Asus ZX1 Lamborghini - dancin' Lambo

Introduction, packaging

Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini... three car brands that make people think of almost the same things: speed, luxury and lots of money. What happens when one of the names from this trio get on a mobile communication device? We usually get a unique design with an extravagant design that will cost hell of a lot because of this tiny label. Ferrari Edition phones are nothing new now, we have taken a look at Porsche Design’s cube mobile too and now we have our latest contestant, the Lamborghini PDA, that is made by Asus. It’s no unique model, as ZX1 Lamborghini is practically a P560 with an extravagant design, and we only have to pay for that and we have to pay a lot: although the handset is not yet final, it’s price will be around €1100 EUR when it gets to stores (if it will ever get there). Since the sample we got from Asus Hungary is not a final edition, there were no accessories and box, although I’d like to know what one gets with the handset for such a price. I hope we’ll get to know that one day.

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It’s hard to tell about ZX1 that it’s a luxury device, as it looks rather like a fashion phone, a kind of a designer handset. It’s a fact that it looks really good, I think the design is a great one; I could tell that it’s a Lamborghini-style phone even without looking at the label. However, in terms of the materials used there is nothing too good, we shouldn’t even be looking for metal parts, there are only medium quality plastics that get dirty easily – as a matter of fact there is nothing nice to tell about this, it’s a real shame when such an expensive device cracks and creaks, and ZX1 does just that. I can’t say it’s small, as it weighs 119 grams and its size is 59.5 x 115.6 x 13.2 mm.

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On top of the front we’ll see the speaker and the secondary camera used for video calls. Below them we can find the QVGA display with a diagonal of 2.8”, which is also of medium quality, as its viewing angle is rather small. Under this there is the inevitable automobili Lamborghini label, while in the bottom there is the navigation panel. This is made up of six buttons and an extremely sensitive d-pad, which sometimes gives a really hard time when navigating in the menu.

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The top part of the back, that has the camera on it, is well separated from the other parts, as it is embossed, the handset is thicker over here. The camera is a 3.2 megapixel one, but no labels are to tell us, the manufacturer rather chose Lambo and Asus logos. The central area of the detachable part is like the back of LG Secret, it’s made of fiberglass plastic, but it’s not half as heavy, which also suggests high quality. On the right side of the gadget there is a ZX1 logo and the camera’s exposure button, beneath the previous one there is the miniUSB connector. The cover is possibly a design element, it really reminds me a bit of sports cars’ doors, but I think it’s a bit superficial, I don’t like it.

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The top part is possibly there to remind us of an air inlet, but to tell the truth I think they could have made something better than a piece of plastic that looks like honeycombs. In the top left corner there is the silo of the great stylus, under this there are the volume control keys, the reset gap, the keylock’s slider and the microSD slot, the latter being covered by a lid. On the bottom there is the wristband’s hook.

Hardware, speed

The handset has Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional as an operating system. Its heart is a 450 MHz TI OMAP 2430 CPU, that’s working along with 128 MB RAM and 256 ROM – there is 71 and 97 MB free to use of these, which is more than enough. The manufacturer hurried to tell us that the phone’s software can in no way be considered as final and that we should take into consideration when rating it!

The new TI chip is pretty fast during everyday use; I didn’t have to wait much for ZX1 neither when changing screens, nor when launching programs. Here are the benchmark results:

When looking at the table the first thing you can observe is that there are no VsBenchmark results. Unfortunately the benchmark application didn’t want to start, after clicking the icon the screen got colored and only a restart helped – let’s say that this is a bug of the non-final software. Pocket PC Mark finished okay, but at first it had some terrible results, which weren’t proportional with the handset’s performance. The solution was to switch the CPU to Turbo mode, after which the results were okay in Anton Tomow’s benchmark app. The phone is still not too good in the CPU tests, but after running the other parts we got to see some really impressive numbers, I’d like to highlight the file system marks!

Software and settings

Asus has fortunately considered making the operating system user friendly as a task of a high priority, and so we have a great Today plug-in, lots of programs and very easy to use scrolling routine. This latter one is really exceptional, scrolling is smooth, and it works even in the Start menu! The plug-in on the standby screen is not as spectacular as HTC’s TouchFLO 3D, but it is usable. On the first tab we get to know the current time, which is shown on a thing that looks like an RPM meter, the pointers are spinning around for a couple of seconds after switching the phone on, and we get to know the time only after that. The second tab shows missed events; the third is for calendar entries. On the fourth one we can find the weather, the next to the last part is an RSS reader (we haven’t seen one like this, although the idea is great) and on the last, sixth page we get the music player.

