In today’s cell phone marketplace, there hasn’t been a lot of room for Windows Mobile. Here in the United States, it’s almost a forgotten mobile Operating System. That’s no fault of Microsoft’s, as in the popular world it would seem that they’ve been systematically flanked by apples, androids, and even blackberries. But that’s not stopping the Redmond-based company from shelling out another, more updated version of their OS, and this time they’ve got some help from one of the largest mobile phone manufacturers on Earth: LG. But does the Fathom fulfill our Windows Mobile dreams? Or can we not fathom why Microsoft is still trying? Find out below.
The Body
Much like some of LG’s other recent releases, the Fathom’s physical construction is very good. It feels like a sturdy phone. And yet, the company has figured out some way or another to give the illusion that it’s light as a feather. As we held it more and more in our hands, we were only ever consciously aware that it was there because we were using it, and not because it was an added weight we had to lug around. But things like sliding open the landscape slider are easy, and there’s no sign of grinding parts. The brushed metal look is unique for a phone, and while we weren’t fans of it right off the bat, we fell in love with it before too long.
Surprisingly enough, unlike other touchscreen devices, the Fathom’s 3.2-inch resistive touchscreen doesn’t actually feel like it’s taking up the majority of space on the front of the phone. And while it’s good to be different in some regards, we realized this trick of the eye actually lead to us not really enjoying the touchscreen, even just for its size. We’ve used a lot of them over the years, and we have to admit that 3.2-inches just isn’t big enough. While things on the screen obviously don’t feel cramped, because of space optimization with the User Interface (UI), it still just never feels like there’s enough space to actually accomplish anything comfortably.
Since the touchscreen doesn’t fill the entire face of the handset, there’s more room than probably necessary for things like Verizon’s and LG’s logo. Below the latter’s, you’ll find only three hardware keys (at least on the front of the device). The furthest to the left is the call/answer key, with the Windows key placed squarely in the middle. And the last one is the end call button. Simple and straight forward, with absolutely no frills thrown in. But, this is being pushed as a business phone (it is Windows Mobile, after all) more than anything else by Verizon, so we’re not surprised in this regard at all.
Along the sides, you’ll find the bottom of the device is bare. Along the left side, you’ll find a covered hatch, where underneath you’ll be granted access to the microUSB port. Interestingly enough, and something that confused us for quite some time, there’s another small port here, next to the microUSB’s. Some investigation, and we found out that this is the small port you’d push if you wanted to reset your device. While that’s great for convenience, as it means we don’t have to open up the back cover and remove the battery to reset the handset, this went a long way to show us that obviously LG believes that this is something that happens enough, the port should be easily accessible. While we didn’t run into any reasons why we’d need to reset the device in our testing period, we’re just thrown off by this a little bit. Near the top of the left side, you’ll find the volume rockers. These are very well-defined buttons, with good travel and feedback, and they’re raised just enough from the device to make it really easy to find them, even in a rush. And then, just above the volume control keys, you’ll find the 3.5mm audio jack. We wish it had been placed at the top, or even the bottom, as we’re not fans of sideways audio jacks; it makes listening to music from wired headphones difficult if the device is in your pocket. Along the top, the only thing present is the power/lock button. This button is flush with the device, and relatively small, but its placement makes it easy for anyone to find it comfortably.And finally, down the right side, you’ll find access to the microSD card slot. Right behind that (and probably technically on the back of the device), is the hide-away for the stylus LG has included with the device. Near the bottom on the right side are two more buttons: the task manager, and physical camera button. The TM’s button is just as good as the volume rockers, with good travel and feedback, but it’s pretty small for its own good. As for the camera button, it’s a dual-action button, meaning you press it down, and then have to press it down again to activate the second stage. Good feature, but can be a pain as the button is flush with the side of the device, with barely a recognizable rise to the button.
On the back of the device, the only thing you’ll find (other than that stylus) is the 3.2MP dedicated camera. Unfortunately, there isn’t a flash accompanying this camera, even if it does look like there’s plenty of space for one to get installed. The camera’s placement is nice, as there’s room for one of your fingers to reside between it and the top of the phone, making it for a more comfortable experience, and one where we weren’t constantly worried about foreign objects getting in our pictures.
The slider is spring assisted, and it slides up and down without a problem. We didn’t notice any plastic-on-plastic grinding, and the two-rail system works well to make sure that the phone is fully open, or fully closed. Even through a few day’s testing, the slider never felt like it was giving out, getting worse, or in any way shape or form lacking in its ability to open and close the device. This just goes hand-in-hand with our above statement that the Fathom is a well-built phone, even if it is light enough to assume quite the opposite.
