Big review of Yakumo Omikron

August 3, 2004 | Pavel Koza | format - Other (ar.) | viewed - 121x
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(102 votes) | category - -

Big review of Yakumo Omikron

If you need a Pocket PC with an integrated GSM/GPRS module, you do not have much choice. There are only a few models with Phone Edition besides the widespread XDA and its clones. However, those are mostly very expensive devices offered by their respective manufacturers and not by mobile operators at a discount bundled with a phone tariff (AnexTEK SP230 is a good example

. Nevertheless, there is a device which sells for the full price only (I have not come across any operator that offers it), but the price is significantly lower than that of a subsidised MDA II! That required some compromising in the configuration but it will surely find its customers. The device is called Yakumo Omikron and is produced by the German company Yakumo. If you think you have seen this device already, you are right - this device is also sold under its manufacturer's brand Eten. I would like to thank the firm Elko from the town of Brno, an authorised distributor of Yakumo in the Czech Republic, for kindly providing the device for review purposes.

Let me note that Yakumo offers a virtually identical device called Yakumo Omikron BT, which has an integrated Bluetooth module instead of a built-in digital camera.

What is in the box?

All items are neatly arranged in a small blue and white box. The user is getting all the usual accessories.

Yakumo Omikron
stereo headphones (earplugs) with remote control including volume adjustment
synchronisation cradle
USB cable
case
AC adapter with replaceable plugs
CD-ROM
brief user manual
registration card

First to attract attention is the device itself. Please bear in mind throughout the review that it is an inexpensive device intended for the downmarket. But more on the device itself later, let's first take a look at the accessories. The package includes low-quality earplug-type stereo headset with a 2.5-milimetre jack, similar to that supplied with most other Phone Edition devices. In this case, the sound seems a bit worse than usual, I am afraid. On the cable, there is a small silver "bonbon" with a microphone, a button and a volume control. There is a clip on the cable to attach the headset to the clothing.

The cradle is very light, with a detachable USB cable. The base is small, black, plain. Another simple plastic part that attaches to the base adds to its stability. The cradle offers an extra slot for charging a spare battery, with a LED indicator. At the back of the cradle, there are three connectors - a common round power connector, a standard mini-USB connector the for synchronisation cable to communicate with a desktop PC, and a standard USB Type A connector offering USB Host functionality, which we will talk about later. The supplied USB cable is long enough but it should not be a problem to buy a longer one if necessary.

Another accessory is a case. It does not look bad and serves its purpose well. Basically, it consists of two particularly shaped pieces of leatherette sewn together. A flip with a magnetic lock protects the device against slipping off accidentally. The case is lined with fine suede. A robust clip makes it possible to wear the case on the belt horizontally, which I consider more convenient than a vertical position. It is impossible to control the device in any way when in the case; all you can do is to connect the headphones. There are openings for the headphones cable on both sides of the case, so it makes no difference which way you insert the device. As you can see, when you put the Yakumo in the case, it is all hidden but for the antenna.

The AC adapter is a little larger than usual. The cable is permanently attached to the body and there is only one replaceable plug (for continental Europe). The cable is long enough, nothing more to say about it:) We should not forget about the stylus, which is only one in the package. PDA styluses usually have symmetrical (circular) profile but this one is asymmetrical. That means it will fit in place only one way. If you turn it, say, by 90 degrees and push hard into its shaft, it may never come out again.

Finally, there is a CD-ROM with bonus applications, a very brief user manual (a detailed 250-page one is available on the CD-ROM in the PDF format), and a registration card in two languages promising various benefits you will gain if you register on the manufacturer's website.

Design

At first sight, you will be surprised by the size of the Yakumo - not so much its length but width. Even though margins around the display are quite thick, the total width of 2.63 inches / 67 millimetres is extremely small for a PDA combined with mobile phone. It is a trick we will examine more closely when we talk about the display. The overall dimensions are ( 2.63 x 4.60 x 0.90 inches / 67 x 117 x 23 millimetres) and weight 5.82 oz / 165 grams, which makes the device easy to grip even for people with small hands. The device is quite thick but one cannot expect a much slimmer device with an integrated mobile phone. All in all, Yakumo is quite elegant and does not look (very) cheap, unlike some other devices. Its combination of matt silver and black with glossy silver buttons makes you forget that you are holding a low-end device. It is no that good as far as assembly is concerned, though, with noticeable yet still acceptable gaps between some plastic parts.

