Design:

Embrace the curves:
The name says it all. The Curve 8520 is such an attraction when it comes to design. It has got some nice curves and is a pleasure to the eye. Though almost all the mobile phones and PDAs from BlackBerry are quite curvy in their own manner, displaying the trademark designs of BlackBerry, the Curve series phone are curvier than any of their previous counterparts. The edges of the Curve 8520, for example, are very smooth and the device is perfectly engineered to give it a very enticing look. Now, let us have a look at the dimensions of the device.

The Curve 8520 measures about 4.29 inches high, 2.36 inches wide and 0.55 inches deep. In other words, the device is about 14 mm deep, which means that it is pretty slim, slimmer than you will normally see anywhere in the PDA market. This obviously makes the device very light and it consequently measures about 105 grams (3.70 ounces). These factors indeed give the Curve 8520 a pretty rich look and its shiny exterior appearance also does a world of good to its design. The Curve 8520 is available in as many as five colours, so there is some sort of diversity out there. And since all the colours are metallic in nature, you do not see them fading away as days pass by and the mobile stays looking fresh every single day. Though black is the business’ favourite colour, you can still try out the rich variety of colours that are available. Hence, regarding the design part of the device, the Blackberry Curve 8520 Smartphone deserves full marks.

Display:

BlackBerry phones are always associated with a high resolution display and the Curve 8520 PDA Smartphone is not an exception at all. Given the small screen it sports, the Curve 8520 comes with a 320 x 240 pixel resolution and also has colour display, if this surprises you by any means. But the more interesting features are that the screen is light sensitive and hence the brightness of the screen and the keypad changes with the available daylight. When you are between four walls, the brightness automatically increases and when you go outdoors, the light automatically dims, saving you a lot of battery. At nights, the brightness increases by a considerable amount. It is also one commendable feature since otherwise you will have to manually change the brightness of the screen each and every time there is a change in the brightness outside. This feature sets the brightness all by itself. Another nice feature in here is that there is an option for you to select the screen font size. Many a time, people with different disorders related to eyesight, find it quite difficult to cope up with the font sizes on their main screens. Hence, it would be tough to encounter the device and utilize its features completely. Hence, this feature is introduced by BlackBerry, with a view to increase comfort of the users.

Features:

Here comes the most important aspect of all when it comes any electronic device, let alone a PDA. Of late, we have been seeing lots of new stuff and unique features from all manufacturers. Maybe this is a sign of competitiveness among them, but at the end of the day, it is the user who is receiving all the benefits. In order to sustain the competition and live up to the expectations of a common man, these companies have to provide more and more of new and interesting features, an more importantly, for a reasonable rate. While we will be dealing with the pricing of the device a little later, we shall now see if this trend regarding features is being followed by the BlackBerry Curve 8520 Smartphone.

Processor:

Since the processor might prove to be a vital feature on any device, you should examine it twice before moving on. Now, as expected, BlackBerry has come up with its own processor again, but this time around, with a much better one. The Curve 8520 Smartphone sports a 512 MHz processor, manufactured by BlackBerry itself. And no, this is not the fastest thing going around and there are certainly processors with greater capabilities, better durability and better functioning. But having said that the device is only pertained to business people and it does not sport all the features in the world, this processor can be considered to work well. And by this we do not mean you will be having a great speed or response time, it is just the fact that your device does not get stuck or overloaded with too many applications. Since it is BlackBerry who has come up with this processor, things must have already been tested under all conditions. Hence there is not much to worry about the processor.

Operating System:

The Curve 8520 Smartphone is so smart since it comes with a BlackBerry operating system. Though any man on the street knows this is not the best operating system in the business, it still is the best suitable one for this device and for that matter, any device manufactured by BlackBerry. Since they are the manufacturers, they are the ones who will know of their features better than anyone else. Hence, BlackBerry has decided to feature an operating system of their own instead of borrowing from the likes of Microsoft Windows or Android. Yes, even we understand that an Android would look much cooler and would serve much better. But, we have got used to the BlackBerry OS on BlackBerry phones and PDA devices and things are starting to be more comfortable now. You too, as a user, will find this OS a more user friendly one and easy to understand. There are not many difficult operations on this OS. Everything is simple and straightforward. So, this could the perfect device if you wish to gift it to someone elder. They will not be having any sort of issues while using it.

Memory:

These days, memory has become a vital part of any electronic gadget and particularly any PDA. Now since you are going to buy a personal digital assistant, it means that you will need to store lots of information and files. You will obviously need lots of space on your device because, after all when you are purchasing a device, you would want to serve multiple purposes. And when there are features like camera, video recorder, music player, Bluetooth, etc., it means that you will have quite a large number of files to store. This is the reason the BlackBerry phones always come with very good memory. When it comes to the Curve 8520 Smartphone, the device comes with an onboard memory of either 256MB or 1GB. And in most cases, this should be enough for you. This is because you can practically store unlimited phone contacts, photo contacts, with unlimited fields. But if is not enough and you think you need more space on your device, then you always have the option to upgrade or increase the memory of your card, up to 32 GB. And it is worth noting the fact that the device supports only SD cards and SD memory cards are available in stores and you need to purchase separately.

QWERTY Keypad:

Yes, this is one of the most obvious and also interesting aspects of the device. Lots of new devices are coming up with this feature given the fact that people and especially the youth are into social networking these days. Chatting has become a viral phenomenon and wherever people go, they still want to maintain contact with their dear ones. And the best and fastest way to access the internet, chat with friends, type documents, and do a lot of similar stuff, is by using a QWERTY keypad. We know of many customers who look forward to buy a phone or a PDA that comes with only a QWERT keypad. Normal keypads, the slide types, the touch screen, all are kicked aside by this new idea. QWERTY is the order of the day and if you do not believe, just have a look at the increase in the production and at the same time, the sales of QWERTY phones over the last couple of years or so. It is also an easy transition between chatting on the computer and texting on the phone. It is much easier, faster and more effective. Hence, it is obviously preferred over other similar forms of keypad.

Camera and Video Recording:

It would always be nice to have a camera in hand whenever you are out with friends or on a tour. And it is a fact that these days, there is no mobile phone in this world that comes without a camera at all. Starting from VGA cameras to high definition cameras, you see different phones and PDA devices coming with different cameras. The BlackBerry Curve 8520 comes with a 2 megapixel camera and though you already know that this is not the end of the world and there are much better cameras featured on some other mobile phones and PDAs, this still is a decent feature and particularly under plenty of lighting, you will get good quality pictures without noise at all. And these days when we have picture modification software tools, the quality of the camera may not bother us that much. The camera has 5 x digital zoom feature so that you get some pretty good zoomed pictures. And things just do not end here. The camera also allows video recording and you again get some decent pictures when under daylight or plenty of artificial lighting. Since it is not the highest quality camera going around, it comes with a fixed focus and you will have to change or vary the focus in case you think it is needed.

Bluetooth:

Bluetooth is indeed one of the major features on the BlackBerry Curve 8520 Phone, and it is also considered pretty important for any PDA device. Since you will be having the need to chare things like documents and files at office, Bluetooth will be a ready in hand option for you to do so. The device comes with Bluetooth version 2.0 and though version 3.0 has already featured in a couple of devices this year, the older version is still not so obsolete. It is moreover better than predecessor and will be giving you better outputs like faster searching of devices, stronger connectivity, and greater security. Along with the Bluetooth version 2.0, you will also be provided a few other important features like Bluetooth Headset profile, Bluetooth Handset Profile, phone book access profile, secure simple pairing profile, serial port profile, address book integration using AT commands and using object push or OBEX feature, stereo audio (A2DP or AVRCP) and dial up networking (DUN). All these features are obviously very essential for those in business field and since this device is especially designed for people like them, it has in it everything that they look out for.

Media Player:

Who does not love entertainment? On any given day, one would want a device that would also provide them some entertaining stuff while they are on the go or when boredom surrounds them. Given the fact that most of today’s PDAs have become mini television sets that fit into our hands and keep on chattering wherever we go, the doctor’s order is that the Curve 8520 should have a good media player. And thankfully, we have got some nice multimedia features for you. The media player sported on the Curve 8520 supports a large number of audio and video formats and this certainly is good news for those of you who love to watch videos or to listen to music while travelling. Here is a list of video and audio formats supported by the device: Video formats: H.263, WMV9, MPEG4, H.264,; Audio formats: MP3, AAC-LC, AMR-WB, AMR-NB, e AAC+, QCELP EVRC, AAC+, WMA9, Windows Media 10 Standard/Professional. Now that is quite a good list of supported formats and this means that there is no need of converting the media into different formats before actually loading them on to the device. Hence playing music and videos on this media player is fun, entertaining and easy too. This could also prove to be a vital feature and would certainly please many users and critics.

