come to expect from Windows Media Player, no more and no less.
Scheduling and productivity - Very good
Again, Asus did nothing to improve the calendar and productivity apps, but in this case that was probably a good thing. Windows Mobile's calendar and scheduling is among the best in the smartphone class, and the mobile version of Office does just about everything we need on the road, which is to say very little. Asus goes a step further here, including a couple extra apps for business users. The remote presenter tool turns the phone into a Bluetooth remote control for your desktop, with help from an app on the desktop side. It worked nicely controlling some PowerPoint slides in our tests. The phone also comes with a Remote Desktop tool to work with Windows XP and Vista machines.
Performance - Poor
You know a phone is underpowered when its flagship app, in this case the Asus Go navigation software, doesn't have enough memory to run at startup. This was the case in a few of our tests, as lingering apps that opened with the phone, like notifications and the calendar, kept the Asus Go program from the resources it needed. And when apps piled up on this phone, it slowed to a complete halt. Asus includes a Quick Launcher app mapped to a dedicated button, instead we'd recommend a button that simply quits the unused, open apps. Oh, and throw in a much faster processor with a whole lot more RAM Asus got so much right with the GPS, Wi-Fi and battery choices. Too bad they let the whole thing slide where it counted.
Laptop sidekick - Good
The Asus P527 uses the Internet Sharing program that we've come to prefer for tethered modem support. It also uses a standard mini-USB cable, which is also how it charges. These are great options for laptop users, but unfortunately the phone only uses EDGE networking. As an unlocked phone, we would have preferred the P527 use AT&T's HSDPA bands for 3G, but this definitely would have cannibalized the phone's remarkable battery life.
Accessories - Very good
The Asus P527 comes with everything you need to mount the phone on your windshield to use as an in-car navigator. It uses an arm mount, and comes with a car charger as well, though not a regular power adapter. No problem, though, as it charges via USB. Headphones and a carrying case are also included.
Price and availability
The Asus P527 can be found at online retailers unlocked for around $550.
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