Once you slide open the Fathom, you’re greeted with a full QWERTY physical keyboard. Right off the bat you’ll notice that LG took advantage of their four rows, and gave owners a dedicated row for the numbers. Each key on the keyboard is separate, and the squared keys are big enough that finding them is easy enough. The keys themselves are slightly raised off the keyboard, and not domed in any way, and they have good travel and feedback. The space key could have been a little bit bigger for our tastes, but that’s just personal preference, and it worked perfectly fine. Unfortunately, there aren’t dedicated keys for the comma or period; and the delete and enter keys are actually at the bottom-right of the keyboard, and not implanted at the top. It took some getting used to, but once we did it felt just as natural as anything else. Next to the keyboard you’ll find a D-pad with a center OK button, and right above that you’ll find keys for Back and volume. On the far top-left, there’s a dedicated key for messaging, which makes it easier to access your email addresses. We wished it went to a centralized messaging hub, so we could select from text, MMS, or email, but obviously Microsoft wants you sending more emails than text messages. (Or that’s just obvious to us, anyway.)
The body of the Fathom, the slide-out landscape keyboard, and the well-built design go a long way to speak good things about the device. If we could play around with the hardware all day, we’d probably be happy campers. But, as all things go, there’s more to the phone than just the hardware. So, now it’s time to dig into the software, and see if the Fathom is the full package.
The Software
We’ll skip the set-up process for you, and just move on to the idea that you’ve already got your device on, activated, and ready to go. The lock-screen is the first thing you’ll be greeted with: it shows a large blank box at the center of the screen. Below that, there’s a bar that shows the date and time, with arrows on either side of it. Above the box is the “unlock” slider, which allows you to unlock the device in a more traditional touchscreen method: sliding it to the left or right of the screen will grant you access to the features of your handset.
As for the big box in the middle of the screen, this is where you’ll input your gesture to access a particular feature of the Fathom right from the lock-screen. Meaning, if you draw a “C,” you’ll be taken immediately to your Calendar. Or, if you draw an “N,” you’ll go right to your notes. If you’re the only one that uses your phone, and you’re not worried about any kind of security, then the gesture-to-unlock feature is probably something that will excite you for awhile. And yes, you can change the gesture you scribble in the box to activate different applications, so you don’t necessarily have to have a letter correspond with a task.
As for the bar at the bottom, we were curious as to why those arrows were there. When we tried to slide it to the left or right, we were pleasantly surprised to find out that it will actually “slide” and transition into a music control bar. It only offers play, back and forward, but it’s certainly better than nothing, and we really enjoyed the simple and different way to access them from the lock-screen.
Unfortunately, the lock-screen is a really, really quick way to show you that the Fathom has a resistive touchscreen. Simply trying to unlock the device, draw a symbol, or access the music controls take some effort, and after getting so accustomed to capacitive touchscreens over the years, we can tell you right now that this is one of the biggest negative aspects of the device. At this point in time, we firmly believe that Windows Mobile should support capacitive screens, and the Fathom could do very well with the hardware alteration.
Once you get past the lock-screen, you’ll find yourself at the main menu. It’s a general list of most used options, like: phone, music, voicemail, the time and date, email, calendar, and messaging. It’s definitely the best implementation of a main menu utilized by Windows Mobile in years, and it makes accessing those applications so much easier that it’s almost ridiculous. Sliding the bar that highlights each option up and down, and landing on a particular application, will show you a brief preview of what lies beyond. For example, the main menu will show you whether or not you’ve got text messages, emails, or voicemails, even before you get into the app. Highlighting the text messages will show you a preview of the message, and the sender, as well as the time you received the message. The same goes for email.
Sliding the bar up and down on the screen is a pain, and we immediately stopped trying. It’s far easier to simply tap on something you want, even if it does feel so five years ago. Additionally, there are two options which are not all that easy to access, simply because they run off the screen thanks to the stacked list. Pictures and Favorites proved very difficult to get to on a normal, day-to-day basis, and for a very strange reason. If you select an option that’s already highlighted by the bar, and try to slide up and down, the main menu won’t actually allow you to slide all the way up and down, which prevents easy access to the top-most application links. However, if you simply press anywhere else on the screen, except for what’s already highlighted, then the main menu will “drop away” slightly, and show you all the quick links very smoothly and easily. It’s a very strange implementation of the UI, and we’re curious as to why anyone would actually decide on this. It proved far more annoying than anything else.
As you find yourself through the mobile Operating System, you’ll realize right off the bat why Windows Mobile isn’t in the limelight anymore. For all intents and purposes, Windows Mobile is a computer on a phone, and therefore getting anywhere is more complicated than it should be. Accessing things like Messages gets you to a fairly decent screen, and it’s obvious that Microsoft realized putting the small “x” at the top right of the screen simply wouldn’t work out anymore. That’s why we’re glad to see Windows Mobile 6.5.3 on the Fathom, because it makes it easier to close applications, access the menu, or even reach the Windows key (which will get you to a full list of your applications, like Settings CityID (which comes pre-installed). However, while it makes sense on a computer, we’ve seen over the years that the methodology between transitioning from one application to another, or closing an app altogether can be a lot more intuitive than Windows Mobile would like you to believe. Even hitting the “X” at the bottom of the Messages app, while you’re in the Inbox doesn’t get you out of the Messages app, it just takes you to another version of it, where you can better access the Inbox, Outbox, Sent, and Settings.
