Sony Ericsson and Orange have teamed up to not only sponsor T4’s Mobile Act Unsigned, but they are also offering 50 free mobileAct Unsigned tracks to people who buy a Sony Ericsson Walkman phone on Orange. The offer is already in full swing and runs to the 31st December. The code to claim your tracks is valid for longer until the end of January, and you can download until the 22nd February.
The offer coincides with the launch of the Orange exclusive colour variants on the W910i – exclusive to Orange in red and the W590i in pink. There is a leaflet in the box that explains how to redeem your 50 free tracks.
MobileAct Unsigned airs every Sunday on T4 at 12.35 and is a nationwide search to find the best of Britain’s talent. It’s hosted by Alex Zane and features some of the industries leading players, including Radio 1’s Jo Whiley, Alex James the bassist from Blur and Simon Gavin, the head of A&M Records. The winner gets a record deal worth 1 million pounds. See www.mobileact.co.uk or visit the Orange WAP site for more information and downloads.
One of the more interesting things to be found at mobile phone shows is when a company turns up pushing ideas, and concepts. Sometimes these things come through, other times they are incorporated with other features and sometimes they just get left behind in the fast changing environment of progressive technology.
Yesterday at the Symbian Smartphone Show I had the opportunity to look over some concepts Motorola are planning for future handset releases. The phone you see in the photos is just a concept phone, it has no model number, and may well never be released as a product. The idea in bringing the handset to the expo was to showcase the media capabilities that Motorola may be introducing in future handsets.
The Motorola Concept phone demonstrated some very high power picture and video editing capabilities.
On most camera phones, there is a delay, sometimes of up to 5 seconds, as the camera loads and opens. The camera on the concept Motorola launched very quickly, and was ready to use straight away. When taking a picture the handset saved the picture, archived it to the designated folder and was ready to shoot, again very quickly. In a very non scientific test the concept phone proved to be much quicker than the Sony Ericsson K810i I had with me at the time.
The video capture was at 30fps. Once a video clip has been recorded, there are a wide range of options available on the handset itself to edit the clip. You can cut sections of the clip, join other clips together, use transitions as you fade from one clip to another; you can cut out pieces of audio, add a soundtrack, and on and on. The options were numerous, but the thing that made it great is the handset was so usable. Now, it is fair to say I have not always been Motorola’s biggest fan. However the concept I saw yesterday was very good. It is not often you find Motorola and usability linked together in a positive way but the concept phone was just usable. All the features for video editing were simply laid out in a logical manner, and navigation of the menu was via a solid feeling circular 5 way joypad.
Once you are happy with the editing, the Motorola phone offers one click uploads to popular online media services such as YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, etc.You can set the phone so all media is uploaded to one destination or split things up, so videos go to Youtube and pictures go to Flickr, for example. You can imagine for yourself the possibilities available. 21st birthday pictures immediately online to share with friends, wedding videos to share with family who can’t be with you, sporting events, social parties, and so on. Even news clips, in an era of instant media, can easily be filmed and uploaded for the world to see.
If the features on show in the concept phone make it onto forthcoming Motorola handsets, then they are going to have some phones worth shouting about. It will be interesting to see over the coming months what they have to offer.
More than 100 million text messages are sent across mobile networks, every day in the UK. With the networks offering more and more text bundles with their tariffs, such as the Orange unlimited text bundle on Dolphin 35 tariffs, those figures are just likely to grow and grow.
The increase in popularity of text messaging has had some unfortunate side effects, however. As you can see from the picture, some mobile keypads are not as strong as others. The pictured phone belongs to a colleague here at mobiles.co.uk and she has only had it for 9 months!
So, with this in mind, here are Mobiles.co.uk top three tips for increasing the life of your mobile phone keypad:
Cut your nails – Seriously, ladies, do they really have to be so long? Wear gloves – The soft cotton kind are found to be best Don’t text, call – Unlimited texts are great, but do you really need to hold a whole conversation by SMS?
The first image of the upcoming Skypephone, to be launched on Three at the beginning of November, is now available.
With this phone all calls to other Three Skypephones and all calls to Skype users are free of charge. Just log into your Skype account as you do on a PC, access contacts, check their status, make a call or send an instant message. The handset has a dedicated Skype key so calls can be made instantly.
The 3Skypephone comes with some great features:
• 2 Megapixel camera • Photo editing and effects function • Video capture • MP3 player • Inbuilt equalizer which enhances reproduction delivering great bass • Simple navigation for browsing the library
Calls on the 3 Sypephone are truly free, there are no calling charges, no data charges and no need to buy an extra add-on. It’s FREE calls at anytime.
The 3Skypephone comes in 3 great colours and will also be the only phone available on the new £12 Mix and Match 100 tariff which offers 100 minutes or texts or any mix of the two.
The Sony Ericsson K810i camera phone has kept some similarities to its original the K800i in terms of overall looks and features. One major difference to the k800i though, is the keypad. The phone now has 4mm wide disc shaped buttons, which were easy to use, however some people might find it hard to adapt to due to their small size. The phone has a rubbery soft feel on the back, and the front is shiny. In between each line of vertical buttons there is a large space. This phone is slimmer and lighter than its original weighting at just 103 grams.
Camera Test
The cyber-shot camera is excellent. It has a 16X digital zoom, and has loads of features that allow you to take photos with different themes, effects, and background frames. The quality of the photos is very good, and there are several different capture modes, including sports, which allow brilliant quality photos for fast moving objects, and beach/snow mode is for when the surroundings are very bright. There is also a new feature called “photofix” where a picture can be adjusted after it’s been taken to give it a professional look.
The camera also has four different picture sizes to choose from. The only setback from the camera is the shutter speed in which the photo is taken, as it is quite slow. However the camera does have a burst mode called ‘Bestpics’, and this allows 9 pictures to be automatically taken one after the other straight away.
One of the things I found annoying was when looking through all the pictures in the photo album. When a picture is chosen, it initially looks blurred and distorted. After about a second the picture clears up and looks normal, but sometimes it can take longer than a second. This can be irritating when trying to have a quick browse through photos.
The camera is very easy to use on this mobile phone due to its shortcuts. As when the camera function is on, the buttons on the left hand side of the keypad give you direct access to all of the camera and video settings. These buttons have icons which are lit up in blue to show you what they are for. Also at the top of the screen there are two photo album shortcut buttons, one takes you to the camera album and the other takes you to the last picture taken with the camera.
The video camera is just of an average standard, as when used on the automatic mode the picture can look quite fuzzy and pixelated at times. This is the same when using 3G video call.
Music Test
There are lots of features on this phone music wise. A new service that has been added to the phone which the Sony Ericsson k800i did not have is TrackID. This is a music recognition service that is free, it identifies songs that are played from a external music source such as an FM radio. This service is quick and it is able to collect the song, artist and album name. The phone has a FM radio and a media music player, which separates the songs saved into Artists and Track categories. Playlists can also be created to gather all your favourite songs together.
As well as the music player there is also Music DJ, which allows you to create your own song using four different instruments. The Playnow service also allows you to download your favourite songs. When music is played on this phone it is clear and of good quality, this is the same when listening to music through the headphones. Music can also be listened to through a wireless Bluetooth headset. All in all a great music phone.
Living with it
Living with this phone for two weeks was good in general. One of the main things that I liked about this phone was the FaceWarp software. It’s the most amusing thing on a phone ever! The most annoying thing about this phone is the signal interference noise. This noise is when the phone is polling to the network. It happens when the phone is near computer speakers, a Hi-Fi, or a car’s radio, and it is by far the worst signal noise from a phone that I have used. The phone has great battery life as I barely had to charge it even though it was always being used. A great function is that a video clip can be stored with each contact on the phone. This means that when someone calls the video will be played along with the videos noise. Texting on this phone was simple, and once you have got used to the small buttons, it becomes very rare to accidentally press the wrong button, as the buttons are quite well separated.
