Larry Garfield looks at Sprint's first proper foray into the communicator market with the PPC-6601, built by Audiovox. Can it stand up to the competition?
Sprint has been slow to join the Windows Mobile communicator market, but has made a good call with the latest Windows Mobile communicator to be making the rounds. The Sprint PPC-6601 by Audiovox, like its many siblings with differing names, offers a solid (and hefty) device, yet unfortunately leaves out a few of the better features.
 | The PPC-6601 is a solid device, but leaves out a few features
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Design
The tablet-designed PPC-6601 measures 125 x 72 x 19 mm, and weighs in at 210 g, heavy but not the heaviest communicator on the market. With an attractive silver front casing and black back, the PPC-6601's most immediate feature is the sliding design that reveals a QWERTY thumbboard when the top face of the device is slid upward. The thumbboard itself is fairly good, and unlike some similar devices includes space for four arrow keys. The keys themselves are well-spaced, but the plastic nub design is not the most comfortable we've used, especially after prolonged periods.
Despite the coolness of the keyboard, the screen is equally impressive. A 240 x 320 16-bit color TFT, the display has good color depth and is clear and crisp, even outdoors. The display is flanked by an array of thin buttons, including two above for accessing Calendar and Contacts applications as well as four below to access the Start menu, open the Messaging and Internet Explorer applications and a clever Ok button for simplified one-handed navigation. The Start menu and OK buttons in particular get filed under the "at last, bless you" category.
Below the buttons sits a first-rate five-way navigational pad, flanked by send and receive buttons for phone calls. The left side of the device offers buttons for making voice recordings, activating the media player and a volume up/down slider, placed just above the Infrared port. The power on/off button is placed on top of the device, right next to the SDIO/MMC Card expansion slot - and like all the others, it offers excellent tactile feedback. The stylus, located in a top-mounted silo, is thankfully a metal barrel design.
Other highlights include the 2.5 mm handsfree kit jack placed to the left on top of the device, which is protected by one of the lesser annoying rubber inserts we've seen. On a less positive note, friction striping was found to occur during testing as a result of frequent use of the thumbboard sliding mechanism, representing a slight, yet relatively unnoticeable, cosmetic mishap. Missing is the camera from other devices based on the same reference design, which will annoy some buyers but also makes the device more secure-office-friendly.
A loudspeaker is obviously also required for a communicator device, and the PPC-6601 provides a good quality one placed centered above its display. Sound quality was quite good both when used in standard mode and in handsfree mode - not that we'd settle for anything less. Also included are two highly annoying blinking lights, one green and one blue, to indicate when WAN and Bluetooth radios are active, respectively.
Connectivity
While many communicators based on the same reference design are sporting every connectivity option imaginable, the PPC-6601 makes do with a good but not kitchen sink setup. It starts with the usual Sprint dual-band PCS 800 / 1900 MHz CDMA 1xRTT radio for WAN connectivity, then adds a new and improved Blueooth stack with all the profiles most users will ever need, including the ability to use the PPC-6601 as a wireless modem for a Bluetooth-capable laptop.
Bluetooth-lacking laptops can still use the serial/USB connector on the device to dial the Internet, and the aforementioned SDIO-capable SD/MMC card slot lets users expand either storage or functionality. On the downside, the SD card slot is backwards from the standard, putting the label facing away from the user.
Absent from the 6601 is a Wi-Fi radio, a feature now found on more and more top-end communicators and in particular on all other communicators based on the same reference design. For what is otherwise a highly connected device that is a big shame, especially given the price.
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