Windows XP powered ITG xpPhone has touchable custom UI

We've shown you the ITG xpPhone before but now there are screenshots of the user interface so we thought we should tell you all about it. The ITG xpPhone is kinda like the Nokia N900 - a tablet, but also a phone. Unlike the N900 however, this one is a full-blown tablet PC - it runs Windows XP and everything.

A touch optimized app launcher and dialer • They work in both portrait and landscape orientation

Since XP was never intended to run a phone it doesn't have the proper interface for it, not to mention a thumb-friendly one. This is where the custom Dial-up interface steps in… no, no interface, not connection. That's not the best name for the interface - at least it doesn't use a rotary dial-like menu.

The Dial-up interface uses a more traditional tabbed menu. It does seem quite finger-friendly (remember that even though these screenshots are small, the xpPhone has a 4.8" display). We wonder though - is it more touch-optimized than Moblin? Of course one of the biggest advantages of using an x86 CPU is that you can install any desktop OS you like - Moblin, Window 7, anything with decent touch support (though there's no guarantee you'll get the phone functionality working again).

Call and contact management

The other reason that "dial-up interface" is a bad name is also the strongest selling point of the ITG xpPhone - it supports just about any wireless connectivity you care to name, so associations with dial-up are unfair. Here it goes: quad-band GSM and CDMA, HSPA, EV-DO, TD-SCDMA, optional WiMax, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS.

The messaging department of the ITG xpPhone

ITG boast the huge number of apps available for Windows XP, touting it as an advantage of the xpPhone over other devices. The thing is... probably very, very few of them will be easy to operate on a 4.8" touchscreen, so this advantage is self-defeating (that and the 150 million count seem bogus). Having the full Outlook in your pock... ehm, backpack, sounds great as does video calling for free and so on that XP enables seem like a big plus for the xpPhone.

Call settings • Connecting to an EV-DO network

Or rather they would have seemed so several years ago when smartphones weren't this advanced - they now offer syncing with Gmail over the air, Microsoft Exchange support, mobile Skype, mobile Office document viewing and editing, mobile DivX support, mobile everything… All these things null the advantages of carrying a phone-slash-tablet that runs Windows XP. The main problem that the ITG xpPhone faces is that it's a rather big hammer in search of a nail.

A word of advice - wait until some reviewer bites the bullet and tests this thing out. Sure, the pre-order doesn't require payment but that makes it seem more like a form to register your interest in potentially buying the xpPhone. So at the moment, the whole thing seems very vaporware-ish. The battery is rated at 5 hours talk time and 5 days standby, which seems like a tall order.

The ITG xpPhone

The ITG xpPhone is by no means small - it weighs a hefty 400 grams. The dimensions of the thing are dictated in no small part by the 4.8" screen, the biggest on a "mobile" phone so far. While there is no official info on size, we estimate the size of the xpPhone at 158 x 75 x 16 mm.

Source