What interested us, though, was the onscreen keyboard. While you’re in portrait mode, there’s an onscreen keyboard for your resistive screen typing pleasure (or horror, if you prefer). However, if you were to rotate the device into landscape mode, in hopes that you’d get access to a landscape full QWERTY keyboard (not of the physical variety), you’re out of luck. Simply put, the Fathom lacks an automatic accelerometer. You can transition the screen from portrait to landscape only by sliding open the device and revealing the physical keyboard. We know that most people wouldn’t want to use the touchscreen keyboard anyway, especially if they’ve got a physical one that’s as nice as the Fathom’s is, but we still would have preferred the option. And to realize that the accelerometer is only activated by sliding open the phone seems short-sighted, and a blast from the past.
Other software features, like the music player, are just as bland as the rest of the OS. You can drag your finger (with some pressure), or fingernail or stylus, from the left-to-right or right-to-left over the album in the full music player application, and it will skip the song or album depending on your play mode. But, as has been the case from the get-go, the resistive touchscreen doesn’t make that actually worth it. Unfortunately, the technology of the touchscreen seems to ruin an already bland experience, and we didn’t enjoy it at all.
The Marketplace is something you have to install on your device before you can have access to it, which is pretty strange since it’s a pre-installed application icon from the moment you turn it on. However, once you access it, the applications present in the Marketplace should be enough to keep any “casual” user satisfied. You have applications like Twitter and Facebook for social networking, while there’s plenty of business oriented apps out there as well. You can access simple games, like Solitaire and what not, but nothing that’s going to keep you entertained for hours. Before you can download anything though, you’ll need to sign into your Windows Live account, so hopefully you’ve got that stored away in your memory. The Marketplace is a great addition, but it’s not an integral part of the OS, or even any device you might access it with.
Windows Mobile 6.5.3 is the best version of Windows Mobile there is. Hands down. However, being the best of the worst isn’t something that we’ll freely admit is something to be proud of. We feel that, more than anything else, it’s just a stop-gap between what’s already out there, and what’s coming (Windows Phone 7). Yes, some business owners out there might still like touchscreens that fight your every input, or having to use a stylus to actually accomplish anything, but we think that’s a dying breed. The software is the polar opposite of the hardware: and unfortunately, the software plays a far bigger role than the hardware.
Under the Hood
There’s a 1GHz processor powering the Fathom, but unlike many of the other devices out there powered by the same horsepower, we actually didn’t notice it this time around. Not because the phone lags, because it really doesn’t, and transitioning from one screen to another, or one application to the next, is very responsive and quick, but it just has to do with the way the OS is displayed. There aren’t any screen transitions, so if you leave messages for your clock application, it just happens. But, like we said, we didn’t notice that had anything to do with the 1GHz processor, or just the way the OS is set up. We will admit, freely, that we’re sure it has everything to do with the transitions, as well as shifting from one app to the next, but since there’s no visual way to represent it (other than screens just changing to another in the blink of an eye, which is a great thing), we weren’t bragging about the processor as much as we would on other handsets featuring the same thing.
The Camera
You’ll only use the camera if you have to. The 3.2MP is in no way shape or form a replacement for your current camera, or even if you’ve got another cameraphone out there with better features, resolution, and a flash. We’re not sure who’s idea it was to not include a flash, even just an LED one, but we believe that’s an unforgivable result. Captured images lack any kind of definition, and if you’re trying to steal a shot of something that’s even kind of moving, it won’t turn out well for you at all. Additionally, there’s a very unique “shutter action” that happens each time you take a picture. It’s a digital representation of a shutter closing, and it’s more distracting than anything else. The time it takes to snap a photo after hitting the button isn’t long, especially considering the autofocus that has to take place, but it could have been faster. In the end, the camera could have certainly been worse, but for what it is, we weren’t all that happy with it.
The Battery
The Fathom’s battery is certainly one of its better features. As long as you’re on top of your task manager, and you’re killing off applications that are running precious CPU in the background, your battery should last you quite a long time. Our test period with the device had us not needing a charge for a couple of days, even with emails being pulled from the cloud, text messages and emails being sent, a few voice calls, and playing music. Compared to other smartphones out there, the battery on the Windows Mobile device, at least this one in particular, beats them hands-down. And it goes a long way to not have to worry about your battery in day-to-day usage.
In the End
The LG Fathom is well built. It’s got a great feel to it, and the brushed-metal aesthetic is something unique enough to attract our eye in this world of slab touchscreen devices. The physical keyboard and battery are outstanding features of the device. However, it’s marred by the 3.2-inch resistive touchscreen, the mobile Operating System itself, and the lacking camera. We will say that if you’re a fan, or previous user of Windows Mobile, than 6.5.3 will feel like a natural progression of the OS, and it will be the best version you’ve ever used. But, for the mainstream users out there, there are simply better handsets, and most of them are cheaper than what Verizon Wireless is currently charging for the Fathom. You can pick up the device right now for $149.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate. In the end, we can’t say that we’d recommend the Fathom to anyone, even a business user. There’s plenty more options out there, ones that feature many more reasons to buy them than what we can glean from the Fathom.
