An Interview With Qool Labs

A while ago I wrote an article called, Qool, the Company That Could which was posted on 1src. Now, I've decided to post the raw questions and answers here at Canuck PDA, I hope you enjoy my interview with Qool Labs...


1) First off, when was Qool formed and how large is it currently? When did it release the QDA-700?

Based in Singapore, Qool Labs Pte Ltd is one of the fastest growing technological start-up companies. Since its release of their flagship product, QDA 700, in early March 2005, Qool Labs has been receiving overwhelming positive responses from the public. Founded and established in 2003, Qool Labs is mainly focusing on digital lifestyle products, evolving with the rapid changes in the digital lifestyle environment as well as being in sync with the up and coming fashion trends. With a mission to innovate and create state-of-the-art digital technological products that will complement and complete the many facets of various lifestyles. Qool Labs has an estimated headcount of 10 and counting due to our rapid expansion.

2) At one point, I remember reading that the QDA-700 was being created by PiTech. Was it ca colaboration between the two companies, or what? A little clarification on that would be good.

Qool Labs has our own team of professionals who are responsible for Product Design, Research and Development. At times, we also outsource manufacturers to manufacture our products specially cater to our products requirements, hence PiTech in this instance.

3) Why do you think your company chose the Palm OS? Why do you think your company chose to create a smartphone in perticular?

Qool Labs strongly believes that Palm OS is able to reach out to the majority as it is a well known fact that Palm has been in the market since 1996 and has been defined as the trends and expectation for mobile computing. Qool Labs is confident that with Palm OS Garnet, an enhanced version of Palm OS 5, which provides features such as dynamic input area, improved network communication, and support for a broad range of screen resolutions including QVGA. We see a lot of opportunities in the smartphone industry. A lot of enhancement and improvement can be made to the existing smartphones out there.

4) What do you think makes the QDA stand out from the competition?

QDA700 offers users the latest Palm OS Garnet that supports multilingual functions that includes English, French, Italian, Germany, Swiss, Thai, Tagalog, Chinese localization which not many conventional smartphones can offer. Has an edge over the rest with its 1.3 Megal Pixel camera that can be internally interpolated to 5 Mega Pixel resolutions. QDA700 is also well known for its 2.8 transflective TFT ultra-sensitive touch screen LCD and also allows up to 6 party conference calling. To sum up, QDA sparkles together with its other features such as Photo caller ID, MP3 Player, Voice Recording, Phot Viewer, Image Editor, Video Player and Recorder.

5) I read a while ago that the QDA was only available in European and Asian countries. Do you plan on expanding to North America (USA, Canada, Mexico, etc.)?

As of now, QDA is only available in European and Asian Countries and we have already generated many positive responses. And yes, we are working in the direction of expanding to places like North America and hopefully, will generate similar responses.

6) Did an independant survey on a few palm forums. It seemed that the number 1 thing people make their purchase based on is the phone network. Why did Qool Labs choose GSM/GPRS?

Qool Labs has chosen GSM / GPRS networks which is widely used in most countries (more than 170 countries) that allows users to maintain a virtual connection to the wireless network for data services, also highlighting on GPRS which is designed for wide-area data communication while GSM offers high quality mobile voice services. Also, Qool Labs favors the theoretical maximum speeds of up to 171.2kbps that GPRS offers, which is about 3 times as fast as the data transmission speeds possible over today's fixed telecommunications networks, and not forgeting GSM with its satellite roaming that has extended its services access to areas where terrestrial coverage is not available.

7) On that same survey, people were divided on 2 matters. The votes were divided between hidden antenna vs. external antenna, and flip-top phone vs. candy bar-styled phone. It seems that people like the flip-top since it protects the screen, but they also hate the flip-top since most of the time they're flimsy. How do you respond to this in relation to the QDA-700?

Prior designing the QDA700, Qool Labs has also conducted an informal independent survey and has realized that majority favored the flip-top phone feature. That is why, Qool Labs has specially designed a "Push Flip Button" for users to flip open the phone, acting as a flip-top protector, flipping open the top at the best appropriate pressure that will not cause the phone to be flimsy like most flip-top phones. QDA700 favors external antenna as it has a better RF coverage for areas with low signal strength or no signal strength compared to hidden antenna.

8) Also on the survey, the thing ranked second on the list of the important smartphone features was screen resolution. 240x320 is a rarely used screen size. Why was that used on the QDA-700, and not 320x320 or 320x480? Will future smartphones have a more "standard" screen size?

We wanted to have the best of both worlds - to be Big and Compact at the same time. By using 240x320, Qool Labs has come up with one of the biggest screen among all the smartphones but still compact enough to fit into a mini stylish form factor.

9) It seems that whenever someone thinks of a Palm OS smartphone, they think of the Treo 650, or even the Treo 600. What do you think that is? What features in the QDA-700 could change that manner of thinking? What features in future Qool Labs smarphones will separate and raise it from the competition?