Conclusion
In general I think that this phone is a good basic mobile phone. It’s simple to use, and as well as having a few extras it has all the essential things anyone would need. This was the first Sony Ericsson mobile I have used, and the impression that I got was that it seems like a practical and reliable handset. It has lots of fun and entertaining stuff to do, such as Music and Photo DJ and FaceWarp. This is a cybershot camera and it does have everything you would expect from a digital camera, as there are lots of things to do with the camera and pictures.
With its minimalist black exterior and no-frills look, this clamshell-style phone eschews the busy design of many of today's handsets. And like the design, the $100 price tag (with a two-year contract from T-Mobile) is pretty basic; you get a decent set of features for that price.
The exterior display, which measures 1.5 inches diagonally, is spacious and easy to read. Volume controls sit on the left side of the handset, while a power button and a button for accessing the built-in camera sit on the right. The camera's lens sits above the external display.
The Nokia 6133's practical look continues on the phone's interior, though accessing that interior is more difficult than it should be. The phone's hinge seems to stick when you open or close the handset. (The phone comes with an auto-open button on the right side of the handset, and the motor that powers this feature may be responsible for the stickiness I noticed.) The keypad is so plain that it gives the phone something of a retro look. Because the number keys are set flat into the phone, they're hard to dial by touch. Also, the silver casing around the keypad looks disappointingly plasticky. The spacious internal screen measures 2.2 inches diagonally and offers an impressive resolution of 240 by 320 pixels. Bright and easy to read, it's one of the phone's best features.
The Nokia 6133 supports T-Mobile's MyFaves service, which permits unlimited calls to five people you select, regardless of the network they use (including landline phones). Adding contacts to your MyFaves list is a snap, and the interface--which features icons or photos that you choose for your five contacts--makes connecting to them a breeze.
Overall, the 6133 works very well for voice calls. The phone has a comfortable, soft-touch black exterior; and despite being slightly heavy (at 4 ounces) for a standard cell phone, it's quite comfortable to hold during long calls. Voice quality and volume were very good, though talk-time battery life in our lab tests was merely average at 6 hours, 34 minutes. That's better than the vendor-stated talk time of 3.5 hours, but worse than that of many standard cell phones we've tested recently.
On the right side of the handset, a dedicated key lets you access the 1.3-megapixel camera, which lacks a flash. The quality of my snapshots ranged from serviceable to very good. Still-life pictures and moving subjects were easy to capture, though colors sometimes looked washed out. The 6133 also lets you record brief video clips; like the video captured on most camera phones, it looked pixelated and blocky.
The 6133 comes with a basic music player and a video player, both of which are simple to operate. The music player supports MP3, WMA, and ACC file formats; and earbuds ship with the phone. Sound quality was adequate but unexceptional. You can use the Nokia Audio Manager software (part of the Nokia PC Suite) to transfer songs to the phone, but you'll have to purchase the application separately. Also absent are a USB cable for connecting it to your PC and a microSD Card for storage. The phone does have a built-in FM radio; but to listen to it, you must use the included headset--the radio doesn't connect to the external speaker.
Though the 6133 lacks e-mail support, it provides several options for instant messaging, including mobile versions of AIM, ICQ, MSN Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger. It lets you send and receive text and multimedia messages, too. The phone supports the 850/900/1800/1900 GSM networks for voice, the GPRS and speedier EDGE networks for data, and Bluetooth wireless.
While the Nokia 6133 can't compete with a dedicated music phone or a great messaging device, it nonetheless includes a good amount of functionality at a pretty low price.
After using the SDA (aka Smart Digital Assistant), I've warmed to the idea of Microsoft Windows Mobile-based handsets. This standard cell phone's solid Wi-Fi capability, good call quality, 1.3-megapixel camera, and long battery life impressed me. And it was relatively easy to use, too, though the operating system did have a few quirks, such as being unable to close an application or verify whether it has closed.
The app-closing problem is not specific to this $300 T-mobile phone (as of April 7, 2006, with a one year agreement). It exists because the Windows Mobile platform doesn't include exit or sign-out options for many applications, I accessed my Hotmail and Outlook e-mail without much ado, but I couldn't figure out how to close the Hotmail app--I could only minimize it. And the first time I retrieved e-mail, the download process was slow on the phone's GPRS/EDGE connection. Instant messaging was faster, though you have to deal with using T9 text recognition or the alphanumeric keys, which can be grueling. The phone comes with AIM, ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo IM clients preinstalled.
The SDA offers some nice tools for managing day-to-day tasks, appointments, and contacts. You can sync e-mail, contacts, and appointments with your desktop PC, too, through the installed ActiveSync software and the bundled USB cable.
The SDA is loaded with dedicated keys for accessing the T-Mobile home page, media player (with buttons for rewind, play/pause, and forward), and home screen. It has a jog dial in the center; but some keys (like the home and back buttons) are small and a bit crammed together. This was most likely a necessity brought on by the roomy screen and the phone's relatively compact size.
On the sides of this candybar-style handset, you'll find a dedicated camera button, a volume control, and a button for the communication manager that handles the phone's connection options. I wish that T-Mobile had labeled the communication manager key, but it worked great: You can select phone, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or sync mode.
The Wi-Fi setup was a breeze. After selecting the Wi-Fi option, I chose a wireless network to link to and entered the appropriate security settings--and I was done. True to its T-Mobile roots, the SDA can check for available T-Mobile HotSpots. But in the T-Mobile HotSpot log-in page (and in a couple of other apps), the back arrow button below the screen doesn't work for going back to the previous page. To exit the log-in page, I had to select one of the hotkey options (such as OK), press the home button beneath the screen, or press the phone end button.
You needn't worry too much about running out of juice. The SDA lasted for the full 10 hours of talk time that we measured in our lab tests, without failing. And conversations sounded clear on both ends.
Not up for a chat? Then enjoy listening to tunes that you've downloaded to the phone or stored on the optional MiniSD card. Caveat: The expansion card slot is located beneath the battery, so you have to open the case and remove the battery to insert or remove a memory card.
My 1280-by-1024-resolution snapshots looked pretty good, and video was passable, though the volume level was too low. You get some helpful photo tricks, too: Before taking a picture, you can adjust settings such as brightness, gamma, hue, and saturation, and you can apply effects such as grayscale and sepia. I liked the post-capture processing options, including rotating an image and renaming a file via the Save As option.
The SDA's well-rounded capabilities and lengthy battery life justify its slightly above-average price.
Until now, if you wanted the excellent e-mail capabilities that BlackBerry devices offer, you had to be willing to give up the sleek casing of a clamshell-style cell phone. Not anymore: The Samsung SGH-T719 offers the best of BlackBerry e-mail in a sleek package.
The SGH-T719, now available from T-Mobile for $250 (with a two-year contract), comes with the BlackBerry Connect software, which brings BlackBerry's push e-mail technology to devices not manufactured by Research In Motion. Using the BlackBerry e-mail technology on a Samsung device is just as simple as it is on RIM's own device. You can set up access to personal e-mail accounts yourself (via BlackBerry Internet Service) or to corporate e-mail accounts (via Black-Berry Enterprise Server, with a little help from your IT department).
Adding your personal account is a snap; within minutes, the messages will start flowing. The SGH-T719 alerts you when you receive a message, and the sender's name is displayed on the flip phone's external screen. Reading messages on the 2.2-inch internal screen is comfortable, though the handset lacks the handy jog wheel that most RIM devices offer for scrolling through the message text.