Wi-Fi:

It is a well known fact that Wi-Fi has become an integral part of almost all electronic goods during the last couple of years. And PDAs are the one of the first gadgets to have featured Wi-Fi. What happens when you have Wi-Fi is, even when you have a cable that connects you to the internet, you can still not use it and still get connected to the internet. This way, your device will become more mobile and you can surf the web sitting anywhere in your house. This could save you from a lot of discomfort too. And whenever you visit places like Airports, cafes, corporate offices, universities and so on, you can gain access to the internet with ease. Like all BlackBerry mobile phones and PDAs, the Curve 8520 Smartphone comes with the far famed 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi in association with WPA / WPA 2 Personal and Enterprise both. This is certified by Cisco CCX and hence it is guaranteed that everything works smoothly without any sorts of errors. Some of the other additional features regarding Wi-Fi on the device are: Wi-Fi® access to BlackBerry® Enterprise Server, Wi-Fi access to BlackBerry® Internet Bundle, Support for UMA (carrier-dependent). This is hence a great option for you to pull out the best from your Curve 8520 Smartphone and utilize its ability to the fullest.

Social Networking:

It is needless to say that social networking has become the top priority among people from all walks of life. It is the current trend and wherever you go, you see this phenomenon pretty predominant. People from every nook and corner of the globe are now able to contact one another through social networking. And of late, Social networking is also the sole reason behind the introduction of social commerce. Lots of businesses are being established every day and Social networking has been the driving force for all such businesses. Websites like Viigo, Foursquare, Twitter are now household names all over the world. Now this is the reason why the Blackberry Curve 8520 Smartphone comes with special featured apps for the above stated websites. Just one push of a button and you will be directed to those threesome websites. This way, you can quit living like a recluse since you will always be in contact with your pals, share your views, contacts, pictures, videos and stuff. Entertainment will always be with you if you have the Curve 8520. We have also liked the way the device provides you a link to such websites. Provision of shortcut buttons is also a nice way of connecting you to your pals and also a nicer way of saving your valuable time.

Security:

These days, one of the main problems regarding the PDA devices is that personal security is at stake. Many devices are coming without the option for you to lock or hide your personal data and stuff. Everything is being open to access for all and this is the reason people still go for buying laptops instead of a PDA. But one has got no such complaints regarding the BlackBerry Curve 8520 PDA phone. It is quite smart in all aspects and hence it comes with robust security features. As expected, there is keyboard lock along with password protection. This feature helps you in preventing others from opening your device and also from accessing its data. There is also a security mode called the sleep mode which locks the device temporarily. Other important features include AES or Triple DES encryption with BlackBerry Enterprise Server, Optional support for S/MIME, and FIPS validation. These small but important features add a lot of value to your device and also help you in protecting your all important data. These sort of features set an example to the other makers of PDAs, and BlackBerry outscores its competitors in this aspect.

Modem:

The internet has become a part and parcel of our lives and more and more people are onto the internet day by day. And is not it cool to have a modem for your device so that you can connect to the internet and surf the web whenever you wish to? It would be an even better idea because, after all the modem is provided by RIM and this means that only your device can be connected through the modem to the internet. No one else can access your modem since there will be a security key provided. The modem is also a wireless type and this means you can access Wi-Fi at home or wherever you go. There is also tethered modem capability for the device and hence it would be an added advantage for you when you choose the Curve 8520. Both these will be provided along with the device and you could be browsing the internet without any extra price. This is also another positive aspect regarding the mobile phones and PDAs from BlackBerry. You will always have something extra for the same price.

Connectivity:

The device comes with a mini USB port and a cable for connection and this allows you to connect it to your computer, sync them and exchange data between them. It is an easy method, compared to the likes of Bluetooth and Infrared, to send and receive data like documents, files, music, videos and so on. You can also charge your phone just by connecting to your computer using this mini USB cable. And just for the record, there is also an SD memory card slot available, as discussed earlier. So, you can even transfer files through the memory card. Either way, the connectivity of the device is pretty good.

So that ends a pretty good list of features, and we are happy that BlackBerry has been following the latest trends in the market and hence has been providing the right features. Though there are a few minor drawbacks regarding some of the features, the device is pretty good overall. But let us also see if this trend continues and if the performance of the device complements its features well or not.

Performance:

While the features on the device are so great and so appealing that you would have already had a soft corner for the Blackberry Curve 8520 Mobile Phone, the performance of the device, may not be as appealing. And the reasons include a less powerful processor. Well, there is no problem with the processor itself and it works fine when you run an application or two. But when multitasking is frequent and too many applications are open and being run simultaneously, the device may not have the caliber to perform at a good pace and the processor should experience an overload. This leads to deteriorated performance of the system and is this happens for a long time, the device may get damaged. But the situation is not so serious as it seems since more often than not one would not want to use too many applications simultaneously.

The operating system and the rest of the features perform very well and they complement the device so well that you get a commendable performance from the Curve 8520 Smartphone. There are quite a few utilities in the bag for you and if you get used to using then in the right way, you will then start loving your device and will also start appreciating the real potential of the device. Connectivity of the device has also been quite good during the tests and there are no major issues or errors reported. This could well be a decider, the performance of the device on the whole, since it is the single most important aspect of the device. And we are happy that this would not be the reason behind your rejection. The overall performance is pretty good, and in fact better than what was expected at the start, especially after knowing about the processor of the device. Hence, you can actually count on the performance of the device since it will always be there for you whenever you need and it will also not pose you frequent problems.

Battery:

Since there are quite a few features seen on the device, there is a chance of multitasking. And multitasking means more operations at a time and this eventually means more battery drain. This is the reason one would expect a pretty solid battery performance from their device.  One must not worry about the battery life while on the go and also must be able to confidently make video calls or do some extravagant stuff. But all this needs a good battery. Therefore, the Curve 8520 comes with a 1150 mAh removable/rechargeable lithium-ion battery that stays longer than usual. With the new revamped battery performance, the device can provide you a talk time of up to 4.5 hours (approx) and a standby time of up to 17 days or 408 hours (approx). Now this is something big. You have now got something really great from BlackBerry. You can now talk for more hours on the go, and also can quit worrying because you have not charged your device for some time. This sort of quality is expected from someone like BlackBerry and it has lived up to our expectations totally.

Warranty:

The BlackBerry Curve 8520 Smartphone comes with a parts and labour warranty for a period of about one year from the original date of purchase.

Verdict:

If you were waiting for one last opinion of us on this Smartphone, we would like to tell you that you have encountered a really good device that helps you in all spheres of your life, office, home, family, friends, network, entertainment, and the list goes on. The features are great and the performance is better than what we expected. The battery life is quite commendable and the device also has pretty good connectivity options. The pricing is also not as high as expected and is quite reasonable, to be honest with you. Hence, with all the positive signs in front of us, all we can say is, if you are diehard fan of BlackBerry and if you are looking for more than a decent PDA device, then we would recommend the BlackBerry Curve 8520 Smartphone to you. It would be a nice companion to you and to your business. Even if your decision is negative regarding the device, or if this not what you are looking for, there is nothing to worry as we have got plenty of other top notch and competitive PDAs for you. You can read their reviews, look at their ratings and prices on this website itself.

BlackBerry Curve 8520 Smartphone – Technical Specification Table

Though the Dell Streak 7 might just look like a magnified Streak 5, but do not judge it by its outer cover as it differs in more than just the size, with a powerful 1GHz dual core Tegra T20 processor, 4G HSPA connectivity, a 5mp lens on the rear and 1.3mp front facing camera, and a 16GB of internal memory. As far as software is concerned, it is powered by Android 2.2 and the User Interface is Dell’s Stage, which the company promises to upgrade to Honeycomb as soon as it is ready. With the sounds of the features, it looks like one of the most complete 7” tablets in the current market. Unfortunately, there are a few factors that might keep its consumers from taking out the cash, find out what are they.