There are themes too on the exclusive device, there are three of them. It’s interesting that we can set themes for weekdays and weekends separately, so even those can relax who’d like to see a Murcielago during workdays and a Gallardo on the weekends. The dial screen also has a unique design, fortunately this has no negative effect on usability.

When taking a look at the menu we get to see lots of special icons. To begin with there is the compression software called Asus Zip, and than there comes Backup which does what its name says. We have a call filter (with the shockingly unique name CallFilter), a PDF reader, an image viewer that stars up a bit slow (EziPhoto), a software that helps the GPS find location faster (GPS Catcher), an encrypted data manager (My Secrets), a Remote Calendar and a Remote Presenter, a world clock (Ur Time), YouTube and Flickr upload software and a task manager.

When taking a look at the settings we get to see lots of interesting stuff. For example here’s Asus Status, which puts a small icon on the Today screen, so we can access settings like USB and backlight. Auto Clenaer configures the X button properly, so that will really close running programs, not just put them in the background. With CPU Mode we can switch the CPU to turbo mode manually. Headset Volume Limiter is also unambiguous, and finally we have USB Settings, where we can ZX1 to work as a Mass Storage device or an ActiveSync device when connected to a computer.

Phone calls, data transfer, GPS

I have been talking about a part of software related to phone calls. The call filter is a very handy tool, besides that we find a profile chooser and we can change video calls settings. The contact list and messaging software is of course Outlook, we can still say only good things about it, we can store an unlimited number of entries and lots of extra fields in the phone book, the email client supports authenticated IMAP servers and attachments. I have missed a contact list that provides unique, faster paging, but that’s not such a big problem.

In terms of data transfer there is nothing to complain about. The GSM module is quad-banded (850/900/1800/1900 MHz), we can use both HSDPA and WiFi to access the web. Of course stereo Bluetooth 2.0 is also supported.

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The GPS receiver is an NMEA 0183, positioning is of an appropriate speed. I used iGO 2006SE for testing, it worked without problems.

Multimedia

The camera on the back is a 3.2 megapixel one, it has autofocus, but unfortunately there is no flash. The possible settings are average, as we cannot set light metering and sensitivity, but everything else is here. There are only two preset modes (sport and night), and frames can be used only at QVGA resolution. The highest available resolution for images is 2048 x 1536 and 176 x 144 for videos. The pictures below were taken in very poor lighting conditions, but picture quality is still quite good, color fidelity is okay, image noise is medium and noise filtering is also rather low.

The music player is called EziMusic. Just like the image viewer, this also starts up quite slow, which would be one thing, but this also works slow. It looks quite cool, but there aren’t many settings, there is no equalizer, no bass boost, but it can display album covers and filter by ID3 tags. Sound quality is not the best via the speakers, the little Lamborghini has a high amount of boominess and it’s not even quite loud either. I can’t write anything about the headset, as I didn’t get one. The lack of a standard jack output doesn’t tell much good, anyway.

Battery, summary

The battery has a capacity of 1100 mAh. Although the new OMAP CPU shouldn’t need much energy, still, the handset won’t take it more than two days at normal use, which is an average value in this category.

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Summary: ZX1 is an interesting machine; it made me have mixed feelings. One of the most important thing about it is that it’s extremely expensive, and there are practically no reasons for that, as assembly quality is far from the competitors’ luxury models’. It is, however, quite okay on the hardware side, it practically knows everything such a device should. The best thing about it is undoubtedly the easy to use interface and the lots of extra software. Because of these it gets a Cool award, but I’d like to emphasize that for such a price it’s worth it only for those Lamborghini fans who are a bit undemanding and have more than 1000 EUR for a cracking handset. Its couple, P560, with a simpler design, but the same hardware, looks quite interesting; its success will surely depend on the price. We are hoping for it.

Asus ZX1 Lamborghini

Bocha

The handset has been provided by Asus Hungary. Thanks!

Specifications

Asus Lamborghini ZX1
	Technology	GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 MHz +UMTS/HSDPA 850/1900/2100 MHz
	Operating system	Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
	Size	59.5 x 115.6 x 13.2 mm
	Weight	119 grams
	CPU	450 MHz TI OMAP 2430
	ROM/RAM	256 / 128 MB (97 /71 MB free to use)
	Display	2.8” diagonal, 240 x 320 pixel resolution, 16 bit color depth touchscreen
	Expandability	microSD
	WiFi	802.11b/g
	Infra / Bluetooth	none / 2.0 (A2DP too)
	GPS receiver	present (NMEA 0183)
	Audio	microphone, mono speaker
	Camera	3.2 megapixels, autofocus
	Battery	1100 mAh changeable Li-Ion
	Other	Lamborghini design, lots of extra software