Review: Toshiba Portege G910 vs Nokia E90

[slitchfield]

So you've been eyeing up qwerty clamshells from the dark side (Windows Mobile)? So had I - in this case, getting in the Toshiba Portege G910 flagship, with a spec sheet that rivals the Nokia E90 - in theory, at least. Having used both, here's my illustrated head-to-head review: G910 vs E90. The winner? You can probably guess, but let's just say that this Windows Mobile clamshell has got more than a couple of surprises up its sleeve.

Read on in the full article.

excellent comparison- Steve, any word on when the black E90 with modified housing and keyboard is hitting?

"The built-in mono speaker (actually the cover phone earpiece) is tiny, tinny and quiet. "
Eh? The loudspeaker is _not_ the earpiece. Did you bother to look on the back or where the sound was coming from?
Agreed though, the (rear) loudspeaker is tiny, tinny and quiet - too quiet to hear ring alerts & rings, or for GPS in the car, and too distorted for hands free. A big failing. The front earpiece, on the other hand, has reasonable sound quality and has plenty of volume for phone calls.
BTW, the G910 I had was plagued with stand-by and wake-up issues.

[slitchfield]

Eek, you're right, the sound's actually coming from the small gash in the bottom surface - I wondered what that was for! As you say, wherever it's coming from, it's way too quiet. I'll tweak the text, thanks.

Thx for your article, but i m more interested in E71. Do somebody have an information about release date?

[krisse]

Got to say, the G910 is a rather ugly device, it makes the E90 look very sleek indeed.

[jah]

I think the E90 is a marvel. No other manufacturer has yet come close to it and it was first launched a year ago. Nokia need to build-on the E90 to make the E91 more useable with better s/w and better use of the keyboard area/real estate. But the more I use it I find the form factor, size and weight are about right.

Hi Steve, honestly I think the E90 is the best phone period for admin on the run. I used to own the 9290 here in the US and was very happy with it. it was practically indestructible. Presently I am waiting for the E90 that works with AT&T 3G. do you have any update on the next release? I am a bit sick of the HTC Tilt and am using a BB 8820 now. any glimmer of hope. Thx.

That's the first time I've ever heard a brick called "very sleek".
In the flesh, the G910 is much nicer, smoother and slimmer to look at (at least when closed), especially with its rounded contours and the high gloss grey and black finish. Steve's photos don't do it justice. Plus it's shorter, and much lighter, so it fits much better in the hand and pocket, and is less likely to get you laughed at in the street. Just a shame that the functionality doesn't live up to it - to do anything apart from answer a call, you're going to need it open.
(see Expansys forums for some user comments).

[krisse]

That's the first time I've ever heard a brick called "very sleek".

My comment was definitely meant in relative rather than absolute terms... ;-)

[Menneisyys]

You state the G910 supports eAAC+ (that is, HE-AACv2). That's not really the case, as ha salso been explained in my related multiplatform multimedia articles also cross-posted to the N95 forum here at AAS.

In a nutshell: out-of-the-box there's no eAAC+ support at all and only two, outdated, CPU-intensive apps (the free TCPMP and the commercial Nero) support eAAC+. There is just no comparison if you take the CPU usage into account.

[Menneisyys]

I also missed the discussion of the compatibility problems of WVGA screens - namely, most games (otherwise running on VGA devices) just refuse to run or have major graphical issues. I've explained this in many of my articles, also in my MWC report where I've thoroughly elaborated on the G910 and other non-standard WM models. See for example http://www.pocketpcmag.com/cms/blogs...h_i780_hp_ipaq .

This is also a big NO for the G910.

Currently, the only high-res WM model you should really pay for, in my opinion, is the pretty old (but still veyr nice) HTC Universal. The just-announced HTC Diamond is suffering from two major problems (4GB storage only and VERY slow GUI) and, therefore, I don't really recommend it (see http://www.pocketpcmag.com/cms/blogs...cellent_iphone for more info). And, I generally don't recommend any of Toshiba's new models either - the G900 was quite much a letdown and I just don't see much point in getting the G910 when there're much better alternatives. (For example, the HTC Universla if you don't mind the size or, if you don't mind not being converged, an iPAQ hx4700 WM6.1 or iPAQ 210 + Nokia N95 combo. I've elaborated on all these issues at, say, http://www.pocketpcmag.com/cms/blogs...n_depth_review )

[Menneisyys]

Originally Posted by krisse

Got to say, the G910 is a rather ugly device, it makes the E90 look very sleek indeed.

Agreed. The G910 isn't aesthetically pleasing. I'd state it's only the i-mate 9502 that is even uglier.

[Menneisyys]

I would have also emphasized (see my above-linked review) the clamshell-only design of the G910 doesn't let for native Portrait usage, unlike the Universal, which would be essential (!!!) with a lot of stuff - even casual one-handed Web browsing. Furthermore, rotatable screens are VERY useful in some cases like IP video phoning - under Windows Mobile, no front cameras are supported. Therefore, only models that have a fully rotatatble screen can be used for IP videophoning. See my example shots in my TiVi review ( http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/forum...ad.php?t=72464 ) that show this. This is pretty much a showstopper for the G910. (along with its other problems.) They should have implemented something like on the Sharp Zaurii or the HTC Universal.

Also, I missed the mentioning of another major problem with the G910: the huge unused bezel area on the left/right of the screen. Again, check out my G910 review where I've explained how this could have been fixed (by, saying, non-1:1 pixels or using a resolution of, say, 800*320).

[slitchfield]

Just to answer some comments:

Styling: I quite like the G910's looks, both it and the E90 are distinctive in their own way.

eAAC+: apologies, I was going by an official spec list. I've removed mention of that from the review.

Screen aspect ratio oddities: I don't doubt that some 3rd party apps will look a bit funny, especially games, but the G910 comes with a lot of functionality already and all the built-ins work well with WVGA.

Wasted space on the display portion: Well, yes, but there's at least some attempt to use it - the touch-sensitive app shortcut hotspots. So much better than the appalling Asus M930, for example.