Alas, responding to messages is not as pleasant an experience. Like the BlackBerry Pearl, the SGH-T719 features a SureType keyboard: a QWERTY layout, but with two letters on most keys. The keyboard is supposed to predict which of the two letters you need as you're typing each word, but it doesn't always work well. And when the technology stumbles, typing becomes laborious. That feature alone isn't as bad as the keypad itself: It's slightly slippery, and the keys are set almost flush with the phone, which makes them more difficult to press.
While the SGH-T719 is thin (at 0.7 inches thick), it's not the smallest clamshell phone around: It measures 3.8 inches long by 2.1 inches thick when closed. When opened, the phone is almost 7 inches long. I actually found the added length a bonus: The phone is exceptionally comfortable to hold next to your ear, even during long conversations. Talk-time battery life also impressed me: The SGH-T719 last 9 hours, 21 minutes in our lab tests, earning a score of Superior. Voice quality was about average; unfortunately, even at the highest volume setting, I had difficulty hearing during conversations.
The SGH-T719 includes a passable 1.3-megapixel camera; its photos were about what you'd expect from a camera phone. It can also capture video clips, but the phone lacks a media player. Overall, the SGH-T719 is a great device if you want constant access to your e-mail but you don't want a full PDA phone. If you plan on using your cell phone for composing long messages, though, the SGH-T719's SureType keyboard may give you fits.
Cell phones with multimedia capabilities generally struggle to balance the needs of a conventional handset and those of a music or video player. Samsung's UpStage responds to this problem by putting phone functions on one side of the device and multimedia functions on the other. This candy bar-style handset, offered by Sprint Nextel for $150 with a two-year contract, is less than 0.5 inch thick and not much larger than an iPod Nano.
The phone side of the UpStage has a very thin 1.4-inch color screen, a directional switch, and the usual soft keys for navigating menus, all topping a conventional phone keypad. The phone felt small but solid in my hand; I found its keypad quite usable, and the sound quality of voice calls was generally good. The multimedia side of the device accommodates a 2.1-inch display and a four-way capacitive touchpad whose central, mechanical play button took some getting used to. The excellent documentation warns users not to try to swipe it in a circle (like an iPod control wheel), but the temptation is strong.
A small Flip button on the unit's edge lets you toggle between the two sides, but the prompt to confirm that you want to stop playing music and start making a phone call gets old fast. (The phone halts music playback during incoming calls; the music resumes once you disengage the call.)
Unfortunately, whenever you have to input text while using the multimedia side--say, while browsing the Web--you must flip to the phone side. The device does present 'Flip' as a soft-key option, but the process is still tedious.
The Sprint Music Store (which now charges 99 cents for over-the-air purchases of music tracks) is prominently featured when you flip to the music side. You also get a PC Sync button for transferring music from your desktop to a MicroSD Card in the UpStage (the phone has a 64MB card, and it can support up to 2GB). Before using it, you must install the Sprint Music Manager desktop application on your PC and connect the phone using the included USB cable. The Sprint app is no Windows Media Player or iTunes killer, but it's serviceable enough. You can create playlists on the phone. I appreciated Sprint's decision to substitute an earphone adapter (complete with a microphone) for the mediocre-quality earbuds that come with most music phones.
The UpStage's flip case comes with a battery wallet--an innovative embedded battery that recharges along with the phone when you store the phone in the case. When it's charged, the wallet serves as an extended battery, considerably prolonging the handset's life between charges. In our tests, parking the phone in the wallet yielded a very good talk-time battery life of 7 hours, 43 minutes.
The UpStage also includes Bluetooth (for linking to a headset or for using the phone as a PC modem), a 1.3-megapixel camera capable of capturing 30-second MPEG-4 videos. It bundles Sprint TV, too, providing access to free and for-a-fee video clips as well as support for subscribing to and listening to mobile podcasts via VoiceIndigo's free mobile service.
For video viewing, the UpStage's screen is small, and the device falls short as a serious device for messaging or e-mail due to its lack of a QWERTY keyboard. But if you're a music lover who isn't especially keen about video, e-mail, or messaging, Samsung's approach might upstage Apple's iPhone--and its price certainly does.
At first glance, you may not realize that the Nokia 5300 XpressMusic Phone is a cell phone at all. With its boxy black-and-white case, prominent music controls, and large screen, you could easily mistake it for a digital audio player. And you wouldn't be wrong: The 5300 is, in fact, almost equal parts music player and cell phone, and the music features are some of the best that we've seen on a phone.
When closed, this slider-style phone looks squared-off and slightly bulky, but its gorgeous 2-inch display takes center stage. The music controls sit in the black rim around the display (a red-and white-version also is available); to the left are keys for scrolling through your music collection, as well as keys for playing and pausing tracks. Volume keys sit on the right side of the handset. Since the keys are rubbery, they're simple to locate by touch, and easy to push.
Basic controls below the screen make navigating the phone's many features a breeze. Sliding the device open reveals the one disappointing aspect of its controls: a phone keypad that feels overly plasticky. Still, the keys are nicely raised, so dialing is easy.
But the music features really make the phone shine. The music player, which is easily accessible through the unit's home page or via the external music controls, is very user-friendly. You can quickly scroll through your music library, which is organized by artists, albums, genres, composers, or playlists. The phone ships with Nokia's Music Manager software for organizing your library on your PC and a USB cable for transferring tunes to the phone, which includes a 1GB microSD card for storing them. While the desktop software isn't as intuitive as the phone's music player, it is still relatively easy to use. It scans your PC for audio files and lets you transfer any of them to your phone with one click. You can also use the Music Manager app to delete songs from the phone and to create playlists, which you can't do on the phone itself. T-Mobile does not offer its own music service with over-the-air downloads, so you'll have to obtain your music collection elsewhere.
The audio quality won't rival that of your iPod; but, whether the sound plays through the included 2.5mm headphones or the external speaker, it's better than what we've heard from most music phones. Songs occasionally sounded tinny when played over the speaker, but overall the audio was very good.
As a phone, the 5300 works well. Its rubbery exterior makes it comfortable to hold, and it slides open nicely with one hand. The unit is light enough to hold comfortably next to your ear during long conversations. Call quality and volume were quite good, but the talk-time battery life was only fair: It lasted 5 hours, 6 minutes in our lab tests.
The 5300 also includes a 1.3-megapixel camera that takes serviceable to very good snapshots. Still-life photos came out great, but like many camera phones, this model suffers from a significant shutter delay, so capturing moving subjects is hard. The phone also takes video clips, but they look pixelated and slightly grainy (typical for a camera phone).
Overall, the 5300, with its stellar music features, is impressive, especially when you factor in the price: T-Mobile is offering the phone for $99 with a two-year contract. That's less than you might pay for a dedicated MP3 player--so it's an excellent price for a device that makes calls, too.
The LG vx9900 EnV is a standard cell phone with a secret: At first glance, it looks like a slightly bulky, run-of-the-mill candy bar-style phone. But this phone opens horizontally to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard. Available from Verizon Wireless for $250 with a two-year contract, the EnV is an impressive messaging and multimedia device.
When closed, the handset sports a small display, basic navigation controls, and a numeric keypad. The phone's exterior has a nice-looking silver finish, but its external screen is disappointingly small. At just 1.25 inches diagonally, the display is hard to see, and the empty space surrounding it could have been put to better use. The keys, though small, are easy to enter phone numbers on.
