review of the pocket loox 720

[cautilli]

the review of the pocket loox 720 can be found here

http://www.firstloox.org

enjoy

[timmer]

Nice.

Seems like it has a good quality screen and great battery life. Two big pluses for me. And the size is great too.

Any ideas of release date ? price ?

I wish they'd bring out a cheaper version without camera (a pointless feature for me)

The hx4700 looks an absolutely outsider now. Its between the Loox 720 and the Asus 730 (dual wireless version).

[timmer]

wow - over at firstloox.org, they reckon these will be in stock on Monday in Germany.

This looks the best VGA option for me. Battery life is a major concern of mine - it lasted over 6 hours playing video from the standard battery. My 4150 doesnt even manage that on the extended battery. Impressed !

Update:

Just done some checking and the Loox 720 is on the Germany Amazon website for E559. Thats £378 UK. But they say 1-2 week availability. But Amazon never get that right anyway.

I want one now !

[Duncan]

This looks the best VGA option for me. Battery life is a major concern of mine - it lasted over 6 hours playing video from the standard battery. My 4150 doesnt even manage that on the extended battery. Impressed !

How big is the 4150 extended battery? The Loox has a similar advantage to the 4350 (which ZDNet got a very similar score for) - high capacity battery as standard.

I'm not saying the result isn't an excellent one - but I suspect it would be the same result for other Pocket PCs if they had the same size battery. My praise to FSC on this one would be simply for having the foresight to include a larger battery out of the box.

I wish I'd had time to run the 'standard usage' test - but I doubt it would have left time for anything else....! :)

[stevekc]

I'm in the USA. Does anyone have any tips on how to order one of these for California delivery? Will I have to order from a German / UK retailer?

UPDATE:

I'm in California and ordered from Clove in the UK:

Clove Loox 720 (http://www.clove.co.uk/products/products.asp?strAreaNo=400_1_10&intElement=529)

Steve

[timmer]

How big is the 4150 extended battery? The Loox has a similar advantage to the 4350 (which ZDNet got a very similar score for) - high capacity battery as standard.

I'm not saying the result isn't an excellent one - but I suspect it would be the same result for other Pocket PCs if they had the same size battery. My praise to FSC on this one would be simply for having the foresight to include a larger battery out of the box.

I wish I'd had time to run the 'standard usage' test - but I doubt it would have left time for anything else....! :)

My 4150 extended battery is a 2000mah mugen. The fact that the standard Loox 720's 1600ish mah battery can out perform it is impressive.

[Duncan]

My 4150 extended battery is a 2000mah mugen. The fact that the standard Loox 720's 1600ish mah battery can out perform it is impressive.

Really? That surprises me - after all the 4350 has a slightly smaller battery than the Loox 720 and yet virtually matches it...

[Arqentus]

My 4150 extended battery is a 2000mah mugen. The fact that the standard Loox 720's 1600ish mah battery can out perform it is impressive.

Really? That surprises me - after all the 4350 has a slightly smaller battery than the Loox 720 and yet virtually matches it...

But the 720 is using a power hungry VGA screen, faster cpu, and more ram. I'm surpriced myself that it was able to do 6h with a 1600 mah battery ( seeing how all the other vga device's are a lot lower ( with not so much difference in battery's between them ).

[vendiddy]

Can someone compare the Asus 730 and the Loox 720 for me? I'm stuck on which one will be the better of the two...
Currently I'm leaning towards the Loox 720 because it has USB 2.0, longer battery life, and it is more compact.

[JustinGTP]

I am too so in love with the Loox 720 - It is perfect for me. The only sad little thing is that I would miss iTask and Nevo. Oh well, it is Better In SO many ways.

-Justin.

[Ripper014]

Here is some more on the Asus... it looks like it is being released shortly... and the price is looking pretty good.

http://www.proportable.com/a730preorder.html

[Kati Compton]

Duncan - have you had a chance to get the screen size in mm to see how different in size the Loox and Asus screens *really* are?

[shanipaqman]

I've been waiting for Sprint to come out with a nifty PPCPE but I'm wondering if I should wait and buy one of these new VGA units and then in a couple years once the technology is there switch over to a all in one wonder?

What are your thoughts about 2 devices compared to a sub standard one right now?
thanks
shannon

[Duncan]

Duncan - have you had a chance to get the screen size in mm to see how different in size the Loox and Asus screens *really* are?

Exactly 3.6" - so 0.06" between them (I measured active screen only - not the black border).

