Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket Loox 610 - Fujitsu-Siemens Pocker Loox 610

The 3.5in TFT display sports a 240 x 320 resolution which again, is pretty standard for a Pocket PC PDA. The display is bright and clear in use, but if you put it next to an iPAQ in the 5450/5550 you’ll notice that the iPAQ’s display is larger at 3.8in. This is very peculiar as the Pocket Loox 610 is actually physically bigger than an iPAQ 5450/5550.

There’s also a built in mono speaker that is placed on the front as well as a microphone that can be found at the bottom right hand side of the cases.

Fujitsu-Siemens has supplied a carry pouch in the box that comes with a belt clip. I would personally not be using this as it’s very easy to detach the pouch from the belt clip. There are also two styluses bundled, which is great in case you loose one, but unfortunately you can’t store one stylus in the cradle as with some iPAQ and Palm cradles. There is also a charger, a docking cradle and a USB sync cable in the box.

The Pocket Loox 610 is running Pocket PC 2003 Premium which is supplied on a CD together with Outlook 2002. There is also a second CD with documentation and the specific Fujitsu-Siemens software on it. The supplied pack of manuals seems to cover more about the warranty, safe use and ergonomics than actual useful information on how to use the Pocket Loox 610, which is a shame as it’s still nice to have a detailed paper manual to leaf through.

Sadly the Pocket Loox 610 didn’t really live up to my expectations, despite its integrated Bluetooth connectivity. You would think that by using a plastic chassis and a smaller screen the price of the Pocket Loox 610 would be pretty reasonable. Unfortunately this isn’t the case, with a street price of £389.38 the Pocket Loox 610 is very expensive considering the features and build. For about £33 more you can buy an iPAQ h5550 which has integrated Wi-Fi, fingerprint recognition, a larger screen, a metal chassis and twice the amount of memory. Of course you don’t get a CompactFlash slot on the iPAQ, but that’s not enough to recommend the Pocket Loox.

Verdict

I had high expectations for the Pocket Loox 610, but in use I found it to be somewhat disappointing. You do get support for both SD and Compact Flash, but the overall feature set and design just can’t justify the high price.

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