Despite feeling slightly thick and heavy, the EnV provided reasonably good call quality. I occasionally noticed background fuzziness on some calls, but most callers were easy to hear. Talk-time battery life was only fair: the EnV lasted 5 hours, 5 minutes in our lab tests--longer than the vendor-stated talk time of 4.5 hours, but not as good as many standard cell phones we've tested recently.
When the EnV springs open, however, you see its full potential: Inside are a spacious QWERTY keyboard, a bright 2.25-inch screen, and keys for accessing the phone's many features. If you don't need a full-fledged PDA phone with mobile office applications but still want a QWERTY keyboard for easy typing, the EnV is an excellent choice. It comes with a dedicated e-mail key for quick access to Verizon Wireless's VCast Wireless Sync e-mail service. This app costs an additional $20, but lets you easily sync your phone with your POP3 or IMAP e-mail account. The EnV also includes mobile versions of AOL, MSN, and Yahoo instant messaging clients.
In addition, the EnV supports Verizon's VCast music service, which offers over-the-air song downloads for $1.99 each. The service is nicely laid out and easy to navigate, though you can't access all of its features when the phone is closed. From the external screen, you can play your existing collection of songs; but to browse the store and purchase new music, you must open the phone, which can be inconvenient. You can transfer your own music to the phone, too, but the phone doesn't ship with a microSD Card for storage, a USB cable for connecting the phone to your PC, or a headset for listening to your tunes; you'll have to purchase each of these accessories separately. A Music Essentials Kit--which includes a USB cable, a headset, and software for managing your music collection--is available from Verizon for $30. You'll need to buy an adapter if you want to use your own stereo headphones with the handset.
The built-in, 2.0-megapixel camera takes adequate photos. The lens sits on the back of the handset and is protected by a sliding lens cover--a nice touch. The camera's autofocus tool captures still shots well, but the resulting shutter lag of up to 2 seconds can cause you to miss a moving subject. However, you can switch this feature off, and use the phone in fixed-focus mode instead. The phone's shutter-release button (on its right side) doesn't allow you to start up the camera, and you have to dig deeper than you should in the phone's menu system to reach this instruction. Still, the button is positioned nicely when you hold the phone horizontally for use as a camera; and the EnV also captures serviceable video clips.
The phone supports Verizon's 3G EvDO service, which makes for reasonably speedy Web browsing, and Verizon's VZ Navigator service, which (with an additional subscription) offers turn-by-turn GPS-based directions.
Music lovers no longer have to pay a premium for a music phone. The $180 (with a two-year contract from Cingular) Sony Ericsson W300i comes with a music player, radio, and camera built in. It does the job both as a phone and music player, but the music software is basic and to achieve its compact size the phone forgoes some navigational conveniences.
As a phone, the W300i is a quad-band GSM/GPRS model that offers good sound quality. Volume was loud and clear, and our test unit reached the 10-hour limit in our lab tests of its talk-time battery life.
At 1.8 by 1.0 by 3.5 inches, the 3.3-ounce device has a compact yet boxy clamshell design, making the overlapping circular number buttons difficult for all but the smallest fingers to press cleanly (especially when composing SMS text messages). Another drawback: The phone lacks some of the convenient external buttons offered by other models I've tried. For example, to take a picture with the built-in 2-megapixel camera (with 4X digital zoom) and even to turn the phone to silent, I had to flip open the black-and-silver lid. The 2-inch, 128-by-160-pixel display is sharp and bright but a bit too small to permit meaningful Internet browsing, especially given that the phone supports only GPRS and EDGE, not Cingular's faster HSDPA network. On the other hand, the phone proved its durability by surviving a few tumbles.
As a music player, the W300i--which handles MP3 and AAC music tracks--works well, aside from some inconveniences. It has 23MB of internal memory plus a Memory Stick Micro card slot. (Cingular doesn't include a card, but it sells a 512MB version for $60.) I loaded music easily via Sony Ericsson's included Disc2Phone software, which curiously didn't allow me to create playlists on the PC itself. To do that, I had to select individual tracks on the phone. Our test unit readily accepted a few albums, whose songs I could then search for on the phone by artist, track, or playlist.
External buttons on the side of the phone let you play, pause, and navigate through tracks. Sound quality was clear, though the volume didn't get terribly loud (it was loud enough for my noisy commute, however). The W300i comes with stereo earbuds, which double as the phone's hands-free headset. I was excited about the phone's FM radio (the headset holds the antenna) until I tried it out. I had no trouble searching for and saving stations, but the reception always had at least some low-level static.
The phone's camera takes decent pictures in either large (176-by-144-pixel) or small (128-by-96-pixel) sizes. It has a night mode and permits you to add black-and-white, negative, and sepia effects. In addition, you can shoot QuickTime video, which looked smooth as long as we didn't move the phone too quickly. Linking to the camera with the included USB 2.0 cable lets your PC see the phone and the memory card as drive volumes, to which you can drag and drop files.
This inexpensive phone certainly won't replace your portable music player, but if you just want to listen to a commute's worth of tunes, it does the job.
When looking for a new phone, I have some very specific priorities. I like phones with a clamshell design; I want a better-than-T9 predictive-text input system for messaging; and I'm tied to Verizon Wireless by the vagaries of signal strength at my house. And with expensive and incredibly cool new models like the iPhone waiting just around the corner, I don't want to spend too much right now. If you're in a similar frame of mind, Samsung's SCH-u740 (available for $200 with a two-year Verizon Wireless contract as of March 23, 2007) is an outstanding choice. If you have less exacting requirements, you'll probably find a better fit elsewhere.
The SCH-u740 pulls off an impressive design feat: Its dual-hinge design lets the phone open horizontally or vertically. Open it like a normal clamshell phone, and you're ready to talk or take pictures. Open it the other way, and you're ready to use the full QWERTY keyboard for text messaging, IM, or e-mail. Though the phone is small--it's almost exactly the same size and weight as a Motorola Razr--its keyboard is incredibly comfortable, thanks to keys that are taller than those on most thumb keyboards. The hinge feels quite solid; after a month of use, I wasn't at all worried that it might wear out down the road.
The dual-hinge design does have a few drawbacks. Most notably, certain features on the phone don't work in both modes. Occasionally I tried to start a game or a message in regular clamshell mode only to be told that the service was available only in rotated mode. You use the NumLock key to access symbols on the QWERTY keyboard, except in the phone's Mobile Web 2.0 browser, which disappointingly shunts them off to a menu option. Oh well. It's not like Web addresses contain lots of punctuation.
Oh. Right.
Verizon offers a number of text-based services on the SCH-u740. Its Mobile IM app lets you connect to AIM, MSN, or Yahoo instant messaging accounts, though any instant messages you send count as text messages, and you're charged for them as such on your data plan. An e-mail app uses Verizon's Mobile Web 2.0 to access AOL, Hotmail, or Yahoo Mail accounts. For an additional fee, you can download Verizon's Wireless sync e-mail application, which will push e-mail down to your phone Blackberry-style.
The device's battery life was far less impressive than its text capabilities. The SCH-u740 lasted 4.75 hours in our lab tests--better than the quoted talk time of 3.5 hours, but worse than talk time of many phones we've tested. Calls sounded clear at various signal strengths, and the clamshell design makes the phone comfortable to hold for even long calls.
The SCH-u740's built-in, 1.3-megapixel digital camera is easy to use and takes good but not great photos; it can also record short movie clips to its internal memory or to a microSD Card in the phone's slot. Using a card reader, you can also sync MP3 or WMA music to the microSD Card and play it alongside any tunes you download from Verizon's VCast music service. The phone's external playback controls make it easy to switch tracks without opening the device up. Unfortunately, the SCH-u740 doesn't include a headphone jack, so you'll need to supply Bluetooth headphones--or an annoying little adapter--to listen to music.