But the 720 is using a power hungry VGA screen, faster cpu, and more ram. I'm surpriced myself that it was able to do 6h with a 1600 mah battery ( seeing how all the other vga device's are a lot lower ( with not so much difference in battery's between them ).

Indeed. However, pleasant as such a result was - it isn't terribly surprising (in retrospect) for several reasons:

1) Battery size is not necessarily an indication of battery life - there are Pocket PCs with small batteries that have incredible battery life - yet the original Pocket Loox 600 had a 1520 mAh battery and not terribly good battery life. The Asus a620 had a 1300 mAh battery - and supposedly a 19 hour battery life.

2) The only battery life measure I can find for an Asus a730 was for the BT only version with only an 1100 mAh battery running for 4 hours in camera mode (I'm not sure what they meant by that - did they have the camera running all the time?) - http://www.pocketpcreviews.net/reviews/072004/asus730_index.htm

The Toshiba e800 (bigger screen) lasted 4 hours 30 on a 1320 mAh battery running the same benchmark test.

3) I'm not sure what role the new processor plays. Though it is faster it is also supposed to be much more efficient, changing speeds and states much more quickly. It also has special media and wireless features that may or may not make a difference.

Bearing all that in mind I can't help but wonder if the battery life of the Loox, good as is is, might not turn out to be less than it could be... should we be seeing more than 6 hours...?

I won't cry if that turns out to be the case - 6 hours is good enough. ;)

[zybler]

I was pleasantly surprised by the loox's 6 hours. PC Mag slaps 4 hours on Ipaq 4700 even though it has a 1800 mAh battery. But I supposed if there is software that could "lower" the processor speed, it could run more than 6 hours or close to that. Maybe?

... The Asus a620 had a 1300 mAh battery - and supposedly a 19 hour battery life ...

19 hours? I guess that is manufaturer claimed figure. I doubt anyone could get *THAT* much in real life.

[Jeff Rutledge]

I am too so in love with the Loox 720 - It is perfect for me.
This looks pretty good to me too. I was sold on a PE device but the iPAQ 6300 isn't as appealing as I'd hoped. Now that I have a Blackberry Phone device, I may be able to look at a non-PE device again. This one is definitely a front-runner.
The only sad little thing is that I would miss iTask and Nevo. Oh well, it is Better In SO many ways.

I think you can purchase Nevo separately, but I'm not 100% sure. As for iTask, check out GigaTask. It is mostly discussed as a comparison to WisBar, etc., but it's basic function is virtually identical to iTask.

[Duncan]

I was pleasantly surprised by the loox's 6 hours. PC Mag slaps 4 hours on Ipaq 4700 even though it has a 1800 mAh battery. But I supposed if there is software that could "lower" the processor speed, it could run more than 6 hours or close to that. Maybe?

... The Asus a620 had a 1300 mAh battery - and supposedly a 19 hour battery life ...

19 hours? I guess that is manufaturer claimed figure. I doubt anyone could get *THAT* much in real life.

Probably...! Mind you I see that the a620 battery ran for over 13 hours, doing nothing, in a Pocket Matrix test.

As for the PC Mag iPAQ 4700 test - I wonder what constitutes 'typical usage' for them? Inevitably the larger screen and faster processor must have some impact - but for all we know they may have been running WiFi the entire time, which will have a massive impact but render a 4 hour score quite impressive...!

[JustinGTP]

Thanks JR,

And I did find out about Nevo (http://www.mynevo.com), and you cannot buy it - it is only available on devices that ship with it. Oh well, I am sure I am going to have to find something similar, I am just used to the interface of Nevo and how it works.

I don't much like any of the new HP's, so I started to look around. The Axim X30 sounds nice, but no VGA. Remember, I am coming from an iPaq 2215, so I want SD and CF, Bluetooth, smaller size, etc. and the Pocket Loox had all of this plus the camera (not really necessary, but good when you need it and you don't have a camera on you), and then comes the VGA, faster processor, more memory, 2003SE - once you add these up, it made me realize how perfect it is!

I hope to buy one soon, however, I am looking to get a vehicle first.

-Justin.

[stevekc]

Update:

CLOVE Technologies in the UK are taking prerelease orders for the Loox 720 and will ship worldwide.

http://www.clove.co.uk/products/products.asp?strAreaNo=400_1_10&intElement=529#

[Duncan]

stevekc,

You missed out on the best bit! :wink:

There is a discount and priority ordering from Clove for FirstLoox visitors/members - see more here: http://www.firstloox.org/index.php?categoryid=1&p2_articleid=46

That reduces the price c. US$599 :)