Design:

An enlarged original Streak:

Irrespective of the angle at which the Streak 7 Tablet PC is looked at, it still looks very much like an enlarged version of its 5″ predecessor. And this might not actually be a thing to complain about as the original’s tapered edges and quite rugged and durable plastic build is adorable. It is quite obvious that Dell is trying to have some identical design fashions throughout the Streak series, but it seems to be having some cues from the relatives of Venue Pro and Venue too. The style borrowing is evident in the rear that has similar textured diamond pattern. The feel of the device in hands is pretty good, and unlike that of the Streak 5, its rear does not have a removable battery, which is an absolute disappointment, the reason, you will find in the battery life section of the review.

Low-resolution woes:

While not in use, the display of the Streak 7 looked simply identical to that of the Galaxy Tab, as both of them seem to be pretty glossy with their 7″ Gorilla Glass display that feels pretty smooth to be touched. But that thought will change immediately as soon as it is turned on. When compared to the 1024 x 600 pixels resolution display of the Galaxy Tab, Streak 7’s 800 x 480 pixels panel looked simply cheap, and this will be very much obvious while browsing, reading , viewing images or just while watching a HD video clip. In side by side comparison, the Streak 7 looked lack lustre and if you are particular about the pixel numbers, just stop reading here and look at the alternative options available.

Disappointment with Display:

Getting back to the display, the most drastic difference is with how much brighter Galaxy’s version turned out to be. Flatly, Samsung’s panel is better than Dell’s in every way and will prove to be big difference as the complete tablet experience revolves around the display. The quality is also affected with the viewing angles; when held horizontally about 45 degrees, the colours just fade away to black. However, the vertical viewing angle is better when compared to that of the display of Galaxy Tab, which can be seen in pretty much any angle, but remember, you will not be able to get that supreme quality at any cost. Thought the quality of viewing on the display is not up to the mark, this capacitive display is very responsive and this is helped a great deal by the Tegra 2 processor. The accelerometer was also pretty snappy, but we just wished for an easy way to switch off the feature than to go through the settings menu of the display.

The handy 7″:

Though most of the Tablet manufacturers look towards the 10” form factor, the portability factor offered by the 7” models; some of our friends are wishing for a 7” iPad. Similar to that of the Archos 7 and the Galaxy Tab, the Streak 7 too is good with single hand using than the other 10” tablets we had tested. This 0.48” Streak 7 is comfy to be held while reading an ebook on bed or just wrapping both the hand around this 0.9 pounds tablet and just use the thumbs to type on it.

Buttons and slots:

The Dell Streak 7  Android Table is quite clean and all it has is three capacitive buttons for home, menu as well as back, the camera on the front of the device and mic. The SD card and SIM card slots have been hidden inside a plastic latch on its right edge, which can become quite hard to be opened if you do not have long nails. On the top, there is the volume rocker and power button. You will find a 3.5mm headphone jack on the left edge. Unfortunately, Dell has not offered any HDMI op on the tablet, but does provide a separate dock that is to be attached to a PDMI port beneath the unit. If you are wondering about the PDMI port, it is same as the one found in the original, and again as there is not even a USB port on the device, keep the cord in hands always if you wish to recharge or connect it to any other gadget. Charging is not done through USB and it has to be plugged into the wall with the help of its AC adaptor. Yes, it is absolutely annoying.

Features:

Software:

Most of the tablets that were announced this year in the Consumer Electronics Show are waiting for the release of Google’s Android 3.0 Honeycomb, which has been programmed especially for Tablets. But Dell alone had no patience whatsoever and released the Streak 7 with the Android 2.2, and it really feels rushed too and this fact is just stressed with Dell not taking any effort in addition to what the OS had to offer. You will find the software experience to be same as that of the original Streak and Venue, which had Stage UI with Dell’s full screen widgets along with the launcher. The widgets actually seem to be pretty useful and, on clicking over Home, you get the recently used apps and the local weather details as well. What is more, you get to see the all important Facebook and Twitter feed, gallery of locally stored pictures, and a Web search bar with thumbnails of your bookmarks. If you are not too keen about these widgets, they can always be deleted and just go on to customise it with regular Android Widgets and apps. Quick access to the mail app, app tray and browser is provided by the launcher at the base. Customisation of the launcher will just kill your time.

Music player:

The ordinary and boring looking stock Android music player, stresses more that Dell has rushed the Streak 7 into the market. This player is the one that you will find in any Android phone. Though it is quite functional, in heavy bass tones, the audio is rather lacking and glaringly still in the loudest setting. You also do not get any sort of visualisations or equaliser setting to enhance the experience.

The apps:

Taking about apps, none of them, not even the mail and some of the other native apps like messaging and calendar apps have not even got any sort of upgrades that can take advantage of the additional display real estate. It is shocking that Dell has not even bothered to optimise the Gmail experience. We cannot help appreciating Samsung in this regard, as they had done heaps of retooling. We think Dell thought that since the Streak 7 had the same resolution as that of the original, it did not have the need.
Being a tablet, the messaging experience can turn out to be a little challenging as there are specific ways in which it has to be held and also considering the size of on-screen keys. The additional apps available include BrainPOP which is an educational game for the kids, Kindle, a magazine app called as Zinio, Blockbuster, Let’s Golf and a Slacker Radio. You get Swype too, but this large device does not ask for regular thumb typing. T-Mobile has done its part by including the T-Mobile TV and Qik Video Chat apps. Overall, as far as the software package is concerned, it is simply an oversized smartphone. A couple of months back, that was acceptable, but with the Honeycomb around the corner, it is all about to change.

Camera:

A quick video chat with our friend was good with the Qik Video Chat app, using the front facing 1.3mp camera in Dell Streak 7. Though that app on its own does not provide you with good quality video, we have to mention that it is better on WiFi than what you can get expect from 4G, still do not expect it to be desktop grade for the sake of video calling. The stills taken with the lens on the front is pretty good and obviously, the 5mp camera on the rear turned out with better snaps that were crisper, but a little washed out. That said, taking pictures with a 7” viewfinder makes it all the more awkward. But the auto-focus is quicker and the flash is pretty handy in low-lit conditions. Dell has not provided any panorama or continuous shooting option like the one found on the Galaxy Tab, but to make up for it, the Streak 7 has the capability to take 720p video. Though you get smooth motion capture, the footage seemed to be pretty grainy and oversaturated.

Performance:

Dell’s Streak 7 is one of the first tablets that we had tested, sporting NVIDIS’s 1GHz dual-core Tegra 2 T20 processor. It is odd that the processor has been down-clocked to 800MHz and Dell gives the reason to be “saving power”. But the down-clocking has not had any kind of effect on the performance of the Tablet and most of the time, it seems to be snappier than the Galaxy Tab. Operations such as scrolling through the web pages, opening the apps and flicking through the pictures is done in a breeze. The games were pretty good too. Apart from the fast performance, the processor also offers full HD playback and this Dell product does exactly that. One 1080p clip played without any stuttering or lag and this is just pointless when you consider that the screen is pretty much awful. If you wish to get any value out of the HD video, the HDMI op cable comes handy. The YouTube videos were impressive and the general flash performance seemed to be pretty decent. Video clips loaded in a few seconds and we were good to go.

Battery life:

Unfortunately, ‘good performance’ is not the case with Battery life, and it is seriously disappointing. The maximum you can get out of the Streak 7 is about six hours. With about 5 hours of use on 4G network, like checking emails, twitter feeds, surfing and google maps, Streak 7 just died. With the WiFi On, you can get about 6 hours. Its life is almost half of that of Galaxy Tab; though this can be expected with the larger 4000mAh cell on the Tab, this low life cannot be ignored for a highly mobile device such as this one. It is true that having the HSPA+ or 4G network is always going to eat away the battery life, but that is the feature offering quick browsing. As you can imagine, you will not be able to make calls with the Streak 7, but can always send messages.

Package:

The package contents of the Dell Streak 7 includes USB cable, Hands-free  headset, a wall charger, a quick start guide with terms and conditions.

Warranty:

Dell offers its Streak 7 one year warranty for parts and labour.

Verdict:

Though the Dell Streak 7 has better set of specifications than the original Streak, its experience has not taken any big leap. This is mainly because it runs the same software and in spite of having a bigger display, the low resolution does not enhance its usefulness. And, it does not even make any calls. The Streak 7 just needed some more love from Dell and it would have been a great device. We do not think this was the right time or form to bring the Tablet into the market. Its price tag is pretty competitive and HSPA+ gives it the power of speed, but the low resolution display, soon to be out-dated Operating System and poor battery life, makes it hard for us to recommend the product even though it is budget friendly.

