Dressed in brushed aluminum, the ASUS P835 comes equipped with an 3.5-inch WVGA display that is absolutely breath taking to look at. The display is shockingly sensitive, almost as sensitive as iPhone’s capacitive display. ASUS P835 is certainly the best ASUS device and is a serious contender for the Touch Diamond 2

Introduction

We have used almost all the ASUS Windows Mobile phones so far. ASUS is not a company which should not be under-estimated by any means. They have shown the world that they can produce great (mini) laptops at affordable prices and can maintain great quality standards at the same time. The ASUS P835 promises to deliver great mobile experience, but is it really able to deliver all that it claims?

Looks

From the past couple of years, we have seen that people want functionality with beauty too. HTC has shown the world that Windows Mobile devices can look great too. ASUS has done an excellent job with the ASUS P835.

On the right of the P835, you will find the dedicated camera button, which has become absent in the past HTC models. The position of the camera button is at the right position and it really helps in taking good pictures.

On the left, you will find the volume up and down buttons and lock switch. The lock switch also acts as power button.

At the bottom of the unit, you will find the mini-USB port which also doubles as an earphone jack.

Screen/Front of the device

On the front of the device, you will the huge 3.5-inch display with WVGA (480×800) resolution. The flushed screen is absolutely gorgeous to look at. The screen has great contrast and adequate brightness.

The display is very sensitive.  I also own an iPod Touch 2G and I can say that it can easily be mistaken of being capacitive!

You get dedicated answer and end buttons. Above them, you will find 4 ‘virtual’ buttons: quick launcher, start, ok and Internet button. The Internet button launches Opera (more on it later). Above the display, you will find a VGA camera for video calling and LED light for telling you some notifications. It tells you if you are receiving the signal or not. It also tells you about the notification alarms.

Performance

The ASUS P835 comes with the same processor that comes in all the latest HTC devices, Qualcomm MSM720x series. Although the processor handles the basic tasks pretty well, DO NOT expect it to run your HD videos on it. We do not understand why ASUS went with the Qualcomm processor when they could have used the mighty Intel Xscale 800MHz processor in ASUS P565. That model was blazingly fast and blew every other Windows Mobile phone in terms of performance.

We consider it as a step back in terms of performance. Its home screen interface is slow to use and was unbearable sometimes. Looks like ASUS forgot to tweak the interface in terms of speed. They should better fix this via a firmware update as the current one is painful to use.

We would suggest the users to switch to something like SPB Mobile Shell instead of using the stupid Asus home screen interface.

Storage

The ASUS P835 comes with 256MB ROM out of which 130MB is available for storage. There is also 4GB internal storage just like HTC DIAMOND. That said, it goes one step ahead by providing you with a micro-SD slot. So, you can get a lot of storage on your device, even more than the latest iPhone 3Gs (4GB+32GB micro-SD card).

You can mount both the internal storage as-well-as storage card as external USB drive.

Connectivity

The ASUS P835, being the flagship model comes with all the bells and whistles that you would expect from a modern communication device. You get GPS, WiFi, 3G, EDGE, GPRS, GPS, HSDPA, HSUPA and Bluetooth.

Internet Experience

Sad part is that ASUS describes P835 as a device to surf the Internet, but by mistake they are shipping them with QVGA version of the Opera Mobile browser. THIS IS A DISASTER. The pages look awful. I immediately downloaded the VGA version and have been happy since then.

Phone

The phone performed well even in low-signal locations. The dialer app is clearly inspired from the one found on iPhone.

Stylus

It comes with a telescopic stylus. Although we would have loved if they had bundled a non-telescopic one, but we are not complaining as you are not going to use the stylus that often. The screen is big enough so that you can use it with your fingers.

Battery Life

The ASUS P835 comes with a 1100mAh battery, which was surprisingly able to give us easily 2 days of use. ASUS must  have done some heavy tweaking with the device as I was able to squeeze out just 1 day with my HTC DIAMOND that came with 900mAh battery.

How does it feels in the hand?

ASUS P835 has a boxy design and feels fine if you have large hands like me. Keep in mind that in order to accommodate the huge display, the device cannot be small and petite like HTC DIAMOND.

Camera

The ASUS P835 comes equipped with 5MP auto-focus camera and it takes decent pics. Here are some pictures that I took with its camera:

Software screenshots

Here are some screenshots of ASUS’s today plugin:

Although ASUS has worked pretty hard on their today plugin, but it is not as good as HTC’s TouchFlo 3D due to these reasons:

• It is slowwww
• It is not as deep as HTC’s TouchFlo 3D
• It is not as sleek as TouchFlo 3D

They have also skinned the WMP 10 mobile

..and here are a couple of screenshots of WiFi sharing app, which makes the P835 as a wireless router

Quick Launcher:

So what is missing?

Firstly, it is high time that manufactures should understand that 3.5mm earphone jack is a must-have on a phone. ASUS has again deliberately not included it in the phone even though  there is ample space at the bottom of the unit.

ASUS’s glide interface leaves much to be desired. Although more features  have been added, but it feels slower than its previous version, which was used in ASUS P565 and ASUS P552W.

ASUS P865 is also a little on a heavy side. It weighs 148gm with battery which is much more than its rival, HTC TOUCH DIAMOND 2, which is just 118gm. This is mainly due to the metal parts, especially the heavy metal back used in  the P835.

Pros:

• Metal body (mostly)
• Most sensitive resistive screen
• 3.5-inch WVGA display is great to look at
• Built-in WiFi, BT and GPS
• Decent battery life
• Good Looks

Cons:

• ASUS Glide is no match for HTC TouchFlo 3D: Less features and slow
• Processor not as fast as the one found in ASUS P565

[ASUS P835 official webpage]

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All in all, this phone should be a viable competitor to phones like the LG Pop; though it just doesn’t pack enough of a punch to reach a wider audience.