Asus P527

the Asus P527 has one of the most striking designs available on a Windows Mobile Professional device. Its brushed metal front face is beautifully accented by its silver keypad and joystick, and the gray soft-touch surface found on the back of the phone, which surrounds the elegantly designed auto-focus camera, is both practical and attractive. In fact, all of the surfaces of the P527 seem very practical in that they offer a good feel yet stay remarkable free of fingerprints.
The keypad on the P527 has a very nice feel, and includes a number of extra keys that provide quick access to secondary functions. The left 4 extra keys provide access to Asus’ Location Courier and Travel Log apps, as well as the FM radio and the Asus task switcher. More on those later. The right column of keys handle the clear function when editing and enable quick access to Bluetooth, messaging, and voice dialing. The only real problem with the keypad lies with the joystick. While I am, in general, a fan of joysticks, this one has a bit of a problem with accuracy that can be a somewhat of a problem when navigating options menus, since its unintentional left or right movement can exit the menu.

Up and down scrolling is perhaps better left to the spring-loaded jog wheel that is located on the left edge of the device, right above the secondary OK button. On the opposite edge, a handy hold key that locks the device’s touchscreen and controls can be found. Further down are the reset button, which requires the stylus to activate, and the two-stage camera shutter button and uncovered microSD card slot. While I typically prefer card slots to be covered, I have to admit to being a fan of the P527’s slot, which is recessed sufficiently and very secure.

A lone power key adorns the top of the P527, while the bottom of the P527 is where one will find the miniUSB power and data port, along with the 2.5mm headset jack and microphone port. The stylus silo is also located on the bottom of the phone, and it houses a very simple black plastic stylus.

Apart from the finicky joystick, the only other change to the P527 that I would like to see would be a flush-mounted display, like that on the HTC Touch. The beveled frame that surrounds the bright and colorful display helps some, but doesn’t make the corners of the display quite easy enough to get to with a finger, something that is important for a device that offers a touchscreen based GPS navigation function. But Asus was nice enough to include a car windshield mount and power adapter in addition to the more traditional case, headset, and USB cable accessories that are included in the box.

Overall, it is hard to fault Asus for the P527. It has a reasonable weight of 132g (4.7oz), and measures up at a very pocketable 114mm x 58mm x 16mm (4.5″ x 2.3″ x .6″). It is a winning design, to be sure.Core Functions

The quad-band GSM/EDGE Asus P527 works remarkably well as a regular phone for a Windows Mobile Professional device, thanks in large part to its keypad. But the P527 also offers fine reception on the 1900MHz frequency band, and has good audio characteristics in general, including a very solid speakerphone function. The P527’s battery also seems up to the task, managing a solid 7.5 hours of talk time, and surviving pretty well for a device that sports energy draining features like GPS.

Like all Windows Mobile smartphones, the P527 has an excellent contacts system that can store all sorts of useful bits of information. The addition of the keypad on the P527 makes accessing contacts a simple task, as users merely have to start entering a contact’s name on the keypad to see a list of matching records. A space can even be added to allow for searching on both the first and last name at the same time. A speed dial number can be defined for a contact for easy one-press dialing, and the very powerful Voice Commander system can be used for speaker-independent voice dialing or for accessing any number of phone features.

Unlike most Windows Mobile 6 Professional devices, the P527 has a somewhat normal profiles function, which can easily be accessed by an included Today screen plug-in. Users can not define new profiles, but at least they can easily choose between normal, vibrate, silent, and automatic profiles. The automatic profile switches between normal and meeting modes based on the appointments in the phone’s calendar.

The Asus P527 supports text and MMS messaging out of the box, but does not come with any pre-installed instant messaging support other than Microsoft’s own MSN Messenger client. Like most smartphones, the P527 can be used to access IMAP or POP based email accounts. Thanks to Microsoft’s Direct Push technology, the P527 can also be linked up to an Exchange server for push based email, contacts, and calendar updates in real time, over the air.

The Asus P527 lacks 3G support, but does offer built-in WiFi capabilities. If EDGE data speeds are adequate for users, they do have the option to use the phone as a modem thanks to built-in internet connection sharing. The P527 can use Bluetooth or USB to connect with other devices, including stereo headphones, and even supports a USB card reader mode for accessing the microSD card slot without the need for ActiveSync. Lastly, the P527 has a nice auto-configure applet that can take care of the problems associated with configuring network APNs and connections when using the device with a U.S. carrier.Core Functions

The quad-band GSM/EDGE Asus P527 works remarkably well as a regular phone for a Windows Mobile Professional device, thanks in large part to its keypad. But the P527 also offers fine reception on the 1900MHz frequency band, and has good audio characteristics in general, including a very solid speakerphone function. The P527’s battery also seems up to the task, managing a solid 7.5 hours of talk time, and surviving pretty well for a device that sports energy draining features like GPS.