Dell Streak 7 Android Tablet PC – Technical Specification Table

Overview:

Well! With some changes done here and there, what we have here is a low-res LCD that takes the place of the Super AMOLED of the S8500 with the 720p video recording missing too. But on a positive note, the excellent connectivity of the Samsung Wave 723 Smartphone is beyond comparison, particularly the Wi-Fi/USB tethering, not something that you can see in every other phone and would be welcomed especially by corporate users with a data plan. Also worth mentioning would be the Bluetooth 3.0 and Wi-Fi 802.11n, yet another rare feature. Beyond doubts, the Wave 723 is sure to hit the search result page of latest phones with budget and specs as the criteria. The immense free game options along with the 5MP camera pack quite a punch. Well, as mentioned above, the detachable leathery plastic flap at the bottom of the device along with enhancing the looks also safeguards the phone from users with butter fingers, who are well known for dropping the device every now and then. And for those of you who find it rather annoying, there is always the option of detaching it.

Design and Feel:

The Samsung  Wave 723 measures 109.5 x 53.9 x 11.8 mm sans the flap categorising it into a relatively compact handset. With the flap on, it weighs around 113.8 g adding about 2.5mm to the thickness. With a small screen of about 3.2 inches, the pixel count is at 240 x 400, which is on the low side. While the backplate is made of sturdy metal, the rest of the body is made of plastic with a shiny front fascia. The faux leather texture finish in the front along with the brushed aluminium feel at the back sure does give users a literal feel of high-end opulence. The metal casing is any day a treat for the hands with its tough and solid feel. Though it cannot be compared to the S8500, it is quite a looker nonetheless.

Getting around the 723:

Below the display is where the hardware keys are housed namely – Call, Menu and End buttons. There is nothing more in terms of hardware control on the front panel with all controls hefty and solid, designed to fit hands of any size. While pressing the End key stops any current running app taking you to the home screen, press-holding the Menu key initiates the task switcher. Above the display stands the loner, the earpiece. Towards the left side is the thin volume rocker sitting low, something not really comfortable to be accessed at all times. Towards the right is where one can find the Power/Lock key along with the Camera Key, rather tiny buttons with an easy to use shutter key perched a little above them. Well it was pretty impressive to watch the camera launch instantly, almost at all times. The microUSB port sits on top hidden under a plastic lid, sliding in and out seamlessly along with the uncovered 3.5mm audio jack. The above mentioned leather flap sits at the bottom, guarding the screen from rough users that can be fixed by detaching the chassis’ back section at the bottom and sliding the screen back to place.

Moving on, towards the back is where we find the conventional 5MP camera, LED flash equipped along with the loudspeaker. The inset attribute of the camera lens safeguards it from scratches. The SIM card slot is right above the battery with the microSD slot sitting below.

Well, there is nothing much to complain about the 723 both in terms of quality or build. Yeah! The Super AMOLED screen was a great miss though.

User Interface:

Based on TouchWiz and Android, the Bada interface is not something that is too hard to tame, for both patron and non-patrons of the Samsung family. So, starting with the homescreen (the basic attraction of the Bada interface) has several panes to its credit that holds as many widgets you would like it to hold. In the landscape mode, the 723 allows editing of these widgets by adding, removing or even rearranging panes, with the current pane being displayed on the top via circled numbers. Tapping on the same takes you directly to that particular screen. Widgets can be pulled out or placed back on the tray at the foot of the screen when unused. Then again, the low-res screen of the 723 does not really help with handling too many widgets per pane. There is a thin notification bar on top of the screen that displays info such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, battery, time, and Music player controls, provided it is running in the background. Long pressing the centre key launches the Task Manger that helps you toggle between active apps or terminating them. Furthermore, the System Manager is more for the techies and consists of four tabs with the first tab showing info on the device like model number, MAC addresses and firmware update, the second tab provides info on the battery, while the last two tab updates you on the memory and CPU usage. It also displays the current running app enabling you to launch the Task manager. Turning the phone landscape while in the edit mode allows you to add and delete pages, akin to the homescreen. With the screen scrolling being looped, do not bother sweeping all the way back to reach the last one.

Phonebook/Call Quality:

Samsung have always been famous for their opulent functionality and literally unrestricted capacity when it comes to Phonebook. The Samsung Wave 723 Bada OS Phone continues that legacy by assimilating social networking with contacts. Contacts can be pulled in from Facebook or Twitter, provided you are logged in. In fact, you can formulate an up-to-date and detailed contact list with pulling contacts from Twitter and Facebook along with adding some from the SIM too. Searching for entries is possible by either doing an alphabet scroll that is available on the side of the screen or flick scrolling the list. Then again, typing for the search entry is there always. Despite having the option to assign numerous info fields to the contacts everything remains flawlessly organised. Trying clicking on a + sign located on the right in the contact list, this allows a new field to be added for a contact. Again by clicking on a minus sign you can get rid of any unnecessary field. Yet another cool feature similar to the Galaxy S is, swiping right on the main contact list dials instantly the number of a contact and with swiping left you are allowed to send a SMS to that contact. The side swiping feature works with other lists too in case of numbers or names being involved. Majority of the functions are pretty much Android-y.

During calls, accessing the mute button or the speaker phone is very much possible, but what was annoying was having to press-hold the On/Off lock keys located on the side that in turn takes you to the menu. There are options to make or take video calls, but then again with no front-facing camera, you might have to use the camera on the back to send your videos.

The call quality of the Wave 723 can be categorised as fair, as it was not that loud despite the max sound setting. With the absence of the proximity sensor, manual unlocking of the phone needs to be done in order to use some features amidst a call. The Smart dialing feature also was not really impressive, as it searches only with numbers and not names. We found it a bit weird, because we are more prone to forgetting numbers than names and that is exactly why a Name Search would be appreciated better. The call receiver key populates the call log showing all of the received, dialed and missed calls/messages all in the same list. There is also the option of different tabs that sorts history better.

Messaging:

Samsung has been very innovative in terms of Messaging with an array of options on offer. Well it starts with the standard, SMS, MMS, and voice mail along with Facebook and Twitter. This is just to begin with; the main menu offers an app named My Accounts. On opening that, you get to set up various email accounts. While corporate users find Exchange ActiveSync feature fairly handy, others might be happy to have their hands full with Gmail, Windows Live, Yahoo etc. MySpace is also on offer on the social networking front.

Creating messages has been kept simple and straightforward. While the capacitive touchscreen makes life easier with being spontaneous and receptive, the keyboard is no less effective by way of offering dedicated keys for symbols like @ and ‘.com’. Perched conveniently above the keyboard are three menu buttons, “Recent, Contact, Groups” which acts quickly in adding a recipient/group of recipients in a message. The Recent button also comes in pretty handy. While sending message, the predictive text offers you alternative words and the same can be availed of by pulling it down and clicking on the arrow towards the right of the box. If you find the keyboard a bit small in the tall mode try switching to wide mode to gain more space.

Typing speed in the Wave 723 was not an issue until the built-in dictionary comes in your way. Similar to its brothers, the 723 follows the same painful process with new words – coining a new word is possible only after entering the same in the dictionary, which means you might spend an eternity keying in all your buddies’ nicknames in the dictionary, unless you turn that option off. Yet another feature worth mentioning in the Samsung’s Bada is that majority of the screens display three small dotted icons at the bottom of the screen, which pops a context-sensitive menu, which is extremely handy. For eg, with messaging it allows you to easily add attachments and multimedia to your messages. Maximum attachment size is 5MB for both incoming and outgoing mails.

Check this cool feature that the Wave 723 has to offer. The SMS editor offers two tabbed folders – view and conversation. While the former displays all your folders at the bottom of the screen as tabs, the latter groups your messages. Yet another remarkable option would be the “Scheduled message” – this takes care of scheduling a composed message to be sent automatically on a specified time and date.

Multimedia:

Face Tagging-Enabled Gallery:

The Samsung Wave 723’s Media Browser can be categorized as basic with clips and images displayed together in the thumb format. The selected file can be viewed in both the landscape and portrait mode. As the phone is multi-touch supported, Pinch-Zooming is also offered and double tapping the screen allows for a zoom in and zoom out. Well it appears that Samsung needs to improvise on the zooming feature, as it appears less responsive. Organizing files via the Media Browser is done by tag, date, view favorites and the best of all View By Person. This would mean upon tagging a contact’s face, you will be allowed to view all photos pertaining to that contact.

