Unboxing of the MWg Atom Life

May 23, 2008

Today I received a MWg Atom Life Windows Mobile Professional device and I have to say, I'm impressed so far.  I have always been a big fan of the original O2 Atom for its size and speed and I have no reason to think the Atom Life will be any different.  For those of you who are not familar with O2 Asia or MWg, let me give you a brief history.  Essentially MWg has risen out of the ashes of O2 Asia.  After careful marketing and financing, MWg (Mobile and Wireless Group) have not only rebranded the old O2 devices - like the Atom Life - but have continued to develop them with new ROM images and software support.  Further, MWg has developed new devices like the Zinc II (you can see it's unboxing over at Gear Diary) to make it a true player in the market.  Make no mistake, MWg is well know in Asia as was O2.  Now that they have an exclusive distribution arm here in the United States with Expansys-USA, I expect we will see more of their devices appearing on this side of the world.

With that, let's see what we have...

The first thing about the MWg Atom Life is the great presentation of the box itself.  This is a hold over from the O2 days and it is great to see them put thought and effort into their boxes.  Every side of the box has either information or pictures of the device, making it quite attractive.

The front flap is held shut by a set of magnets.  This is something that both MWg and HTC do on their boxes which I personally like as you don't have to fight a tab or two to open the box.  Once opened you see the Atom Life sitting pristinely in the middle with a short run down of the device specifications.

Take a look at those specifications... go ahead, take it all in...

Intel XScale PXA 270 Processor running at a blazing 624Mhz
1GB of Flash ROM with 64MB of RAM
Only 145g in weight

Very few devices can sport all of this in such a small package!  With 1GB of ROM, you can almost get away without a storage card for application installation.  Speaking of which, the Atom Life can support up to a 2GB MiniSDHC card.  As I mentioned before, MWg has done a good job of continually updating the devices from the O2 lineup.  The Atom Life, under O2, was originally equipped with Windows Mobile 5 Professional.  MWg has made a free upgrade to O2 owners to get Windows Mobile 6 (visit the MWg Atom Life Support site).  This device from Expansys already has Windows Mobile 6 installed so I won't have to do any ROM upgrades.  Given that the Atom V, the replacement for the Atom Life, is only a few months away, don't expect a Windows Mobile 6.1 upgrade for this device.

Like the original Atom, it does look like the Atom Life is a fingerprint magnet as well!  This never really bothered me that much but it may some of you.

Inside the box are the various accessories that come with the Atom Life.  This includes a worldwide AC adapter, extra stylus, the 1500mAh battery, USB synchronization cable and 2.5mm stereo headset.  Note that the headset still has the O2 logo on it!

I've just now begun playing with the Atom Life and a full review of it will be coming in the next few weeks.  I can tell you I am impressed by the speed and size of the device and I particularly like the stylus.  It has a little weight to it which I like - it makes it feel more like an instrument and not a piece of plastic.

Stay tuned for the review!