In our experience, Expansys delivery dates have never been the most reliable indicators of when a device is actually going to turn up so we’re not surprised that the Huawei S7 [specs, info] is now available at the end of July. At least it gives us time to assess the device through the reviews that are starting to come in from around the world. We’re looking for showstoppers at this stage and apart from the disappointment that the S7 has a resistive touchscreen like the Archos 5, we haven’t found much to worry about just yet.
(Long) slide (on a resistive screen) to unlock!
We’ve got a Chinese review from Zol.com.cn and a Russian-language review out of Belarus from Onliner.by to go on and we’ve picked out the followig (my comments in blue.)
- Restive touchscreen not so pleasant. No surprise
- UI not optimised for 7 inch screen. (E.g. swipe to accept a call requires a full-screen swipe on the resistive screen)
- In general, voice quality good.
- Battery life in unused, connected state about 12 hours [onliner.by]
- Battery life in used state approx 1% per minute. [onliner.by] Sounds poor. Am expecting more
- Strong, good build quality
- Speakers good in landscape mode. Perfect podcatcher! Shame there’s no FM receiver.
- Stylus included. Confirms resistive screen.
- Video calling should be possible on final retail versions
- 720p playback possible. I suspect H.264 only.
The two review’s aren’t what we would call in-depth and are probably based on samples so it goes without saying that we’re going to have to wait for retail-package reviews before making a final assessment. We’re still looking forward to it but as time slips by, we’ve got one eye on Archos and their promised summer collection.
Outstanding questions –
- Docking station?
- Processor speed. (1 Ghz or 768Mhz?)
Got any more info/questions?
Still no answer on the GPS either – the processor has one built in, but nothing seems to mention it.
Was hoping for much more out of battery life. Maybe Dell Streak is still in the running… though would rather pay around £300 or less, which is why this was so attractive.
That said a decent 2nd hand X10 goes for £180, so might just get that if this proves to be rubbish – and hope they update to 2.2 one day…
If you look at the Chinese review, you can see google maps and a GPS icon. There’s also GPS in the settings in one or two of the pics. I’m 90% certain it will have GPS. If not, I will cry!
definitely the gps receiver is built in the snapdragon chip.
768 cpu
I’m thinking the same, despite seeing it at Computex with 1Ghz.
Resistive touch screen kills it for me – I’m done with that.
For the time being I’ll stick with the iPad – let’s see when the WeTab (or its Win7 twin) or the Samsung Galaxy Tab are really available (and affordable) – then I might reconsider (and submit the iPad to the .
By the way – has anybody ever discussed how nice it would be to have a combination of capacitive touch and active digitizer (switchable)? This would probably be the best solution to get ease of touch operation combined with the productivity of a digitizer for handwriting (e.g. commenting on documents, drawing, etc.) Is there anything out there in the market?
Lst but not least – iPad/Pod touch/Phone could be also be marvelous universal remotes – and are, if you buy one of the IR dongles out in the market. Unfortunately, I do not expect such dongles coming for Android or other platforms in the near future (actually, for Windows I believe you could get something to attach to a USB port).
Has anybody seen discussions around adding IR diodes (a penny article) to current (Android) smartphones or tablets? Are there already devices in the market – or at least announced (that will be available outside China without ordering from China and bribing half the customs officers around the globe)? It’s funny how a standard feature of past devices (PDAs, phones, laptops) has vanished from all current ones.
Yes MW, my HP laptop has both built in as do many touchscreen laptops (cap and res).
I am going back and forth on this device. I did see a blog post is up on the expansys uk site saying 3 hours video playback which sounds more positive than the 100 minutes I had heard before.
If the battery is halfway decent I may just order this device. I am tired of waiting for Notion Ink and Archos to release something new.
Looking forward to your review!
Thomas, you think a battery losing 1% of its charge per minute will be dead at 100 mins? No, it will still have well over a 3rd left. (think about it!)