A closer examination of the front panel will reveal the trick with the size of the device. The display is smaller than in most other Pocket PCs. As far as I can remember, it is the smallest display I have ever seen in a Pocket PC. The diagonal is 2.8 inches long, which is equal to a little over 72 millimetres. Normally, Pocket PCs have 3.5-inch (89-millimetre) displays, i.e. almost two centimetres bigger. To get a better idea of the size of the display, check the images for comparison. The size is not the only exceptional feature but more on the others later. There a few other interesting items on the front panel besides the display. Above it, there is a dark oval with a status LED bilking green, red or orange, depending on what event it wants to notify us of. There is also a loudspeaker and a miniature camera lens there. Below the display, there are four buttons (two system ones for controlling the phone and two user-definable keys) and a miniature yet fully functional joystick. If you have a problem with activating your PDA accidentally by pressing a button, you can deactivate this feature in a Settings applet. The joystick is great for controlling games but the two soft buttons are too close, so I had problems to squeeze in my large fingers. Below the buttons on the left, there is a microphone pinhole.

The device is right-handed like most other PDAs, i.e. designed for holding in the left hand. That is why the on/off switch, a software rest button and a three-way scrolling wheel are located on the left side, while there is absolutely nothing on the right. The wheel is sunk perhaps too deep in the body - it may be the reason why it did not respond perfectly but it may be just a matter of training.

On the top, there is an antenna with a stylus shaft, an infrared eye and a 2.5-millimetre headphones jack with a rubber plug. On the bottom side, there is one opening covered with a rubber plug. Removing the plug opens access to a data connector and an SD slot. While some devices "suffer" from card slots being too shallow so that cards sticks out, the Yakumo has exactly the opposite problem - you can neither insert nor remove the card without the help of the stylus. It is a question why it so, considering you cannot use the rubber plug with a card inserted, anyway.

Unlike in other devices, the rear is worth our attention. A small latch holds a replaceable battery in place. When you slide it to the OPEN position and remove the battery, you can manipulate with the SIM card. The SIM card slot has no special mechanism, the card simply inserts in the slot and is protected against falling off by a plastic stop. If you need to remove the card, you have to press the stop lightly with the tip of the stylus. The main power switch is also located under the battery and makes it possible to erase all data from the memory (the same can be performed by pressing the reset button and the on/off switch). Another rubber plug fills an external antenna connector above the battery compartment. And that's the end of our tour of Yakumo Omikron.

Parameters

You may have noticed something unusual in the screenshots - yes, the Yakumo Omikron I obtained for testing had a German ROM. The device is available in other languages too, but the firm Elko imports the German version. I managed to obtain an English ROM but after consulting experts from ELKO, I decided not to use it. So, it's not a mistake that you see something different in the screenshots than you are used to. Alles klar? Gut:)

Now, let's look inside. The CPU is a Samsung S3C2410 processor running at 200 MHz. Besides the low price, there is another reason for such a relatively low-performance processor - its low consumption. As far as compatibility is concerned, there are no differences between Intel and Samsung processors and all applications should run correctly (but for some very specific exceptions). The Yakumo offers just a very basic amount of memory and many users will probably want to buy an extra memory card, because 32 MB of FlashROM including 0.34 MB of safe storage and 64 MB of RAM, out of which little over 53 is accessible to the user, cannot be considered as a generous memory allotment. The safe storage is very small but as soon as you find out what is packed in the ROM, you will understand why:)

The display... well, it's just different. It is an STD colour display with 12-bit colour depth (4096 colours) - experts and those who remember will know what I am talking about. Frankly, I felt an air of the old times when this technology was the best to be found in various Handhelds and Palm-size PCs. Technology has advanced significantly since then and this type of display is something rare which cannot compare to the commonly used TFT displays. Brightness is fine (adjustable at 32 levels) and the Yakumo will beat most iPAQs in the intensity of the white colour, but contrast (adjustable at 16 levels - a speciality of STN displays) and richness of colours are much worse, responses are significantly slower. This prevents the device from becoming popular among game-loving youth - the joystick is very nice but fast-paced action games have "shadows", which hinders playability. You may have seen something like that on an old laptop. If not, ask your granny:) Another feature of STN displays is permanently activated backlight - even if reduced to minimum, it is always on. In comparison with other types of displays, it is somewhat worse readable outdoors. But on a more positive note, the display is significantly smaller with the same resolution, so the picture is very fine and nice to look at. The touch-sensitive layer is a little tough but it is a matter of a little training to master it. Finally, some applications cannot handle the 12-bit color palette. In general, display is a part that makes it possible to cut the total cost significantly and this is the case with the Yakumo. It is OK to use and if you are not switching from an iPAQ or LOOX or something, you need not worry.