Not so impressive Video player:

The Wave 723 does not match up to the expectations in terms of video player in comparison to the first Wave. High resolution videos and codecs appear to be a no-no with the Wave 723. While the .3GP and .MP4 files seem to work (with less resolution though) there seemed to be some resistance against DivX and XviD encoded .AVI files. Again, it did not seem to have anything against .WMV files. Well, as these files are no longer largely in use, there is nothing much to complain here. Check out this cool feature, Mosaic Search. This is how it works – clips are broken down into various parts displaying each clip’s first frame helping you fish out the scene that you are hunting for.

Decent Music player:

We have to admit that the music player experience in the Wave 723 was nowhere near the video player. Tracks get organized by artists, albums, composers and genres, with the option to hide the same while not in use. Sound Effects along with Equalizer Presets are also on offer along with Samsung’s own DNSe sound enhancement technology giving you the choice of Music Clarity, Wide, Bass enhancement and Externalization, Concert Hall and 5.1 channel virtualization too. With the music player on, the notification panel displays info on the track being played along with playback controls. Also included is Samsung’s conventional music recognition feature that allows recording a few seconds of the currently played track ultimately providing you info on the name of the artist and the track being played. Yet another similar feature is “Find similar” that uses an online service to find similar tracks to the one currently being played. This also allows for tracks to be added to the wish list.

FM on board:

The Samsung Wave 723 PDA Smartphone  is loaded with FM radio along with RDS. It allows as much as 6 stations to be stored as favorites with the All Channels Menu retaining the rest. Recording of FM audio is also possible with the possibility to store the recorded music in your music folder in a MP3 format.

Audio output Quality:

Moving forward, the audio output quality leaves you with mixed feeling and is kind of hard to comment on the same. For eg., while the handset fares well with being plugged to an external amplifier, the same is just  average with plugging to the headphones.

Camera:

The Samsung Wave 723 Mobile Phone comes with 5MP camera that is LED flash and auto-focus supported and it sure does match our expectations in terms of still shooting. It also feature smile detection along with geo tagging. There are several scene modes namely Party/Indoor, Dawn, Sports, Fireworks, Night, Candlelight and Text. Also available are options like Continuous Mode and Panorama Mode together with Smile Shot, so have fun exploring your shoot skills. The touch optimized interface is fairly comfortable with almost all available options by way of vertical bars on each side of the viewfinder. The settings menu allow for toggling between white balance, ISO, auto contrast and effects. Also available is the macro mode along with Scene presets. In short, the Wave 723 shoots decent photos that can be expected from a 5MP camera with great attention being paid to resolved detail while also taking care of noise levels

Connectivity And Web Browser:

The connectivity factor of the 723 is way ahead for a phone that is categorized in the mid-range level. Along with the customary quad-band GPRS/EDGE/GSM there is also dual-band 3G with 7.2Mbps HSDPA on offer. Furthermore, it is loaded with the best local wireless connectivity – b/g/n variants of Wi-Fi along with Bluetooth v3.0. In terms of mass storage, there is the microUSB port, DRM Media, internet sharing and Samsung Kies. Speaking of Internet Sharing, check out the 723 turn into a wireless router (thanks to Mobile AP) connecting to as much as three Wi-Fi clients using the HSDPA connection to access the net. Wi-Fi also pairs with WPS – well for the non-techies out there WPS or Wi-Fi Protected Setup  is a secure way that helps connecting your secured network with a wireless device (that is, if your router supports the feature). Press the dedicated button and Voila watch it pairing up with your Wave 723.

The Wave 723 comes loaded with a Webkit-based browser, Dolphin 2.0 that opens multiple pages simultaneously along with Flash support also on board. The Pinch-Zoom feature works like a breeze especially with the screen being multi-touch enabled. But then again, it is fairly annoying to note the absence of text reflow that eventually leads to additional swiping in an attempt to read the zoomed stuff. Nevertheless, the Auto-complete option sure does save you some energy with entering site addresses if you have frequented the site before. Other notable features of the browser are the Find-on-Page and Translate option. Again, the volume rocker mounted on the left can be toggled to act as scroller as well, especially for those accustomed to single-handed browsing. The context-sensitive menu located in the browser page comes in very handy with sending URLs via SMS/email. So there again, the browser has its own pros and cons and sure does need a little tweaking here and there that Samsung needs to take care of.

Organiser:

The 723’s Organizer is a relatively handy app. There is also this Home screen widget displaying all impending appointments – a lifesaver really. So all those anniversaries, birthdays and meetings are just a tap away, in order to avoid any dicey scenarios. Also on board is the latest Picsel Viewer that works like a charm when it comes to Pinch- Zooming. It works perfectly well for PowerPoint docs, Excel, PDFs and Word. The 723 also comes loaded with the conventional organizer functions like the World Clock, Countdown timer, Alarm, Stopwatch etc. Another feature worth mentioning would be My Files – an efficient and simple to use file manager that also does the role of an image gallery. It also aids in copying, moving, locking and renaming bulk files and sending the same over Bluetooth.

App store:

Nothing much to be mentioned about the Samsung App store, it lags far behind in comparison to Android or Apple. While the apps are divided into categories, some have very few entries with the Social Networking having 7 to its credit and the Productivity having just 19. Well if it is just apps that you are interested in, then it would be ideal to look for options.

SatNav/GPS Navigation:

The Wave 723 comes with a dedicated Sat Nav along with the Samsung Mobile Navigator. Though the maps give out an outdated look, it is rich in features with nothing to complain about. It is also voice-guided along with a whole host of additional features, but obviously at an extra cost.

Battery Life:

Yet another disappointing feature of the 723 is its battery life. With just a meager usage, the battery dies within three days. With heavy usage, it drains rapidly requiring an almost everyday charge to continue breathing. And if you are the kind of person that listens to music a good amount of time, then be warned to do an everyday charge to avoid being appalled with a sudden battery drain. On the other hand, if you are the prudent kind, then you can expect anywhere from a day or two or maybe three, before the 723 dies out on you.

Hits:

• Solid design
• Context-sensitive app menus
• Expanding home screens with addition of widgets
• Pull down controls taking the shape of notification panel.
• Wi-Fi settings.
• Neat camera.
• Leather casing
• Integration of Facebook and Twitter contacts.

Misses:

• Not well designed app store
• Lack of text reflow.
• Low display resolution.
• Disappointing video playback

To Conclude:

The Korean manufacturer has indeed devised a mid-range compelling Bada handset that sure does steal the show in the smartphone market, but is yet to work on some rough edges like its OS, app store, and screen resolution etc. But the question still remains as to who would prefer the Bada over a Froyo or a Sense? Guess the £200 mark is after all not enough to survive the smartphone crusade, unless Samsung decides to refine the Bada big time!

Samsung Wave 723 Mobile Phone – Technical Specification Table

This particular series, released by Sony which is regarded as one of the greatest producer of consumer electronics along with Samsung, has been a commercial hit of late and this is the solid reason behind why Sony is still releasing Ericsson series mobile phones into the market. Each phone that belongs to the Ericsson series has got world class features and is also regarded as an excellent performer too. Now, with such a huge reputation, Sony has released the XPERIA mobile phones. One of them is the X10 mini and it is our topic of interest now. Let us analyze this new phone from Sony and see if it conforms to our expectations.

Design:

The lightest ever:

Now here we have got one of the lightest phones ever in the market. Though it looks a bit out of the trend, it still is quite sleek. It is a bit wider than normal and this is quite surprising since today’s mobile phones are too rectangular in shape. But then, this shape can be quite comfortable to use as well since you get to experience new comforts while using such a mobile phone. Since the phone is touch responsive, a wider screen helps as you can use two hands at a time. Hence, multitasking becomes easier than ever. Measuring about (H x W x D) 83 x 50 x 16 mm, it is one of the smallest mobile phones you will ever see in the market. It hence justifies the name Mini. Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini weighs an incredible 88 grams, which is approximately half the usual weight of an average mobile phone. Now, this shows how portable the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 is. Though there is this slide out QWERTY keypad, which adds to the features list, the device is still quite slim and fit. You can actually slip it into your jeans or even into the smallest off handbags. This enhances the user friendliness of the mobile since it can be used and held comfortably by most people. Now most of the youth likes this very fact that their mobile is sleek, attractive and portable at the same time. It actually adds a lot of value to its users.

