Chinese maal. These two words that have long been associated with products from our illustrious neighbours, signify great features, excellent value for money — and suspect quality.

I feel then for Asus, long a premium computer component manufacturer from China that’s recently broken into the headlines with the Eee PC and suchlike. Today, with the launch of the P320 and the M930 smartphones, Asus has gone that much further in solidifying its design and quality credentials, while firmly distancing itself from countless compatriots that flood global markets.

Take the P320, for instance. Unlike many candy-bar Windows Mobile phones that have graced these pages, the P320 is downright tiny! None of the smartphone flab for the P320, thank you. At a mere 100mm x 55mm x 13.4mm, this baby is smaller than the HTC Touch, and marginally lighter as well.

Of course, that means that it can be placed in your shirt pocket and you won’t notice, but it also has its downsides. No keyboard, and a 240 x 320 screen that measures just 2.65-in diagonally — barely enough to display the included Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system.

Think of it as a part-time information consumption device, and you won’t be disappointed. Rely on it for composing long e-mails, and you will. Asus has included its own version of the Today Screen, which includes weather information plus quick access to other commonly used functions and call information, but on a screen this small, it can only do so much.

That said, the phone’s physical controls work well, with a functional clickable five-way thumb control and a dedicated lock/unlock switch on the side so that the keys in your pocket aren’t dialling that cousin in the US by mistake every now and then.

Hardware specs are a mixed bag — the P320 includes Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and a GPS receiver but understandably (given the price) skips on the GPS navigation software. The ‘Professional’ version of Windows Mobile 6.1 means you can create, edit and save Microsoft Office documents, if you can peer at the screen long enough!

What’s missing is a faster processor — the OMAP850 200MHz processor is sluggish at times — and some more memory (and 3G if you’re finicky). To me, the P320 is a winner because it backs up a fairly well-featured phone with an excellent price — at Rs 12,990 this phone is a steal, and one whose flaws can be considered, then overlooked!

Its cousin, the M930, has a different story to tell. For starters, the M930 takes a huge page (no, make that a chapter) out of the Nokia Communicator’s design book. If you think it looks like the E90, it’s because it does.

Once you get past that, you realise it’s actually rather compact at 53mm x 112mm x 18mm, and has a nice and even heft to it. The styling is very executive-chic and the brushed aluminum bobbles (aka directional pad, the soft keys) add just the right amount of bling.

It’s when you open the clamshell hinged along the left edge of the phone that the phone really starts to impress. It reveals a spacious full-QWERTY keyboard underneath, replete with a directional control pad on the right and even a dedicated number key row running along the top.

You get a secondary screen, of course — at 2.6in and a higher resolution of 400 x 240, the screen looks fantastic, but anyone with any experience with the E90 will immediately notice that the screen doesn’t occupy half as much space as it really could/should. This, to me, is the biggest disappointment, aside from the fact that the screen isn’t touch-sensitive.

The keys though are a real pleasure to use, which brings me to the next blindingly obvious question — why didn’t they put in the Professional version of Windows Mobile on this device so it could actually be used for some work? Instead, all you get are links to Word, Excel, PDF and PowerPoint reader apps. I don’t get it — the P320 gets the Office treatment, and this doesn’t?

Elsewhere, the M930 is well put together, with 3G/Wi-Fi/Bluetooth and a reasonably capable processor, but no GPS. On paper, the M930 had great potential — and while design delivers for the most part, the inner screen and lack of document editing facilities keep me from truly recommending this device. One look at the price of the two Asus phones today, and you’d wonder why the latter couldn’t have been taken care of by Asus.

Quick Specs

P320

• Networks: GSM (850/900/1800/1900)/GPRS/EDGE
• Operation system: Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional
• Display: 2.6in TFT LCD ,Touchscreen ,65536-colour, 240 x 320 resolution
• Processor: TI 850 200 MHz
• Memory: Built-in 128MB Flash ROM, 64MB SDRAM, with MicroSD support
• Connectivity: WLAN 802.11b/g, Bluetooth V2.0+EDR, USB v1.1, SiRF StarIII GPS
• Camera: 2.0 Megapixels autofocus
• Dimensions: 99mm x 54.5mm x 13.35 mm
• Weight: 105gm with 1100mAh Li-Ion battery
• Rating: 8/10
• Price: Rs 12,990
• URL:http://in.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=11&l2=55&l3=683&l4=0&model=2153&modelmenu=1

M930

• Networks: EDGE/GPRS/GSM 900/1800/1900, HSDPA 3.6Mbps, UMTS 2100
• Operation system: Microsoft Windows Mobile 6 Standard
• Display: External 2.0" ,65000-colour ,TFT LCD, 240 x 320 pixels QVGA, Internal 2.6" ,65000-colour ,TFT LCD, 400 x 240 pixels WQVGA
• Processor: TI OMAP 2431 450MHz
• Memory: Built-in 256MB Flash ROM, 64MB SDRAM, with MicroSD support
• Connectivity: WLAN 802.11b/g,Bluetooth V2.0+EDR, USB v2.0
• Camera: 2.0 Megapixels, 0.3 Megapixels for Video Telephony
• Dimensions: 113mm x 54mm x 18.7mm
• Weight: 158gm with 1100mAh Li-Ion battery
• Rating: 7/10
• Price: Rs 27,900
• URL:http://in.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=11&l2=56&l3=531&l4=0&model=2092&modelmenu=1

All smiles

I don’t know a single soul who looks forward to a trip to their dentist — if only we paid as much attention to everyday dental care as we do to our meals! The Braun Oral-B Triumph with SmartGuide Rechargable Toothbrush (quite a mouthful, hmm?) is a step in the right direction.

While it looks like a run-of-the-mill electric toothbrush, once you start brushing, sensors in the brush send data over to the palm-size wireless display and tells you which setting — harder or softer brushing and polishing — you’re using, how long you’ve been brushing for and whether you’re brushing too hard. And, like a dentist, it suggests which quadrant of your mouth you should be brushing. Only without the drilling noise…

• URL: http://www.oral-b.com/uk/products/power/triumph_smartguide.asp
• Price: £139.99 (Rs 11,204)

Hot headset

Granted, Bluetooth headsets usually have this habit of

making you look more like a schizophrenic nerd and less the cool CIA agent from the movies. Not so with the Aliph Jawbone headset — it’s one fashionable piece of equipment. Incorporating its popular military-grade ‘NoiseAssassin’ technology, the new Jawbone has a faster processor on board to handle heavier signal processing duties for more efficient noise cancellation, along with a Voice Activity Sensor which lets the Jawbone know when you’re talking so the rest of the time can be noise free. Highly recommended.

• URL: http://us.jawbone.com/
• Price: $130