Audio features are not very impressive but for one exception, which is the built-in loudspeaker. It is one of the best I have ever encountered in a Pocket PC. That does not mean that I threw away my three-band speaker system and started using the Yakumo for DVD audio playback. Yet the sound of both music playback and phone calls is very good - clear and without noise even at high volume levels. The aforementioned headphones will come handy when you want to listen to MP3s. The problem though is their low quality and a low volume of the device's output. Even if you turn the volume to the maximum, the actual level is rather average. In a noisy environment, you simply cannot hear anything. Unfortunately, the only sound characteristic you can adjust is the volume; there is no applet to set the bass and treble. Quality of the microphone is very good even though there are no controls available. Recording is clear whether you speak to the mike from ten centimetres or three metres.

Besides a GSM/GPRS module, the device has fairly limited communications capabilities. The Yakumo connects with the desktop over a USB cable or infrared beam.

As far as power is concerned, I have two pieces of news - one bad, one good. The good one is that the main 1050-mAh battery is Lithium-Polymer type, i.e. the best available. The bad news is that it lasts just three hours, which is very little. Even if you reduce the backlight (cannot be turned off), the result is not much better. Be therefore ready to charge the device every day. I tested the device in the standard way with the GSM module activated (I presume the phone part will be on permanently). The Yakumo has a backup battery to take care of the memory contents when you need to replace the main battery, the same solution as in other Pocket PCs.

Camera

As I have mentioned before, this model of Yakumo features an integrated digital camera. I should make it clear straight away that its quality is about the same as that of cameras integrated in mobile phones. After launching the PhotoCapture application (there is no button assigned as shutter release by default), you can take still images in the JPEG and BMP format in three resolutions - 640x480, 320x240 and 160x120 (unlike in MDA II, the orientation is horizontal); capturing video is not supported. As you can see, the images can serve only for information, hardly anyone will have them developed on photo paper. On the other hand, this is the case of most integrated digital cameras.

The following series of images illustrates how the Yakumo deals with not very good lighting conditions indoors.

And finally, three photos to show the difference between the three available resolutions. I am not sure whether the highest resolution is native or whether it is a resampled smaller image, but considered the quality it makes little difference...

The camera control and image manipulation utility is quite sophisticated. It can send photos by e-mail, apply filters (brightness, contrast, colour intensity including separate adjustment for each channel), create postcards (place a bitmap in front of the photo to produce various pieces of art, such as "me among monkeys" or "me astronaut"). The settings allow the user to choose between five modes including normal, greyscale, black and white, negative, and historic (looks like photos from a hundred years ago).

There is one inconvenience about the camera - the lens is located on the front panel. It is ideal when you need to take a picture of yourself or something behind you but very bad for taking photos of scenes in front of you. In such cases, you have to rely on your estimate. One can get used to it and over the time, you will have more good than bad photos but it is virtually impossible to take photos of details or objects that are moving fast.

Yakumo Omikron as a mobile phone

The device is a standard Phone Edition, which means it offers the complete package of applications from Microsoft for GSM-enabled devices (more information in a review of MDA II). Technically, it is a tri-band phone supporting 900/1800 and 1900 MHz frequencies. Besides standard features, such as call redirect and call waiting, it offers automatic reply to an incoming call and supports cell broadcast. Call alert can be sound (a WAV file) or vibration. In addition, the Yakumo offers three simple utilities. Connection Disconnect will end an active GPRS session. SIM Manager manages data on the SIM card and can copy entries between the SIM and Contacts as well as manage archived SMS messages. And finally, there is a SIM Toolkit which can be used e.g. for GSM banking. My SIM cards do not have this functionality, unfortunately, so I could not test it.

