OGO review

I got my OGO in the mail today and have been using it on and off all day. It is a pretty cool device. Unfortunantly (as any new device) it has some pretty annoying bits to it. I will give a basic rundown of the features as i see them.

The OGO is basically a device meant to hit the market of “kids” who are texting, instant messaging and emailing a lot. the point between a two way and a sidekick. the back of the box says “This is Ogo. It does IM, it does e-mail, it does text. All in one. All at once. Any time, any place - in your hand, on the bus, at the beach, at home, at large. You don’t need a computer, you don’t need a wire. You get the message. Send word. And welcome to the Ogosphere.” omg. so that is the gest of it. hah.

So i was contacted to be a “tastemaker”/tester for the OGO a couple weeks ago and i jumped at the opportunity. I received the box and immediately busted it open. The box is “crazy” colored and is obviously targetted towards youth (and possibly the sidekick market). it has an interesting pricing structure on the back of the box - 17.95, 1 account; 20.99, 2 account; and 23.99, 3 accounts. i have no idea what this means i can only imagine it has to do with the number of email accounts or aim accounts you associate with the device.

Size: The device is very similar in size when closed to the gen 2 sidekick. and a bit bigger when opened:

Other devices:

Nokia 6600, Ipod, Ogo, Sidekick Gen 2, Blackberry 7280

Ogo, Blackberry 7280, Sidekick Gen 2

Ogo, Sidekick, Blackberry 7280

Ogo, Yoyojam Hitman

Thoughts: As you can see the Ogo is a competitive size. It is a bit bigger than the sidekick when folded out and a bit thinner when folded up. It is quite a bit bigger than the hitman. The size feels pretty good. it is weighted well so it rests in your hands well. It is pocket sized and the thinness is much more attractive to me (i.e. fits in a jean pocket).

The keys are rounded and have pretty good action. the buttons on the side are a bit beveled and barely raised above the case. It makes for a pretty good feeling keyboard when you are attempting to type out a larger message. My favorite part is the “joypad.” it has two levels. the first is for immediate menus and the second is for external menus. For instance, if you are in a dialog box that has multiple form elements and has multiple tabs - you would use the inner directional buttons to navigate the form and the outter buttons to navigate the tabs. It is very handy and quite intuitive.

The screen is very bright and has good resolution. I don’t konw the specs but it looks very good. The speaker is loud and clear. The feel of the device is pretty solid. Sometimes i find that i am immediately afraid i will break a device when i get it into my hands. this hasn’t even crossed my mind with the ogo. i imagine that i coudl slam it into my back pocket and goto a club without a problem.

I got it to “boot” up without a problem and noticed right away that the OS is unique looking. It isn’t as smooth as the sidekick and really demonstrates how functionally limited the device really is. There are tabs for mailbox, IM, Compose, Contacts, My status, Help, Settings and Device.

The mailbox is simply your email inbox. you can use either a AOL, MSN or yahoo mailbox - or better yet a pop mailbox. This is awesome. it appears(although i am probably mistaken) that the device itself checks the mail - unlike the sidekick which proxied the mail off to T-Mobiles servers. I appreciate this. I suppose i will verify this as my usage continues.

The IM functionality is pretty simple. I was disappointed that it wasn’t as clean as the sidekick - although it is pretty dope. The keyboard integrates nicely and is rather usable. i do miss the scroll wheel thing on the sidekick though. One thing that really annoyed me, when entering a password it doesn’t astericks out the characters until you are done entering the password. This seems like bad practice. and it makes me mad. haha. ANGRY. umm. so here are some pictures:

AIM Buddy List

AIM Conversation

Current Message Dialog

The sms functionality appears to be straight forward. I have yet to introduce the device to my friends. We shall see how it holds up when i am attempting to locate a party and what not. It is responsive and the ui is pretty when receiving a message.

I have yet to be able to use or figure out how to use the PMG. As far as i can tell i am only able to pair it with my phone. I will have to read up on PMG and see what to do. heh. it does have a unique feature - rather than being able to choose if the bluetooth is visible - you can only turn the visibility on for 1 minute. This is both annoying and cool. no bluejacking. heh.

Gripes: The sounds are really annoying. as far as i can tell there isn’t a way to truely configure/customize the sounds. This means no ringtone market - no alt sound sets. etc. the default sounds are annoying and ithe level of granularity in the config is pretty bad. for instance, i am unable to say - notify me when a person messages me but that is all, or notify me when someone signs on but doesn’t message me. etc. i wish they woudl just replicate the freedom of the AIM client and then roll it into profiles.

The second thing that annoys me is the lack of web browser. would i the that hard to include a web browser. haha. probably. it just seems that it would be handy and fun if it browse the web. a real sidekick killer.

the third is the fact that it uses AIM’s “mobile buddy list” crap. so my buddy list (which is around 200 peeps) is cut off and modified for this device. And the buddy list displays everyone in order whether they are online or not. kinda lame.

Conclusion After using the thing for the afternoon i think i like it. there are some annoyances but over all it seems to be a lean mean chatting machine. (i am a dork) I wouldn’t replace my sidekick with it - it doesn’t have ssh and all that - but it fits into a very specific niche and seems to do rather well at it. I obviously need to figure out how to send my contacts to it and then figure out how to use PMG. when i do that i think i will like it a lot. It is also kinda big, but small when folded up. I may feel weird when i use it. i will have to see how the trainride home goes. ;) I will be experimenting with the USB port later (so far it just charges).

It feels very anime.

Check out all the pictures i took of it here.