Despite having a few quirks, the SCH-u740 should appeal to anyone looking for an attractive, inexpensive phone with deep messaging capabilities.
If you're tired of carrying around a music player, a digital camera, and a cell phone, the Motorola Rizr Z3 can help you consolidate. This midnight-blue cell phone is the slider-style cousin of Motorola's popular Razr. It's available from T-Mobile for $150 (with a two-year contract, as of March 23, 2007) and has a magnificent screen, a 2.0-megapixel still-and-video camera, and a digital music player. Oh yes, and it works well as a phone. But be forewarned: With the phone's plethora of features and the software required to run them, you'll need quick access to your manual for the first week or more.
The Rizr is small--2.75 inches wide by 4 inches tall with slider closed, and just over 5.5 inches tall with the slider open. At 0.5 inch thick, it's also quite slim, and it's comfortable to use when making long phone calls. Call quality was good though not exceptional; battery life was great. The phone pulled down 10 hours of talk time in our lab tests--the maximum length we test for. On the other hand, the keypad and the navigation controls--while extremely easy to access with my small fingers--were stiff, which made entering phone numbers, commands, and data tougher than I would have liked.
Still, the Rizr has many appealing features. One is a slot that can accommodate a microSD Card with up to 2GB of storage space. Unfortunately you must remove the battery door to get the memory card into the phone--and you'll have to spring for your own card, as the Rizr doesn't ship with one. T-Mobile sells a 1GB microSD Card for $60.
You can drag and drop music files onto the card after connecting the phone to your PC via the included mini-USB cable. And in the Rizr Z3's airplane mode, you can listen to your music without activating the cell phone while flying. Audiophiles take note: The phone may not play files whose bit rate is above 128 kbps. When played over the external speaker, songs sounded quite tinny.
Taking digital photos with the Rizr Z3 was a snap. While the phone's slider is closed, you can shoot only in landscape mode; but you can also use portrait mode when the slider is open. The shutter control is nicely situated on the right side of the phone in thumb range. Though snapshots looked sharper than photos I've taken with other camera phones, they often looked dark and a little murky.
Many phones are now three-in-one devices, but the well-thought-out design and easy handling of the Rizr Z3 as a phone, camera, and music player make it a multimedia device I'd be happy to put in my pocket.
The BlackBerry has long been synonymous with business. Known best as an addictive corporate tool for professionals who need always-on access to e-mail, Research In Motion's device has had something of a staid image compared with today's multimedia-savvy phones.But that's about to change. With the BlackBerry Pearl 8100--the first BlackBerry to offer a camera, an audio player, and a video player--the BlackBerry loosens up and sheds its business-only image. In my tests of a shipping version, I found the makeover mostly successful.
Available now from T-Mobile (for $350 with a two-year contract), the candy bar-style Pearl has a pleasingly shiny black-and-silver finish. It is noticeably lighter and more petite than its predecessors, and--unlike most BlackBerry devices--it looks remarkably like an ordinary cell phone. The small size comes with a trade-off, however: The Pearl's keys are tiny, and, thanks to the slick finish, slippery--two traits that make the keys difficult to push. The keys are so small that pressing them with a finger is nearly impossible; even dialing with a fingernail is difficult.
Like the BlackBerry 7100 series, the Pearl features a SureType keyboard--a modified QWERTY keyboard that saves space by combining two letters on most keys. Once you start to type, the SureType system suggests words based on the letters you've entered. When SureType guesses correctly, this system is a huge time-saver; when it doesn't (which happens often), typing is a time-consuming chore.
The SureType keyboard is not the Pearl's only departure from typical BlackBerry navigation tools. The jog wheel typically found on the right-hand side of the device has been replaced with a white trackball that sits on the face of the phone, directly below the display. The trackball turns an incandescent white when the phone is active, making it look like--you guessed it--a pearl. While the effect is aesthetically pleasing, it's not a functional improvement. I found the trackwheel harder to use than the jog wheel on other BlackBerrys; it also makes one-handed operation more difficult.
In my use of the phone, I found call quality a mixed bag. On some calls, voices sounded loud and clear, but on others I noticed an echo or muffled voices. Talk-time battery life was excellent, however: the Pearl last 8 hours, 34 minutes in our tests, earning a score of Very Good.
One of the big attractions of the Pearl is its multimedia capabilities. The Pearl's 1.3-megapixel camera is easy to access, though it lacks a dedicated shutter control (you press the trackball to capture shots). You use the 2.25-inch screen to frame photos, and roll the trackball to zoom in or out. While the controls make operating the 5X digital zoom easy, I also found them frustrating: Occasionally, I accidentally rolled the trackball instead of pressing it, causing me to zoom in and miss a moment I had hoped to capture. If you're shooting in dark environments, the built-in flash can help illuminate your scene.
Picture quality was about what you'd expect from a camera phone. Bright colors often looked washed out, and the snapshots sometimes lacked crispness. Unfortunately, the Pearl doesn't capture video; but it will play back video clips, which look fantastic, if small, on its 240-by-260 TFT display.
In addition to sporting a camera, the Pearl is also the first BlackBerry to include a music player. You can transfer AAC, MP3, and WAV files to the device via the included Desktop Manager software, which is easy to install and use. You can also store music files on a microSD Card (not included). While this is the first BlackBerry to support an expandable media card, the card slot's location behind the battery is as inconvenient as it gets. To add or remove the card, you need to first slide the back off of the phone and then remove the battery.
Like the camera, the media player lacks dedicated controls. Nonetheless, I found the Pearl easy to use for playing music. The player itself features a nice, clean interface. I found it a breeze to scroll through my music collection, as well as select tunes and pause them.
Die-hard BlackBerry fans will be glad to hear that the addition of all these consumer-friendly features hasn't lessened the device's prowess as a stellar messaging device. The Pearl supports the RIM push e-mail technology that has made the BlackBerry so popular, and adding a POP3 e-mail account is a snap. You enter your e-mail address and password, and within minutes your messages will be delivered to the device. It also supports AOL, ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo instant messaging networks.
None of the new features on the Pearl are earth-shattering; most smart phones have offered music players and cameras for some time. And the phone has rough spots in audio quality and key design. Nonetheless, when you combine its well-executed features with RIM's messaging capabilities and the Pearl's sleek look, this device is a winner.
The 5610 XpressMusic is similar is many respects to the 5300 XpressMusic. It is a slider that is about the same size and weight of the 5300, with similar media functionality and button placement. It does, however, feature completely revised styling in a very positive way.
Where the 5300 was rather cheap and plastic-y, the 5610 is made from much better materials. The front features an average-sized screen with navigation cluster under it. The buttons on the nav cluster were all smooth as well, but easy to find and click. The buttons each had good travel and a nice action to them. Where the 5300 featured white and black coloring, the 5610 is maroon (or blue) and dark gray. These colors look good together, and the phone looks far more sophisticated.
Another major difference is the media buttons. The rubber media buttons that are featured along the left side of the 5300 are gone and replaced with a jog dial just above the nav cluster. The function of this jog dial is two-fold. It is tied directly to the music applications. Slide it to the left, and the media player launches, slide it again and the main music menu pops up, slide it again and the FM radio comes up. You can also slide it to the right, and these same menus appear, just in reverse. The jog dial also acts as a ledge for your thumb to use when opening and closing the sliding mechanism.
Contrary to the N81s and N95s, the 5610 sliding mechanism felt fantastic. It was spring assisted and these created for a nice solid "thunk" each time you open and close the phone. It was smooth and satisfying.