Colours Galore:

Now with the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, there is a lot of room for customization and probably, customer satisfaction. Though there are numerous models in the Xperia series already, the X10 has come up with a different type of customisation facility. There are as many as twelve colours in all for you to choose from and the colours are also widely diverse and not just shades of the same colour. The Xperia X10 is available in the following colours: Black, White, Pink, Pearl, Pale Pink, Gold, Orange, Silver, Azure, Light Silver, Lime and Red. This allows you to choose the mobile and the colour of your choice, which is always welcome, isn’t it?

Display:

The Xperia X10 comes with a 2.55 inch TFT capacitive touch screen display. Now since it is capacitive type touch screen, there is no need to use a stylus. Hence no stylus is provided. You can interface it comfortable with your fingers. The screen resolution is actually 240 x 320p and this low screen resolution is understandable since it is a mini phone. The normal mobile phones come with a resolution that is twice as good as this but this mobile phone does not need a better screen resolution. Now this screen has got some special features. It has got a scratch resistant surface, which is pretty much necessary since the mobile is mostly intended to be used by youth, who are expected to be quite rough with the handling and usage of their mobile phones. Hence, even if the screen undergoes rough handling, it still does not show up any scratches, lines or cracks. This is a pretty good sign indeed. Then there is the accelerometer sensor which is embedded in the screen itself and this helps you detect acceleration under various circumstances. Hence the display if the Xperia X10 also provides you with a lot of options.

Features:

Now when it comes to features, the mobiles from Sony rank among the top, be it the number of features or the credibility of them or even the innovative ideas that take to introduce them. After a long time, Sony and Android have collaborated for another time and you cannot expect anything better to happen in this world. With that being the best feature of the day, we will, in this features section, discuss more and more new features and innovations that are seen on this new and promising mobile phone from Sony, the Xperia X10.

Android:

Android has become one of the fastest and best selling operating systems in the mobile market. It has got in it something very special that wonderfully suits the latest PDAs and high end mobile phones, like the Xperia X10 mini. Since it has got an array of features and shortcut applications that make your work simpler and at the same time save your time, it is being used in more mobile phones of late and is also widely renowned. The newest version of the Android operating system is being used in the Xperia X10 and it has come up with quite a few applications and add-ons, even more than ever, only in order to make things easier for the users. If you look at the latest added applications, you will find instant messaging, internet add-ons which are preloaded, instant Googling, Instant email, and most interestingly, instant access to YouTube. Hence you can suddenly access almost everything quicker than ever. You can even download your favorite applications from the Android Market. And if you are using 3G, then your connection to the internet is even faster and you can mail, watch videos and Google search even faster than ever before. This is a pretty good sign for any latest mobile phone. The Android Platform is also powered by a very powerful and efficient CPU or processor, which in turn helps it perform at a very fast rate. This means that even if you have an overload of applications, your mobile will work pretty well and it will never be jammed. There are two different versions of this operating system, namely version 1.5 and version 2.0. You can select either of them while you are purchasing the device.

Processor:

Since quite some time, Sony has been sticking with the processors manufactured by Qualcomm. The Xperia X10, however, may have just been associated with the wrong processor. Well, no offence, but the clock speed of the Qualcomm MSM 7227, is a mere 600 MHz. You might already be musing over the fact that many of today’s PDAs come with a 600 MHz processor, but please note that the Sony Ericsson mobile phones are supposed to be high end devices and are hence expected to perform at a higher level than most of the other competitors. And with the abounding Android applications, numerous features and internet facility with the 3G facility, all along with an expectation for great multitasking, it would definitely have been great if there was a faster and better processor. The device could do nothing wrong with the existing processor but then, you would have loved a faster processor.

Google Support:

Imagine what happens when two of the giants of information technology collaborate. Wouldn’t that be great? Well, it is great and it is even better if the two giants end up being Google and Android, which are two of the most commercially successful companies. Now limiting ourselves to the Xperia X10 mobile phone, you will find quite a few exciting applications powered by a Google, and more interestingly, on an Android base. It doesn’t get any better, does it? Now Google has provided on the Xperia X10, three of its most famous and powerful tools, viz., Google Search, Google Maps and Google Mail, which includes the Google Voice Mail service.  Hence, you can always feel good while using the Xperia X10 because there will be nothing new when it comes to surfing the internet and using the basic applications. It is all easy and quite exciting to use and also is fun actually. Well, Android always brings along something entertaining. Another fact is that when you combine the utilities provided by Google Maps and the GPS service provided by your mobile, your results will be faster, smarter, and more candid than normal.

Timescape:

Timescape is a whole new very interesting feature initiated by Sony in order to provide a few exciting features on the Xperia X10 mini Smartphone. First of them is an animated view of all your messages, emails, facebook updates, Tweets, and so on, which gives a very interesting look to your mobile phone. You can flip around the tablet views and select the update you want to view separately. You can also select the contacts you want from the available list of all contacts and all your contact details and history will be shown to you and the status updates they have made in the past, the tweets they have made and the comments that you have posted on their profiles, photos that you people are tagged in, and all such details will be shown in a new exciting manner. You can hence directly send messages, status updates, or emails, or even ping them for chat directly from this view. Hence, this proves to be one very exciting feature on the whole. Well, more than the feature, the very look of it is quite interesting and trendy too and hence it can be a great tool for you. It looks great and also at the same time, makes things easy for you to deal with. Timescape is regarded as an exclusive feature of the Sony Xperia series mobile phones and hence are not seen anywhere else. Hence, this unique feature may help boost the sales of the Xperia X10 mini.

GPS:

From the time when GPS came into full existence and is fully used mainly in cars, people from all over the world found travelling very easy. Particularly when you go to a new place, the GPS system helps you reach your destination quickly and easily. Now, of late this GPS system is being integrated into handheld devices as well, in order to provide more access to foreign places all over the world. With this system at your fingertips, you can quickly know where the nearest bus station is, or you can find the details of the nearest theatre, shopping malls, or restaurants, so on and so forth. This will avoid any confusion in your mind while travelling in new places. It also comes in the form of a very user friendly application, which has panning and zooming options so that you can view the maps at your will. Landscape view also makes it better for you to locate the places of your interest. Hence, GPS is also another important feature seen on the Xperia X10.

GPRS:

General Packet Radio Service or GPRS has come into existence only a few years ago and it, when combined with 2G or 3G, gives you high speed data transfer and hence at the end of the day, you get the benefits of a high speed and also qualitative communication. The GPRS system on the Xperia X10 gives a very decent bandwidth, which can range up to 85.6 kbps, which is quite larger than the ones seen on normal mobile phones. GPRS, when combined with 2G system, is effectively known as 2.5G as it boosts up the performance of the 2G system. Since the Xperia X10 mini comes with a GPRS service, it is actually beneficial to the customers.

3G:

Ever since 3G has entered the mobile market, high speed web access has become quite simple and accessible. Though 2G was a decent success among the users a few years ago, 3G has surpassed all norms when it comes to the speed of access and the amount of data that can be received in a stipulated amount of time. Latest and unforeseen features are being provided of late by 3G and the services include the following: wide area wireless voice telephone, video calling facility, mobile Internet access, mobile TV, high speed internet access, and high download speeds. Since it has become quite popular now, the costs are also being cut down by the service providers. Hence this is almost like the perfect time to fully utilize the amazing mobile features provided by 3G. Coming to the Xperia X10, you can choose either of 2G or 3G device sets when you are purchasing. So you have got an option beforehand so that there is no regretting later on. There are two types of networks that are seen here. One is the GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900, which is for 2G and the other one, HSDPA 900 / 2100 or HSDPA 850 / 1900 / 2100, which is for 3G. You can choose either of them.

Wi-Fi:

When there are many other exciting features on the Xperia X10, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Wi-Fi system featuring here. But there is something special about the Wi-Fi system used here, about which we are going to tell you. Now some devices find it difficult to connect to a Wi-Fi hotspot and their connections are also not quite strong. But you would not find any such problems with the Xperia X10 mini, as it has a robust Wi-Fi mechanism that easily connects you to an available port, amplifies the signal if it is weak, and holds the connection for longer intervals of time. You can even browse through the internet pretty quickly and also even watch videos on YouTube with little buffering. Hence, you have got to appreciate the way the Xperia X10 works when it comes to wirelessly connecting you to the internet.

