The Viliv S5 is well suited for handheld PC users who crave connectivity as much as portability. This mobile Internet device offers 3G, GPS, and Wi-Fi, as well as a full computing experience in a highly mobile form factor. Plus, it gets more than 6 hours of battery life. Sporting a price tag of $799 (available through Dynamism), the Viliv S5 costs $400 more than the best netbooks, and it’s even more expensive than many budget dual-core notebooks. However, if you want a PC that can fit (albeit snuggly) into your pocket, and surf the Web from anywhere, it’s a solid choice.
Design
Measuring 6.0 x 3.3 x 0.9 inches and weighing 14.4 ounces, the Viliv S5 falls in between the very pocketable iPhone/iPod touch and a netbook. It’s significantly heavier than Apple’s offerings, but smaller than mini-notebooks, making it a prime device for two-handed operation, much like a Nintendo DSi or Sony PSP. It’s roughly the same size as the 6.6 x 3.7 x 0.9-inch Clarion MiND, another mobile Internet device, but about 5 ounces heavier.
The S5 sports a sturdy build that feels quite solid in hand, and it looks good, too. The all-black device is highlighted by a glossy 4.8-inch display flanked on either side by navigation keys that glow a soft blue. Located on the left side is a small thumb stick that allowed us to navigate menus and desktop icons, and a Menu button that opens Windows XP’s Start Menu and brings the toolbar into view (it’s hidden by default).
On the right side of the S5 is an OK button (which replicates left clicks), a right-click button, and a button that fires up the transparent virtual keyboard that let us key in URLs and craft e-mail messages. The S5 uses haptic feedback, which provides a rumbling sensation to duplicate the feeling of pressing physical keys, but it doesn’t quite replicate the feeling of using a real keyboard. We liked the dedicated Alt, Ctrl, and Win keys that nicely recreate the physical keyboard experience, but the Clarion MiND’s larger keys allowed us to press the on-screen buttons with better accuracy.
A pull-out door on the left side of the S5 covers a reset button, a TV-out connection (for exporting video to a larger display), and two USB 2.0 ports. A power port is located on the bottom. On the right is a power switch, and a latch that allows you to pop off the battery pack attached to the back. The top of the device has a headphone jack, dedicated volume keys, and an antenna for increasing the GPS reception. Unfortunately, there’s no slot to stash the included stylus when not in use, which means it can be lost easily.
Display and Audio
The 1024 x 600-pixel resolution touchscreen display looks good from a variety of angles. It does, however, kick back heavy reflections when viewing content that’s set against a dark background, and when used in direct sunshine it becomes unreadable. When we watched an episode of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, we could see ourselves in the display whenever the characters were in a dark environment. Streaming The J.B.’s “The Grunt” through the stereo speakers produced fairly loud and clear audio, though sound was generally a tad lifeless.
Touchscreen Navigation and Dual Interfaces
For the most part, navigating the desktop and launching programs with the touch interface was snappy, responsive, and intuitive. We liked that the physical controls nicely replicated the touchpad/mouse button setup. Our main gripe is that users with sizeable digits will find it somewhat tricky to press the small icons when using Windows XP’s default interface. You can easily overcome this issue, however, by either using the included stylus, or by tapping the Cube UI icon in the upper right corner.
Cube UI is Viliv’s custom interface that makes it far easier to navigate the handheld device. There are a total of five Cube UI categories (Entertainment, Internet, LBS & Navigation, My Group, and Productivity) that you can cycle between by swiping the touchscreen vertically, clicking on the right side of the screen, or by using the thumbstick.
Each Cube can support up to nine shortcuts on each of its four sides (which you can rotate through by swiping horizontally), so you can have thirty-six shortcuts per category—quite a lot. You can add new icons to the Cube by clicking the edit button in the lower-left corner, then either dragging a desktop icon to an available space, or adding new content via a folder menu. Adjacent to the edit button is an on-screen button that lets you swap the background color from gray to purple with a calendar.
Positioned at the very top of the Cube UI is a taskbar with various icons that lets you see battery life, alter screen brightness and volume, and toggle the wireless connections on and off. At the far left of the taskbar are two icons: Just On and Exit. Just On puts the PC to sleep in 5 seconds (pressing the Start button wakes it up as quickly), while Exit closes out the Cube UI and brings you back into XP. You also can switch back to the standard Windows XP interface by clicking the XP logo in the lower right portion of the screen.