We understand that Treo has an upper hand at this moment but we are confident that QDA700 is able to catch up with the race. QDA700 has an edge over the rest of the competition with its multilingual platforms, allowing users to use both or switch between English and Chinese interfaces. Another winning point is that QDA700 has a 1.3 Megal Pixel Camera that can be interpolated to 5 Mega Pixel Resolution. For users who prefer a more compact yet giving them a bigger screen, QDA700 will be the ideal smartphone for them.

10) Recently a Treo hacker, known as shadowmite, has partly enabled the the palmOne wi-fi SDIO card to work with the Treo 650. On the survey I conducted, it was mentioned many times that internal wi-fi and/or bluetooth (preferrably wi-fi) included in a smartphone, would be a hit. You told me earlier that you plan to have a wi-fi external attachment for the QDA-700. Do you believe that attachment will be enough to keep the QDA-700 near the top of the Palm OS smartphone creators? Will future smartphones include any internal or external bluetooth or wi-fi?

QDA700 currently do not have any internal wi-fi and/or bluetooth, but we are working on an external attachment (Bluetooth battery) which will be as good as an internal bluetooth. We do not rule out the possibility of our future smartphones supporting internal bluetooth and more. Look out for our future smartphones!

11) Why do you think smartphones have grown in popularity?

Cellphone is just ain't enough these days. Technology is advancing by miles every min and is no wonder that people with purchasing power have higher expectation when it comes to their needs and wants. People with busy schedules would have a much easier life with a smartphone guarding and organizing their diaries and schedule. And by the rate that the world is constantly evolving, people will be and are getting busier compared to 5 years ago.

12) Approximately how long is the battery life of the QDA-700?

QDA700 has a talk time of up to 3 hours and a standby time of up to 100 hours.

13) As far as I know, the only Palm OS handheld that included a camera with a flash was the Sony Clie NZ90, and the Palm OS community has yet to see an internal camera with a flash on a smartphone. This has angered some Treo owners, as well as myself, a Zire 72 owner. A digital camera can have all the colour sensors and low-light enhancers, but it can't fully replace a flash. Why doesn't the QDA-700 include a flash?

Having taken the consideration that most users would take mutual self portrait at arms' length rather than asking a passerby to take the picture, it is only logical for QDA700 to have excluded a flash. As much as we agree that inbuilt flash camera does greatly increases the picture quality, the inbuilt flash is only effective to around a metre which will require others or passerbys to take the pictures for the users as the flash will be too bright for shots closer than around 50cm, often leaving the subject over exposed. To prevent the picture to be over exposed while taking self portraits using digital phone camera, users would often activated the appropriate mode (morning, night, auto, flash modes) and keep the flash switch off. In other words, with inbuilt flash, users would not able to take a mutual ?self portrait at arm length, hence QDA700 is built with a non-flash camera that enables users to take self portraits.

14) I know the QDA-700's camera is 1.3 megapixel, but how good is the quality?

Well, for one thing, the higher the resolution the camera has, the better the picture quality will be. QDA700 stores the images in JPEG format, compresses and reduces the file size of the images that does not eat up the storage space unlike TIFF format. Unlike others, QDA700's camera quality does not have little squiggles and extra graininess. QDA700's camera has 4 different modes to cater to different requirements and in addition, it allows interpolation to 5 Mega Pixel, improving the images' quality.

15) I own a Zire 72 and find that it can take up to 3 full seconds to take a single picture with the Zire 72's 1.3 megapixel camera. This gives a high and almost certain chance of blurring. Does this happen with the QDA-700's camera? How long is the photo capture time?

QDA700 takes up less than 3 seconds to take a single picture, as mentioned above, QDA700 camera quality does not have little squiggles and extra graininess, eliminates double visions and blurring images. Also, QDA700 camera has the fastest reaction speed, capturing and reflecting the movement in the screen at a much faster speed compare to most digital cameras.

16) How do you believe smartphones have affected the sales and design of ordinary handhelds?

Smartphones have greatly affected the sales and design of ordinary handhelds. Smartphones are afterall, a cell phone and more - with PDA, games, audio players, video players, digital camera thrown in. In terms of appearances, the compact form factors of the smartphones are very similiar with the ordinary handhelds, while some of them even look better. Ordinary Handheld is half the package while Smartphone is a complete package.

17) How are smarphone companies, other than palmOne, reacting to the abundance of features in the Treo series?

We are in no position to comment for the other smartphone companies.

18) What does the future hold for Qool Labs?

We see ourselves pitting against the bigger players, eventually gaining more market share with our cutting edge of merging technology with lifestyle as well as being in sync with the up and coming fashion trends. We are very optimistic about the future. I must say, while there are alot of competition, there are also a lot of opportunities.

19) What does the future hold for smartphones in general?

There is alot to look forward in terms of the smartphones industry. 3G has arrived. It is not surprising to learn that there will be a 3G smartphone coming up next. The future for smartphones is definitely bright.

20) Are there any other comments you would like to give about the QDA-700, Qool Labs, smartphones in general, etc.?

Well, I would say, Qool Labs doesn't stop here. This is only a beginning for us. Be sure to look out for more products from us.