Camera:
Most of the mobile phones do not give much importance to their cameras and they feature only primitive cameras that are capable of only taking mediocre pictures and less than average videos. But since the Xperia X10 has been revamping all its features and options, it has once again provided a better camera for you to get more out if it. A 5 mega pixel camera is too good for a mobile phone and as if it is not enough, there is an LED flash light abutting the lens of the camera so that it would be easy for you to shoot or to take pictures in low light conditions. The pictures come with great quality and with a resolution that is as good as 2592 x 1944 pixels. This means that the photos can be printed too. The videos are captured at 30 frames per second and in VGA so that it is easy for conversions in future. The camera comes with auto focus feature so that the lens automatically focuses on the subjects. You do not need to change the focus from time to time. Geo Tagging is also available for the videos and photos such that it allows you to tag the places where the pictures have been taken. Overall, the camera is more than useful to the commons.

Memory:

The memory available on the device is perhaps the only disappointing thing here as the rest of things are simply quite attractive. Now you have got only about 128 MB of memory on the device by default. But then, according to Sony, practically you can store unlimited contacts and call logs on your device as they only require little space. When it comes to solid or real data like documents, music, sound files and videos files, memory is limited and 128 MB is not at all sufficient. Hence Sony has given an option for you to buy an external Memory card from the stores, which you need to buy separately, and use it in the device. Micro SD cards up to capacities of 16 GB are supported by the Xperia X10 mini PDA Smartphone. Now 16 GB is very good indeed for any kind of user and you can store lots of music, videos and documents in your device. Customers are once again reminded that only micro SD cards are supported and any other kind of card is not compatible with the device. Hence, if external memory is supplied to the device, it works wonderfully well.

Performance:

Regarding the features, the Xperia X10 mini has been too good for its price tag. There are lots of new and exciting features offered by the device for the first time. But has it been able to live up to the expectations of the general public when it comes to its performance? Let us see how far it has been able to do it.

General Performance:

In general, the performance of the device has been very good. It has passed all the tests conducted and also has come out to be very good. Though the processor is a bit slower than normal, the device still managed to work very well and if you install good memory onto your device, it works faster than otherwise. The revamped user interface has been awesome to say the least band it would be an enjoying experience using the device. All the new features have helped the device perform faster and better than ever before. Hence there are no worries regarding the general performance of the Xperia X10 mini.

Audio and Video Performance:

The audio on the device is really good to be honest. The device has got good quality speakers so that you get decent sounds out of it. Since there is an mp3 player and also an FM radio application on the mobile, it would be good to play them when you are on the go. You are also provided with a set of earphones. The quality of the sound is very good. Regarding the video performance, we have already seen that there is a very good display mechanism on the device and also there is a good quality camera. Hence the video performance of the device is also fine and commendable.

Connectivity:

As we have already seen, the Xperia X10 Mini PDA Phone is excellent when it comes to connectivity. It has Wi-Fi, 3G, GPRS, Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, and what not? Since there are so many options for you to get connected to your friends and family, you can say that the connectivity of the device is pretty good in deed. Now you can also connect the device to your computer at home, using the mini USB cable provided along with the device. Hence, you can easily sync lots of data items like music, movies, documents, videos, sound files, and voice messages and so on. Hence, in two words, the device’s connectivity is top class.

Battery:

Since there are lots of features and utilities on the Xperia X10 mini, the device uses many applications at once. Hence it obviously needs to have a very good battery backup, which it actually has. With the new revolutions in the battery technology, mobile phones are now made to last longer than they have ever before. Coming to the Xperia X10, its standby by time is up to a whopping 360 hours when you use 3G. Surprisingly, when you use 2G or 2.5G, the battery life reduces, contrasting the increase in battery life of other mobile phones. But then, there aren’t many other mobile phones which can guarantee you a 360 hour battery life. And the talk time is about three and a half hours. Hence, you can have a wonderful battery life.

Warranty:

Sony has warranted the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini mobile phone, for parts and labour, for a period of about one year from the original date of purchase.

Verdict:

With all the important points discussed, now is the time to decide whether or not to go for the Xperia X10. Our opinion is already clear. Now to put it straight, it is a wonderful mobile phone for anyone and is also easy to use with the interesting user interface. It can be used as a camera, a mobile phone and a PDA, all at once. Hence it is a very good choice. It is also very nicely priced, considering the serviceability that it gives you. Lots of options are in your hands when it comes to today’s mobile industry. You have several similarly excellent mobile phones in the market and you can read their reviews here before deciding on the perfect mobile phone for you.

You may also be interested in checking full reviews and specs details of HTC Wildfire and Samsung S5230 Tocco Lite.

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini – Technical Specification Details

Being a smartphone on a tight budget, the HTC Wildfire, it does not skimp on the specifications. It is equipped with the same 3.2-inch 320 x 240 capacitive LCD touch-screen, 528MHz Qualcomm MSM7225 processor, 384MB RAM and a 5 megapixel camera. So, does this reasonably priced handset provide enough value to satisfy the Europeans and can the aging processor maintain the Sense UI well functioning? Read on to find out.

Design:

Compact and Colourful:

Design wise, the HTC Wildfire is really a smart and familiar looking smartphone. The rounded edges and rubberised, brown grey finishing are identical to the Desire and, below the screen, you will be able to find the optical trackpad of Desire. If you are not too fond of subtle brown finishing, there are other colour options too, from jolly cerise to serious bronze. The Wildfire is actually more pocket friendly than most of the other Android phones, even the devices with 3.2” screens, making it quite portable. It is good that this phone is small as you have to unlock the screen only by pressing the power button.

Lovechild of Desire and Legend:

As we had mentioned in the introduction, you will be able to realise that there have been several elements in the phone that have been borrowed from two of HTC’s Android Handsets. The optical trackpad doubles as the front panel’s only button; other commands are controlled by touchpads at the bottom of the touchscreen panel. While the touch buttons and the reassuringly back texture have been borrowed from Nexus One, the buttons do not perform as well on this big daddy. The body frame, optical trackpad, ear piece and chin have been taken from Desire. The rear has got its styling from the HD2 with a broad metallic band, but, this is not the metal that you would take away from the battery slot, the real cover has to be taken off with some endeavour from the device, just similar to the Desire. When the Wildfire is taken in hand, it feels just like the Desire and feels equally sturdy too.

Built Quality:

The chin of the phone is a part of the rear cover; but this is exactly where we were able to spot the first flaw of the HTC Wildfire. There seems to an patchy cut between the body frame and its chin. This highly lets down the impressive built quality of the other HTC devices, but being an beginner model, we feel that these small details have to be left easy. Flip it to the left, and you will find a shiny volume rocker, which feels sturdy and there is also a micro USB port. In the rear, there is the usual five mega pixel camera, which is sandwiched by a LED Flash and loudspeaker.

LCD Display:

The 3.2 inch display is big enough, but if you are accustomed to a smartphone sporting a larger screen, you might find yourself missing the extra inches though. It might feel rather cramped when compared to iPhone or the Legend. In order to meet with the inferior price point of the Wildfire, HTC has gone with the good old LCD screen instead of the AMOLED. Unfortunately, the display still has the notorious mirror effect, but it is not as sturdy as with the Desire or the Hero. Having said that, we are also quite upset that, because of the low resolution of the display (320 x 240 pixels) some of the Apps did not materialize on Wildfire’s market. Yes, because of the good old fragmentation and we advice that the potential future Android users have to look for devices with a least resolution of 480 x 320 pixels to get maximum support.  Note that, this resolution is just about half of the HTC Legend or Hero’s 320 x 480 pixels, and is just a fraction of the high resolution display of Desire’s 480 x 800 pixels. This also means that you have to zoom in to make the text on the web pages legible. It also has a capacitive touch display that is smooth, supporting multi-touch gestures.

User Interface:

HTC Sense:

The HTC Wildfire PDA Phone has also been blessed with the HTC Sense user interface as in the case of it other Android 2.1 predecessors. Although this may keep costs a touch higher than they could otherwise be, it is a joy to use. Since it sports the Android 2.1, it sports all of the smartphone features such as support for Outlook email. Some of the highlights of this interface comprise Leap for switch between homescreens, as intuitive text highlighting too that seems to be seriously similar to the iOS, a keyboard that most people prefer over the stock version, a FriendStreaming Widget for stalking your friends and a built-in Flash Lite. HTC has also made some tweaks to this Android version on its own, such as, adding an excellent on-screen keypad, improvement in the management of Google, Microsoft Exchange and social networking accounts.

