Review: Toshiba TG01

Toshiba’s TG01 sports the fastest processor ever to hit a smartphone in the shape of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon which runs at a blistering 1GHz, a physical design the like of which we’ve never seen before and a user interface that leaves us bewildered.

Specs & info
Price: £contract via Orange
Operating system: Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional (upgradeable to WM6.5)
Processor: Qualcomm QSD8250 1GHz
Memory: 256MB RAM, 512MB ROM
Dimensions: 130mm x 70mm x 9.9mm
Weight: 129g
Display size: 4.1 diagonal inches
Display resolution: 800 x 480 pixels
Expansion slot: 1 x microSD

The physical design is definitely something to write home about. Super thin at a mere 9.9mm the TG01 is also very tall and wide at 130mm and 70mm. It almost feels as if an elephant has stepped on a normal smartphone and squished it. That feeling is emphasised by the lightness of the TG01 – just 129g which feels like very little for a smartphone of its size.

The reason for that size is (in part) the enormous screen. At 4.1-inches across diagonal corners nothing can beat it, though its 480 x 800 pixels is matched by the likes of the HTC Touch HD so what you get here is the same viewable surface area in a bigger overall space.

Still, the size makes the TG01 brilliant for video (thanks to the inclusion of the excellent CorePlayer Mobile vidoe app) or in-car GPS, although we did find it necessary to crank up the brightness settings in order to combat the screen’s surprsingly reflective nature.

We really like the accelerometer which reorients the screen to wide or tall format as required (albiet with a small delay each time) – there’s huge multimedia potential here. But it is a shame that Toshiba couldn’t have made the casing fit more flush to the screen edges. It feels like there is a lot of dead space as screen borders.

There is no stylus slot in the chassis, but Toshiba does provide a stylus in case you feel that you’ll need it.

Also music fans might be annoyed by the microUSB headset jack (shared with mains power and PC sync). At least there is a 3.5mm adaptor past the headset’s microphone.

This is a 3G handset with support up to 7.2Mbps for downloading. It also has Wi-Fi and GPS. Our review sample came from Orange and Orange Maps was preinstalled, but Google Maps was not.

Sadly there is no front camera for two-way video calling, though there is a 3.2 megapixel camera on the back of the device. It lacks a flash and is of middling quality. The 512MB of ROM can be bolstered with microSD cards and the TG01 comes with an 8GB card.

Sitting above the screen a large LED light changes colour to indicate phone status. It’ll turn red when the phone is charging, blue for a notification (call or message), and green when the phone is sleep mode. For such a sleek hardware design the light is somewhat brash.

Beneath the screen are two buttons – Home and Back and a bar for zooming in and out of Web pages, though it did not want to work with pictures. You can sweep upwards on it to open the Free Pad, a touch sensitive D-pad substitute. We’d rather tap the screen.

The main customisation, though, is the ‘stripes’. Applications are grouped into brightly coloured vertical menus. Three show at a time, and you flick to see more with horizontal finger sweeps. Applications can be assigned to vertical stripes but only three apps show on screen at once.

You flick through the apps with vertical finger sweeps. Meanwhile an information box at the top of the screen can show alerts.

You can customise the stripes, including setting the colour scheme, but that’s no consolation to the fact that the system is clunky and overdesigned, yet never more than skin deep: tap any button and you are straight into Windows Mobile. Our review sample, from Orange, had the alternative of the Orange home screen, which was slightly better.

Toshiba have spent so little effort trying to optimise the UI for a touch experience that you suspect they are waiting for the arrival of Windows Mobile 6.5 to solve the TG01’s problems. An update will be available for this device but in the meantime users will find it a frustrating phone to use.

And what about that processor? Well it did seem to zip along nicely as far as applications were concerned and handled video well, even if it never quite delivered the lightning fast responses we might have expected. We also found the screen to be responsive to fingertaps.

However poor battery life was the final straw. It is about two thirds what we’d normally expect from a Windows Mobile smartphone.

Essential Verdict
Performance: 7/10
Design: 7/10
Features: 7/10
Value for Money: 6/10

Overall score: 6/10

Written by Sandra Vogel. Originally published in Smartphone Essentials

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