They keypad was also better than the N81 and N95's. The keys are simpler and well separated from one another. Though their spacing is still fairly tight, the larger key size and the texture made for easier keying.
The back of the phone has a golf ball-like dimpled texture to it. This is only slightly noticeable when you hold the phone in your hand. Stunningly, the 5610 has only a 2.5mm headset jack, and not a standard 3.5mm headset jack. It does have stereo Bluetooth, though.
The XpressMusic's music functionality has also been revised a bit. When you open the media player, the player interface has a different set of themes that can be applied to it, and the new ones are much hipper than the appearance of the 5300's media player. The media player now also includes a video playback application. Otherwise, the functionality of the Series 40 interface is mostly unchanged.
And this is a disappointment when it comes to the camera. The camera is a solid 3.2 Megapixels and has dual LED flashes. The pictures we took in the darkened room were very good, but the camera user interface is completely unchanged. There are no additional actions or features to take let you more fully take advantage of the much better picture quality. Like the 5300, the 5610 is held sideways for picture taking, and there is a dedicated camera key on the right side of the phone that launches the camera and serves as your shutter release key.
Overall, the 5610 is a major step up from the 5300. The styling is better, the media playback functions are improved, and the overall appeal of the phone is higher.
We also have a short video preview of the 5610. You can watch it here:
The LG VX10000 Voyager is Verizon's new flagship media/messaging phone. It is clearly meant to be an iPhone competitor, with its touch screen interface and the similar appearance of its basic menu screens.
Body
There's no doubt that the Voyager is an attractive phone. Derived from the LG enV, the front face ditches the small screen and standard keypad for a large touch screen instead. It is attractive, elegant and simple all at the same time. Mostly black, ringed with silver (like another phone we know about), it is also about the same size as the enV, though slightly thinner. It definitely slips into a pocket easier than the enV did, and feels better in your hand. The materials are improved all around, and it is obvious LG spent some time putting on some nice touches.
Using the touch screen is satisfying, though not as satisfying as the iPhone. The response of the UI is slower than on the iPhone. It smudges just as easily, but provides microvibration feedback (haptics), which the iPhone does not. Below the screen are three buttons rather than one: the send, clear and power/end keys. Using the end key almost always aborts any program and takes you back to the home screen. The action of these keys is nice, though they can be hard to find, because they are blended into the grills for the stereo speakers. They do become illuminated when the phone is being used.
Opening up the Voyager, it is almost identical to the enV. The navigation cluster on the right is slightly updated with different materials, as are the keys, but the layout is practically a photocopy of the enV's hardware. The QWERTY keyboard was just as easy to use and permitting for quick entry of text. The action and feedback of each key was acceptable. The hinge was solid, and worked just like the hinge of the enV. It locked at a two-thirds position for viewing content and could be opened 180 degrees for composing pictures or video.
The camera is on the back in the same location as on the enV, and does not include a flash or good vanity mirror. The camera does have autofocus.
The buttons on the left side of the phone include the camera key, a lock key, and the volume/zoom toggle. They were all easy to find and use, though the camera key is a little small if you ask me. The microSD and data port hatches were no more difficult to use than any others we've encountered.
But enough of the hardware. Let's dig into that new user interface...
User Interface
If you are looking for an iPhone experience on the Voyager, prepare to be disappointed. Though it bares some similarities, there are also striking differences in the way the platforms work.
First off, it simply isn't as fast as the iPhone. The iPhone responds quicker and more delicately to input from your finger and the animations and applications are more well thought out. And the Voyager is not multi-touch. You can't zoom in and out of web sites or pictures like you can with the iPhone. Still, the UI on the Voyager's front screen is leaps and bounds better than what we're used to dealing with from Verizon phones.
The first thing you have to do when using the Voyager is to unlock it. The unlock icon appears in the exact same location as the iPhone's, but rather than slide it sideways, you just press it. The home screen appears somewhat similar to the iPhone's in that there are four icons present along the bottom that launch messaging, the phone app, the menu and contacts. The rest of the screen is blank (or whatever wallpaper you choose).
Tapping on any of the icons at the bottom brings up that application. The bottom right corner of most screens there is a clear key that takes you back a screen or out to the main menu. Depending on what application you are in, the rest of the navigation keys that appear along the bottom of the phone change and show appropriate options for that application.
If you simply hit the center of the screen, you'll get the full menu, which is some 16 or so different things. There is also a redundant menu key along the bottom of the phone, but rather than launch the full menu, it only shows the 8 most oft-used applications. These bigger icons are slightly easier to tap with your thumb than the smaller ones on the full menu.
Once the applications are open, they work similar to the way they would on any Verizon phone with its current platform. All the graphics and fonts have been updated (and trust us when we say this is a really good thing), but the overall underlying architecture of the operating system is sadly similar. Let's say you launch the messaging application. With it open, you'll see a list of options in the center of the screen. Along the top are icons representing the other applications and arrows to slide that selection sideways so you can jump to another application without having to go back to the main menu. The enV worked the same way.
The interior screen user interface, which is not touch sensitive, is almost identical to the enV's, though again all the graphics and fonts are changed. This is a major disappointment. While we didn't expect the device to have to touch screens, it would have been nice to see more elements of the touch interface transported to this interior screen.
Applications
The Voyager is fully compatible with all of Verizon's V CAST services, including the music store and mobile TV. It also has A-GPS and Verizon's VZnavigator app, music player that now supports unprotected AACs, a camera, video player, and full HTML browser.
The browser was not as impressive as we were hoping it would be. Granted, we we buried deep within a building in the middle of midtown Manhattan, but browsing speeds were slow, and pages were not all that quick to render, even with EV-DO coverage. Browsing with the phone closed is more iPhone-like, and lets you use the touchscreen to navigate to web sites. Slow as it was, this was still a much better experience than Verizon's Web 2.0 WAP browser. It was good to see the full version of Phone Scoop show up on the screen.
The camera is also great to use with the phone closed. You have the full screen to use to compose images, and you can fully interact with the menus on the touch screen. This makes it easy to make adjustments while shooting.
Conclusions
The Voyager definitely makes strides over the enV and other Verizon phones. Even at $250 or $300, it will likely be a pretty big hit, given its iPhone-like user interface and the full QWERTY keyboard to support messaging fanatics. It is much more elegant than the enV, and offers improvements that will make it enticing. Even so, we were hoping for a bit more improvements in the guts of the UI, and not just on the surface.
Here is a video preview of the Voyager. You can watch it here:
AT&T's new flagship looks like an 8525 with upgraded features like Windows Mobile 6 Professional, built-in GPS and a 3 MP auto-focus camera, but it packs a secret jaw dropper. Once you slide the screen open, you can tilt it up toward you so it's easier to see and type on.
T-Mobile's latest entry in the music phone phone category packs a big punch despite its small size. The Beat has a full-featured music player that can keep pumping the tunes out while you do anything except take a picture (or make a call, of course). You can check out the phone and music player here:
This is a video review of the Sanyo S1. It is an entry-level voice-centric phone that also provides basic data applications. You can see a video tour of it here:
The Pantech Duo is a dual slide smartphone, similar to the Helio Ocean. This isn't really a surprise, since Pantech manufactures the Ocean as well. It packs Windows Mobile 6 Standard (Smartphone) into a body that's smaller and lighter than Ocean, but still retains most of the dual-slide bulk. You can see how it compares to the Ocean and fares on its own in this video.
One additional thing we'd like to mention - the Duo did not seem particularly slow to us, but if it feels slow to you, there is a mysterious "Turbo mode" in the settings.
