Audiovox XV6700 Handheld

The XV6700 was my second Pocket PC based PDA Phone. My first was a Treo 700W. When I stopped into Verizon a few months back to use my upgrade discount to buy an XV6700 in lieu of my Treo 700W the salesperson flat out asked me if I was crazy. To say the least that wasn't a very encouraging start to my ownership of the 6700. The primary reason I decided to switch to the XV6700 was the more standard Pocket PC screen size and more built-in memory. The Treo 700W has woefully inadequate flash memory so it tended to freeze up on me frequently if I wasn't careful about memory management. The newer Treo 700WX has since fixed this with more memory. The additional memory didn't address one of the other problems I was having with my Treo and that was the screen. The odd-shaped screen caused problems with many Pocket PC applications that I used (or wanted to use) that weren't designed for the Palm's 240x240 screen. What I eventually found out with my Palm is that I was using its PDA functions far more often than I was using it as a phone. Had this not been the case I would have stayed with my Treo 700W (or probably upgraded to the 700WX) as the Treo is far superior to any other Pocket PC phone when used as a phone.

Overall Form and Design:

I found the XV6700 surprisingly easy to hold in spite of it's brick-like appearance. All of the controls are laid out in a fairly logical fashion. There are numerous soft buttons on the sides of the phone along with a slide (which most of the time controls the volume). I wasn't very keen on the slide and have used better implementations of this sort of control. For example, the Treo uses two buttons to control the volume which worked much better than the slide on the XV6700. The mini-joystick on the XV6700 is another source of annoyance for many people. I have to admit I'm split on that feature as well. Most of the time it seems to work well, but it's not the most comfortable 4-way control I've used on a PDA or phone. The last minor irritation I have with the XV6700's design is the use of MiniSD cards instead of the standard SD. Fortunately the capacities of MiniSD have gone up as of late (and the prices have come down). For reference I use a 2GB MiniSD. The MiniSD slot is recessed sufficiently to avoid most (if not all) accidental ejections. The SD slot on my Treo 700W wasn't and I had more than one occasion where I inadvertently bumped the SD card which caused it to eject with enough force to launch it into the air. Luckily I didn't lose any SD cards during these accidents.

The XV6700's screen is sufficiently large and plenty bright. As with any PDA phone it is *highly* recommended that you purchase and use a screen protector. As a former Dell Axim x51v owner I found the quality of the XV6700 screen to be surprisingly good. Obviously if you set the x51v and the XV6700 side by side you can see the difference but in day to day use the XV6700's screen is just fine.

As a PDA:

The XV6700 is a real powerhouse when it comes to its PDA functions. When you need to get some serious Pocket PC computing done you can hold it sideways, slide out the hidden QWERTY keyboard and tap away with your thumbs. The keys are sufficiently large that are easily usable even by those with larger fingers. The stylus (which hides in the phone's antenna housing when not in use) is comfortable and easy to hold (I found the Treo's stylus to be a bit too short for my taste). Another nice feature the XV6700 has is the inclusion of Wifi. There were a number of times where I had access to a wifi hotspot and would have liked to use wireless as opposed to the over-the-air internet capabilities of my phone. The EVDO connection is fast (heck even the 1x connection speed isn't too bad) but Wifi is many times faster. You can do a surprising amount of web browsing with the Pocket PC version of Internet Explorer. The browser is limited to the capabilities of Internet Explorer 5. So any sites using content that exceeds the capabilities of IE5 will probably not work properly when viewed through the XV6700.

As a phone:

As a general rule a PDA-phone is meant to be a PDA first and a phone second. Because of their larger footprint they may be "brickish" for those used to smaller/thinner phones. For me, this isn't a problem as I have large hands and have found that small phones like the Motorola KRZR to be hard to hold and use.

My only real gripe with the XV6700 is the design of the speaker used during phone calls. If you are in a noisy environment and don't have the phone situated just right, you are going to have a difficult time hearing the person you're connected with. Even maximum earpiece volume doesn't seem able to compensate for this. Using a hands-free device however takes care of this issue. There is also a registry value in the phone that can be modified to bump the volume up higher than the normal maximum. All other phone functions are pretty consistent with other PDA phones I've used and none of them stick out


Battery life:

The XV6700 is a power hog, just as any other PDA-Phone I've used. Anyone who thinks they are going to get flip phone performance out of a device that has the power requirements of both a PDA and a phone is simply delusional. Yes, battery life with the stock 1350mah battery is bad. This is easily corrected by using an extended battery. Seidio makes a wonderful 3200 mah extended battery for the XV6700 and with almost three times the capacity of the standard battery the phone has virtually limitless power. The extended batteries do use a different battery cover because they are thicker than the standard battery so the XV6700 loses its flat behind when using one. The thicker back doesn't affect the phone's usage. It is still comfortable to hold even when used in landscape mode with the hideaway keyboard.

Camera:

The camera is billed as a 1.3 megapixel and it works about as well as most other cell phone cameras I've used. The picture quality isn't as good as a full fledged camera (obviously) but when used on the highest settings it produces some pretty decent pictures. It can also take videos, which are of average quality as well. Surprisingly the camera has a macro function (for super close-up) which is something I haven't had on a cell phone before. The flash, which is simply a super-bright LED is pretty much worthless, but that is no surprise since I have yet to use a camera phone with an adequate flash.

Palm OS vs. Windows Mobile

I am not going to go into a large dissertation on this subject because it tends to start fights in very much the same way as the subject of "Ford versus Chevy" might. Having said that, those that are familiar with the Windows interface will find Windows Mobile to be comfortably similar. I do feel that Windows Mobile is a bit glitchy and is prone to occasional freezes, lockups, etc... If you are new to Pocket PC phones, be prepared for this. The nice thing about the XV6700 is the soft-reset switch is easily accessible at the bottom of the phone.

Overall I am very, very happy with the XV6700. Yes, it does have a few shortcomings, but they haven't diminished the overall quality of the device.