Like all Windows Mobile smartphones, the P527 has an excellent contacts system that can store all sorts of useful bits of information. The addition of the keypad on the P527 makes accessing contacts a simple task, as users merely have to start entering a contact’s name on the keypad to see a list of matching records. A space can even be added to allow for searching on both the first and last name at the same time. A speed dial number can be defined for a contact for easy one-press dialing, and the very powerful Voice Commander system can be used for speaker-independent voice dialing or for accessing any number of phone features.

Unlike most Windows Mobile 6 Professional devices, the P527 has a somewhat normal profiles function, which can easily be accessed by an included Today screen plug-in. Users can not define new profiles, but at least they can easily choose between normal, vibrate, silent, and automatic profiles. The automatic profile switches between normal and meeting modes based on the appointments in the phone’s calendar.

The Asus P527 supports text and MMS messaging out of the box, but does not come with any pre-installed instant messaging support other than Microsoft’s own MSN Messenger client. Like most smartphones, the P527 can be used to access IMAP or POP based email accounts. Thanks to Microsoft’s Direct Push technology, the P527 can also be linked up to an Exchange server for push based email, contacts, and calendar updates in real time, over the air.

The Asus P527 lacks 3G support, but does offer built-in WiFi capabilities. If EDGE data speeds are adequate for users, they do have the option to use the phone as a modem thanks to built-in internet connection sharing. The P527 can use Bluetooth or USB to connect with other devices, including stereo headphones, and even supports a USB card reader mode for accessing the microSD card slot without the need for ActiveSync. Lastly, the P527 has a nice auto-configure applet that can take care of the problems associated with configuring network APNs and connections when using the device with a U.S. carrier.The Asus P527 ships with a solid assortment of multimedia functions and pre-installed applications. The built-in 2 megapixel camera has an auto-focus lens and takes reasonably good quality snapshots. I wouldn’t plan on using its photos for making prints, but the camera is good enough for capturing a random moment. The white balance system could perform a bit better, and the low light capabilities are somewhat weak, but overall it performs adequately for a device like this.All Windows Mobile smartphones come equipped with the Windows Media Player for video and audio playback. It can organize music by artist, album, and genre, and can even create playlists on the phone. It can also be synchronized with MTP compatible application on a PC, such as Winamp. The P527’s Bluetooth system supports stereo connections, which means that user can enjoy music with or without wires. If one wishes to use the built-in FM radio, though, the included wired headset is mandatory since it acts as the radio’s antenna.

I’m not a real fan of Microsoft’s Pocket IE web browser, but it will do adequately for most mobile formatted websites, such as our own MobileBurn.com site. The P527 comes with the standard array of WM6 productivity apps like the calendar, calculator, and task list. Asus also chose to include a meeting time planner that helps deal with multiple time zone scheduling jobs. A Remote Desktop application that works with XP and Vista machines comes pre-load, as does a Bluetooth based remote presenter app.

Other nice software included on the P527 includes the Asus Zip Manager, a nice backup program, and the Newstation RSS feed reader. Newstation isn’t as nice as some of the RSS readers I’ve used on the Windows Mobile platform, but it is nice that it was included for free.

The real interesting apps on the P527 are all location based, though. For starters, the GPS Catcher app appears to download hints for the GPS system that work similarly to the way A-GPS devices do. The GPS Catcher needs to be updated every 3 days or so, and can be configured to update automatically. The Travellog app lets users track where they travel easily, and the LocationCourier program sends the phone’s position to a contact via SMS.

Both of those apps are handy, but the big gun in the P527’s GPS arsenal is the included Asus GO navigation software. This app offers very flexible and powerful navigation. It can be configured for portrait or landscape display modes, automatically switches to night mode, and has a large POI database. Go has a pedestrian mode for walkers, and it produces amazingly clear voice prompts when running. Since Go is far too large for the P527’s 128MB of internal storage, the system ships on an included 2GB microSD card, 1.7GB of which is used for the mapping data and application itself. I had a few stability issues with the Go in the week I used it, but overall I was very pleased with it.

My only real complaint is that the P527’s 64MB of RAM is a bit small for a device intended to run big apps like Asus Go. The fact that the phone uses a somewhat slow 200MHz TI OMAP 850 processor doesn’t help it in such situations, either.

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