Here is a quick video tour of the Shadow for T-Mobile. It packs in some good software innovations with a handset that is attractive and sleek. You can watch the video here:
The Motorola ROKR U9 is a music-focused clamshell the sort of resembles the PEBL. It has a smooth from exterior with a hidden OLED display and a texture-painted back.
It is lightweight in your hand and comfortable to hold. All the controls on the outside of the U9 were easy to find and use.
We shot some video of the U9. You can take a look here:
We first showed you the Touch when HTC launched the GSM earlier this year. The CDMA version for Sprint looks the same, but it has a number of software upgrades (and it's faster, too). This video tour shows off most the improvements to the TouchFlo interface. About the only thing we missed was that the Touch for Sprint also has a Rolodex-like alphabet down the side of the contact list - very much like on the iPhone and it works very well - better, perhaps, than on the iPhone.
HTC yesterday announced the newest member of the Touch family. The Touch Cruise adds 3G, GPS and an FM radio to the GSM version as well as upgrading a number of features. The Cruise features quad-band GSM, tri-band HSDPA, a 2.8" touch screen and the navigation wheel also seen on the T-Mobile Shadow. It also features GPS, a 3 Megpixel autofocus camera with a second camera for video conferencing, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, FM radio and microSD slot. Like all members of the Touch Family, the Cruise runs Windows Mobile 6 Professional (Pocket PC) with the TouchFlo interface.
The FCC has approved a new CDMA Windows Mobile Smartphone from HTC. The Iris is a compact Windows Mobile 6 Standard (smartphone) device similar in design to the Palm Treo 500v or Android prototype. It features a landscape QVGA display and QWERTY keyboard and packs EV-DO, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth into the thin, rounded body. Also includes 2 Megapixel camera and microSD slot as well as a very large battery. The Iris has not been announced yet, however FCC documents mention Verizon, making the carrier a likely launch partner for the handset.
The N82 is Nokia's latest N Series device and offers similar features to the N95 in a bar-style form factor rather than a slider. It has quad-band GSM/EDGE and WCDMA 2100 MHz radios, as well as 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and stereo Bluetooth. Nokia partnered with Carl Zeiss again on the optics for the N82's camera, which is 5 Megapixels and has a Xenon flash with autofocus. The N82 comes with integrated GPS and the Nokia Maps application preinstalled. There is 100MB of internal memory, but users can also take advantage of the 2GB microSD card that comes with the phone for media storage. The N82 also has an FM radio and standard 3.5mm headphone jack and external speakers for stereo playback. It runs on the S60 3rd Edition platform, and is available in limited markets for 450 Euros.
I'm finicky about call quality. In fact, I've rarely lauded a phone's call quality--until now. In my hands-on experience, the navy-blue T-Mobile Wing ($300 with a two-year contract) sounded terrific. While on calls, I heard virtually none of the tell-tale hissing or background noise that usually betrays the fact that I'm on a cell phone. And the people I spoke with noted that I sounded very clear --even while on a noisy jetway at an airport. Call quality isn't the Wing's only strength: It also offers impressive battery life and a strong array of features.
The phone--the first to ship preloaded with Windows Mobile 6.0 (T-Mobile is also making Windows Mobile 6 available as an upgrade for the Dash)--has many features, including a still-image and video camera, messaging, and the familiar Windows-like menu system with apps to go. The phone includes Office Mobile with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint (you can view, create, and edit documents); Windows Live for Windows Mobile (with Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Hotmail, Live Search, and Live Spaces); Windows Media Player; and a My Documents folder structure for storing files and multimedia. Other apps include Instant Messaging (for use with AOL, ICQ, and Yahoo), Java applications, a T-Mobile HotSpot log-in shortcut, and a voice recorder.
The Wing comes with a 2.8-inch touch-screen display (T-Mobile bundles a stylus with the phone, but I tended to rely on my fingers to do the walking). Six highly responsive buttons, and a five-way navigational control beneath the front-screen display make single-handed navigation a breeze. Slide the display left, and the screen automatically reorients itself in landscape view to accompany your typing on the roomy keyboard. The keyboard's keys are wide and flat, with backlighting that makes using the device in a darkened environment a breeze. I found the Wing surprisingly comfortable for thumb-typing when I held the device in two hands; as a touch typist, I was surprised at how quickly I could type (I have small hands; a friend with larger hands found the keyboard harder to navigate).
Unfortunately, other aspects of the phone's design are less appealing. Specifically, I found many of the buttons around the perimeter of the phone difficult to press and poorly constructed. For example, the volume slider, located near the middle of the phone, along the left-hand side, was difficult to adjust using the pad of my finger (if you have longish nails, this might not be an issue).
The dedicated camera button is located near the top left of the camera when the phone is oriented vertically, and at the top right when the phone is situated horizontally--the optimal way to use the camera. But the button is flat and hard to press. When I did click it, I often accidentally twisted the phone's slider mechanism, too, which makes me worry about the long-term integrity of this critical part of the phone. Pressing the camera button launched the phone's 2-megapixel CMOS digital camera, with its 8X digital zoom (for low-resolution images) and video camera (capable of capturing clips at up to 176 by 174 resolution), but the phone lagged considerably while the camera popped up.
I suspect that some of my gripes with the phone may relate more to Windows Mobile 6 than to the device itself. The Communications Manager app, for example, houses a dizzying array of options--everything from vibrate and ringer settings to EDGE and GPRS data-connection minutiae. To disable the wireless antennas and put the phone into flight mode, I had to traverse three screens--more before I found a helpful shortcut--just to get to the point in Communications Manager where I could disable the wireless radio.
Like the T-Mobile MDA, the Wing (underlying model number HERA110) is manufactured and designed for T-Mobile by HTC. T-Mobile claims that the Wing is about 30 percent smaller than the MDA. It certainly feels more compact than the MDA, weighing in at 6 ounces and measuring 2.3 by 4.3 by 0.7 inches. When closed, the Wing is dominated by its 240-by-320-resolution, 65,000-color touch-screen display. When open, it suggests a sleeker version of T-Mobile's Sidekick III.
The Wing is a quad-band GSM phone, with support for 850-, 900-, 1800-, and 1900- MHz bands. It runs a 201-MHz OMAP850 processor, with 64MB of RAM and 128MB of read-only memory. According to T-Mobile, the phone by default comes with 26MB of free memory and 16MB of available program storage. You can add storage for multimedia and data files via the MicroSD card slot.
The Wing lasted for the full 10 hours that marks the ceiling of the PC World Test Center's battery life evaluation. Its performance thus matches that of such models as the T-Mobile MDA (which this model replaces) and the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8300--our most recently tested top performers.
The phone comes with a case and an assortment of cables and connectors. The 258-page manual covers all of the important topics; regrettably, T-Mobile doesn't include a copy of the manual on the phone itself in PDF form so that you could view it on the loaded Adobe Acrobat LE reader. When I sought assistance within the phone, the included Microsoft help file didn't address my needs.
For $300, the T-Mobile Wing is a reasonable value, given the phone's versatile functionality, stellar call quality, and excellent battery life. My greatest concerns about the phone involve its limited on-board storage and its poorly constructed buttons; longer term, Ia??d worry about the integrity of that slider mechanism. But those concerns aside, the Wing makes a great package, especially if you value the easy input that a touch screen affords, together with the computing flexibility of Windows Mobile.
The BlackBerry Curve 8300 is the latest chic smart phone to sashay down the cell phone runway. Petite and gently rounded at the corners (as its name suggests), the Curve does for Research In Motion's line of QWERTY-keyboard-equipped handhelds what the Pearl did for RIM's standard keypad devices: Add a badly needed dose of style.