That's not everything, though. The device having a digital camera, it may be a good idea to send nice photos to friends in an MMS messages. The client is from EZOS and looks quite sophisticated. Unfortunately, I could not make it work with my operator Oskar... Others may be luckier:)

The Yakumo is quite a good phone that will not amaze with unique features but is sufficient for everyday use. Like other Pocket PC Phone Edition devices, the Yakumo is not a standard Class B phone. If someone calls you when data transmission is in progress, you appear unavailable (tested with Oskar). As far as transmission speed is concerned, the device offers GPRS Class 10, i.e. up to 4 timeslots for downlink and 1 slot for uplink. In comparison with competition, the Yakumo lacks certain features, such as loud handsfree or the possibility to use MIDI files as ring tones, but these are not very significant. The battery could last longer - under normal circumstances, you will most likely have to recharge every day. On the other hand, the size of the device is quite satisfactory - it cannot compare to mobile phones but this is not a mobile phone:)

Expandability

The Yakumo offers one integrated SD slot with I/O support, so it should not be a problem to use e.g. a different digital camera. In practice though, there is a problem because the slot is sunk too deep in the body - my HP camera was too short to reach the contacts. Common memory cards worked fine. The Yakumo itself does not offer any other expansion options but the cradle does. As I mentioned at the beginning, there is a USB Host port in the cradle which makes it possible to connect any USB device if you have a driver for it. A driver for common USB flash disks is preloaded in the ROM, which I have successfully tested. However, it works only when the cradle is plugged to the mains. This should not be a problem because the device does not charge over a USB cable and the cradle and AC adepter will therefore make an inseparable couple.

Yakumo offers a wide selection of accessories, such as cables, extra batteries and cases, all available from authorised distributors.

Software

There are quite a few bonus apps for a low-end device - the offer is almost unbelievable. I have already mentioned some of them, now let's take a look at the rest. The operating system is Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC. As far as I know, there are no plans to release an upgrade to Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition, unfortunately.

Let's start with the most important application, which, in my opinion, is a backup utility. Those who have ever lost all their data will surely agree:) This simple utility can backup either everything or just the PIM data. You can choose the location (any memory card) - there is too little space in the safe storage. You can also choose automatic backups on certain days or when the battery power falls below a certain level. In order to avoid running out of space, the utility makes it possible to set how many backups will be maintained - after reaching the limit, new ones will start replacing the oldest ones. Appreciable is the system's automatic offer to restore data from a backup after a HW reset.

Three other applications are from the sphere of multimedia. I have already mentioned the utility operating the camera. Another one is ImageMaker - a drawing and image editing utility resembling Paint from MS Windows and supporting bitmaps and JPEGs. It offers several effects, such as rotation, stretch and flip, invert colours, as well as brightness and contrast adjustment. Multimedia Manager is a simple application that displays images and ring tones.

Now, onto the CD-ROM. There is nothing special there but for Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft ActiveSync for desktop and a few PDA applications.

Pricing

Whether a device is considered as low-end depends mainly on its capabilities. On the other hand, the picture is not complete without the price tag. In this case, the less than 350EURO VAT included (an equivalent of roughly $400 USD) lets one forget about many a drawback. The Yakumo cannot compare to the king of Phone Edition devices, MDA II. They are completely different categories as far as both parameters and price is concerned. Nevertheless, the price/performance ratio is about the same in both of them. In the end, it is the customer who chooses either top performance for big bucks or worse performance for less money. When I wrote this review, none of the Czech mobile operators was offering the Yakumo bundled with their subscription for a discounted price. However, there are a few distributors who are offering it for the full price.

[POLL]

Benchmarks & Tests

Unlike in previous review, this chapter is quite brief this time. It is mainly due to the passive CSTN display which is good enough for common tasks but unsuitable for watching video or playing action games. Well, action games are out of the question completely. Films are watchable but the experience is nothing to write home about. Slow-motion games and music playback would be satisfactory for most users.

Benchmark tests are not very relevant either, because this is the first 200-MHz device I have tested. In the end, I decided to compare four devices, each with a different processor. So, this is not a competition but rather an illustration of what performance you can expect. There is a perceivable difference as compared to 400-MHz devices but it is not too bad. Only rarely did the Yakumo "pondered" over something for long but most of the time, it responded immediately. The device subjectively appeared somewhat "sleepy", which was due to the passive display. I mentioned my experience in the parameters chapter.

ROM version of the tested device :: 1.00