A more consumer-oriented cell phone/PDA hybrid than most of its siblings, the Curve packs such multimedia features as a 2-megapixel camera with built-in flash and 3X digital zoom, and new desktop media management software developed in cooperation with Roxio.
It's a world phone, with support for all four GSM frequencies (800, 850, 1800, and 1900 MHz). If only it supported broadband, too... But alas, the Curve's data transfer rates top out at 2.5-G EDGE speeds; lack of Wi-Fi or HSDPA support are among the device's few weaknesses.
Pricing information is not yet available: AT&T, the largest GSM carrier in the United States, says only that it will offer the Curve to customers later this spring.
I spent a few days with a production-level Curve equipped with late preproduction software and was generally impressed. The device certainly makes a terrific first impression: Small (4.2 by 2.4 by 0.6 inch) and lightweight (a tad under 4 ounces), it resembles a Treo that someone has flattened and widened out by applying a rolling pin.
It rested comfortably in my hand when I used it as a phone, and voice quality on calls was fine (though not as great as I might have hoped in view of RIM's touting of its noise-cancellation technology, intended to improve audio quality in noisy environments). We haven't yet lab-tested the Curve's talk-time battery life; check back later for a full assessment of this feature.
The Curve really shines as a mail and data device. Its 320-by-240-pixel screen is gorgeous--gone are the bad old days of muddy BlackBerry color displays. I also liked the small, marblelike trackball; its fluid movement substantially improves on the jog-wheel approach of yore. The trackball was particularly useful for skimming through Web pages on the embedded browser. But sometimes the trackball's fluidity moved the cursor more quickly than I anticipated it would--so I did a lot of backtracking through data entry fields.
I couldn't test the Curve's e-mail capabilities with a BlackBerry Enterprise Server, but the BlackBerry Internet Service did a first-class job with my Gmail account--not surprisingly, given RIM's expertise with e-mail. Setup took only a few seconds, and thereafter new mail appeared quickly in a neatly organized inbox list.
Though RIM's multimedia credentials are less well established, the Curve is poised to remedy that with its improved media player, which was intuitive and easy to use, and its new BlackBerry Desktop Media Manager software, which facilitates transferring and organizing music, audio, and video files and which supports basic multimedia functions such as image editing and CD ripping. It's no substitute for dedicated music, video, and image-editing software, but for some users it will suffice.
The images I captured with the camera were adequate but (like most pictures taken with camera phones) a tad fuzzy. In my informal tests I could not assess the impact of the flash on image quality.
Unfortunately, such over-the-air activities as media downloads are relatively sluggish--I wish that RIM had included true 3G or Wi-Fi support. In addition, I miss the GPS chips and navigation software that come with the 8800, a more utilitarian, business-focused device.
Out of the box, the BlackBerry offers a rather thin array of productivity features in comparison to those you get in Windows Mobile PDA/phone hybrids. For serious word processing or spreadsheet support, you must turn to the growing number of third-party apps.
Overall, however, I found the Curve a seductive alternative to other candy-bar phones with wide-aspect-ratio screens, such as the Samsung Blackjack and the T-Mobile Dash. If AT&T's price is right, the Curve could well become the hot PDA/phone of the moment.
Lawyers filed a class action lawsuit against Apple and AT&T seeking $1.2 billion in damages because the iPhone is locked to AT&T's wireless network. The suit also notes that Apple will not allow unauthorized applications on the iPhone.
Filed on behalf of Paul Holman in the State of Washington and Lucy Rivello in California, the lawsuit explains that in the United States the SIM chip is locked to the wireless carrier, not the hardware device.
When Apple released the iPhone it tied the device to AT&T. Switching out the SIM with one from another carrier simply caused an error when the phone was rebooted. However, the cellular community quickly tackled the iPhone and found several ways to unlock the phone, allowing users to activate it using another carrier.
On September 24 Apple warned customers that unlocking the phone could render it inoperable when future software updates were applied. Three days later, an iPhone update was released that effectively bricked unlocked iPhones.
"Apple expressly designed its software release 1.1.1 expressly to disable Third Party Apps and to disable any unlocked SIM cards, and to create technical barriers to install new Third Party Apps or to unlock the SIM cards," the lawsuit reads.
The lawsuit also contends that Apple didn't discover that unlocking applications would harm the iPhone as it stated on September 24. Rather, the suit says that Apple engineered the software update to disable the phones on purpose.
"Version 1.1.1 was an upgrade with limited specific changes and improvements," the lawsuit reads.
According to the lawsuit Paul Holman purchased two iPhones and used third-party applications, as well as traveling abroad. Lucy Rivello said she wants to be able to use third-party apps and unlock her phone to switch to T-Mobile is she wants to.
If, like me, you own an aging and increasingly bulky-looking Palm Treo but are reluctant to abandon the Palm OS, the Centro may be the interim smart phone you've been waiting for.
I say "interim" because the shipping unit I received today still lacks features that are routinely available on competing Windows Mobile and BlackBerry devices--most notably Wi-Fi and GPS support. But to get a Palm-like package equipped with those amenities, we'll probably have to wait for the Linux-based successor to the Palm OS, which isn't expected to appear before 2008.
And given what the Centro does deliver--Palm OS in its most contemporary and petite package yet, plus good mobile broadband support via Sprint's EvDO network--it's very attractively priced, at least for new users who sign up for a two-year Sprint contract and an all-you-can-eat data plan. The rebates associated with those contracts bring the device's nominal $400 price down to a palatable $100.
Slimmed-Down Hardware The Centro is significantly tinier (4.2 by 2.1 by 0.7 inches) and lighter (4.2 ounces) than its Treo kinfolk, and its smooth plastic case feels comfortable in the hand.
But it's definitely made of cheaper stuff than the Treo. I found the removable battery cover a bit fragile and somewhat difficult to remove and replace. As I struggled to snap it into place, I worried that the cover might break. Similarly, the skinny black plastic stylus feels as though it might snap in two if you looked at it cross-eyed.
I was confused by the small plastic door on the side labeled 'Micro SD': You can pull out the door with a fingernail, but the only way to insert the card is after you've first opened the battery cover. It would have made more sense if Palm had designed the door not to open at all unless the user removes the battery cover. As matters stand, the door is one more thing that might break if handled roughly.
Because the device is so small, its keyboard keys are proportionately diminutive, and I feared that typing would be an unpleasant experience. But Palm has done a good job here. The keys are coated in a squishy plastic that keeps your fingertips from slipping, and the keyboard's smaller size didn't slow me down much.
The transflective 2.4-inch 320-by-320 color touch screen looks good, though it's smallish. The navigation controls--an oval pad; buttons for the phone interface, the main Palm OS menu, the calendar, and e-mail; a red on/off button; and a green Send button--were responsive and easy to use.
A Decent Phone, Too To test the Centro's performance as a cell phone, I made several phone calls--with excellent results. The people at the other end sounded as good as on a landline, and they reported that I sounded great, too.
The phone supports Bluetooth, but I didn't have a chance to try it out with a Bluetooth headset (none was included in the package we received for testing).
Web browsing with the Blazer browser over Sprint's EvDO network was a sheer delight, especially since I'm used to the rather pokey speeds of AT&T Wireless's EDGE network on the Treo. Pages seemed to leap onto the screen, especially from sites that have been optimized for mobile browsers. Even nonoptimized sites appeared quickly.
E-mail setup went smoothly, but to use the Centro with my Windows Vista PC, I had to install new Palm desktop software that doesn't support e-mail sync over the USB sync cable.
One plus is that the Centro supports concurrent instant messaging sessions with the three supported IM services (AOL, MSN and Yahoo--a welcome development for anyone who has friends on more than one of these services.