Navigation:

As soon as the system is switched on, you will immediately appreciate its ease of use. Navigation around the device is quite quick, simple and straightforward.

Widgets:

Having said that, HTC has included heaps of widgets of its own which you will be able to pop onto any of the seven home screens. Notably, Sense can import your contacts from these accounts into its People app, and it will automatically look for duplicates and suggest contacts to merge. We feel that all of HTC’s widgets have been well designed and good looking too. But if you do not like them personally, you can easily download tonnes of other apps and widgets from the Android market.

Virtual Keyboard:

As far as the keyboard is concerned, anybody in the Android community, they would bet that HTC has got one of the best virtual keyboards, but we have a nasty feeling that the Wildfire will not quite make to this list. No, the issue is not with the slightly crammed keys, you will still be able to type quite well with that, the annoying this is the tortoise response to the typing. Having said that, HTC has done a commendable job by yanking the hide button as the back button that resides below the screen does the job anyway. By doing this, Wildfire is now able to extend the spacebar and in addition to this, the keyboard settings now prompt a customisable set of international keyboards for quick switching. This will just reduce the pressure caused by the laggy keyboard.

On the other hand, we liked the optical trackpad of the Wildfire PDA smartphone from HTC; it works smoothly, and looks slick compared to the trackball that we had seen on phones like the HTC Hero. You will not have to use it often, but it is quite handy for editing text and scrolling through little links on busy Web pages.

Features:

Multimedia:

We have already been impressed by the multimedia apps of HTC in the Legend and Desire itself. And, you will not find a lot of changes on this note as far as the music player is concerned; it still seems to be spontaneous and steady like before. But music lovers should consider investing in a microSD card to beef up the built-in 512MB of memory. There’s room for up to 32GB more, via the memory card slot.

But unfortunately, the gallery app is conspicuously sluggish at loading pictures, and the video playback is worse. The dwindling video performance is understandable as a 720p playback is just not feasible with an older CPU and in fact, all of the 720p clips seem to freeze from the gallery app. But, even with the 640 x 480 MP4 clips played at a lower frame rate, you will just start to wonder, who on earth will be willing to buy this PDA, when there are heaps of feature phones that can do a much better job. Sorry HTC, but this is not pleasing by any means.

Social Networking:

HTC Wildfire 3.2″ Touchscreen Phone has gone all-out as far as the social networking features are concerned. It has integrated Facebook into everything from calendar to caller ID. Sharing of the Android Apps have also been made simple with a system included for sending links to friends from the handset. One of our favourite social networking widget is the Friend Stream Widget, which keeps you up to date with your Twitter and Facebook updates, without requiring you to open an app, as you must on the iPhone.

Camera:

As with all of the other HTC devices, do not expect to have any great picture quality; especially in the low light conditions. The five mega pixel camera in HTC Wildfire produces indoor shots that are pretty good. But, with the outdoor usage, the camera struggles either with White Balance or with the time after time under exposed shots. However, there is no need to panic as they are nowhere as bad as you might imagine. The videos are capped at a 352 x 288 pixels resolution with a very sad frame rate, and you will end up with a lower frame rate if you are recording in dark.

Browsing:

The HTC Wildfire comes with a WebKit browser on-board. Multiple windows come as standard and switching between them is just a two-command affair. The HTC Wildfire also features a ‘find on page’ option, which makes wading through text heavy web pages much easier. Switching between Wi-Fi and 3G is fairly easy and if you are planning on switching between 3G and Wi-Fi regularly, we would recommend adding the HTC power control widget to one of the home screens. It is a one-stop shop for controlling your 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS connections.

Maps:

GPS is also available to keep you going in the right direction with the help of Google Maps. Maps caused no issues, with the GPS able to locate us effortlessly as we travelled around by loading maps at an acceptable speed.  The built-in compass is invaluable for the directionally-challenged, and the route planner is wonderfully simple to programme with clear directions to follow either in list view or on the map.

Performance:

Weak:

The weak processor does take a toll on the performance of the otherwise excellent user interface.  Just like its predecessor Legend, the Live Wallpapers have been disabled sensibly on the feeble Wildfire. However, there were still some occasional hiccups every now and then and there were a few crashes from the internet browser along with the headache of a slow Camera App. Obviously, the CPU is the black sheep as the Legend is also equipped with the same 384MB of RAM, but does not suffer from any such glitches. Talking about the hiccups, the Flash web content also takes several minutes to load on the Wildfire. Even if you have the kind of patience, the lower frame rate leaves just a lot to be desired.

Messaging and eMail:

Messaging using the HTC Wildfire is pretty basic. However, what the device lacks in feature, it makes up for it with ease of use. The inbox features images of the contacts, making it quite nice and pleasant to look at. And, each of the contacts has its own threaded messaging, like the iPhone. As far as typing the messages is concerned, it is pretty much a breeze. As we had mentioned earlier, the HTC Sense QWERTY Keyboard is one of the best. Setting up Exchange or Pop email is a breeze as long as you have all the required information to hand. It is simply a matter of filling in the fields onscreen and that is it.

Audio:

Adding to the list of positives on the Wildfire is vast range of audio files supported, stereo Bluetooth that works flawlessly and the built-in FM radio. We would not recommend the loudspeaker at the rear for listening to music entertainment, but the handsfree kit that comes in the package is pretty cool; too bad that it is not the noise cancelling type of plug and its mic is quite average too. Again, the phone’s mic is not better by any means too.

Battery Life:

Though there are some performance issues with the Wildfire, it manages to provide about twelve hours of battery life on just 3G data connectivity with some occasional music, moment capturing, video recording, FriendStream, Twitter and web browsing. This is a very impressive timing, considering that you will be able to get just eight to ten hours on the Legend, which also has the same 1300Ah battery, but with a newer and obviously a much efficient CPU. And perhaps, even the AMOLED screens of the other devices suck up some fair bit of juice than the other LCDs.

Accessories:

HTC does not seem to mess around when it comes to accessories. And, as such the HTC Wildfire comes with minimum, as it is the quality we like and not the quantity.

Warranty:

HTC offers Wildfire Android PDA one year warranty for parts and labour.

Verdict:

Being a low budget model, we did not have high expectations for the Wildfire to start with and having reviewed it, we are less stoked. This Android smartphone has more than just a passing resemblance to its larger cousin, the HTC Desire. Android 2.1 means the Wildfire has all the functionality of a more expensive handset, although its lower resolution screen means that using it is not quite so much fun. This handset seriously lacks in multimedia features and, there is the screen issues and the occasional lag too.

Having said that, you just cannot hate the device entirely as the battery life is excellent. The HTC Wildfire does not skimp on smartphone features, offering some of the best social network integration that money can buy. There is really nothing about this handset that screams ‘cheap phone’ except the low-res screen. If you primarily need a mobile phone, but want occasional internet, mapping, email and gaming, then this is an ideal choice. If you cannot stand the display of the Wildfire, the Samsung Monte is a good consideration; though it does not provide you with the smartphone software, it provides a good user experience with a decent display and plenty of features. The Wildfire is available for free on a £15-a-month, 24-month contract. You can also pick it up for around £230 SIM-free.

HTC Wildfire PDA Phone – Technical Specification Table

Design:

Not too funky:

Samsung has not strayed anywhere too radical with the Tocco Lite’s basic design. It has clean, minimalist lines, as have most touchscreens that came after the iPhone. It is black basically, with a glossy graphite trimming along the edges with some chrome detailing. If you are really bored of the black slab look of the basic model, you can also opt for Samsung’s offering of the Tocco Lite in stand-out pink or white options from certain retailers in the UK. It possesses some neatly rounded edges, and a bit of subtle texturing on the back adds a small amount of grip, so that you do not feel as if you are about to lose the phone mid-finger tap. It feels quite light in hand, weighing just about 92g, but its compact bodywork, at (H x W x D) 106 x 53.5 x 11.9mm, fits snugly in hand and slips without fuss into a pocket or handbag.

Display:

On the fascia of Samsung S5230 Tocco Lite Phone, there is the all important 3” display, which is a 262K colour WQVGA 240 x 400 pixels full touchscreen, taking the centre stage, with just three buttons underneath Call, End and Back, a chrome earpiece grille and a Samsung logo that breaks up the fascia. The display is not quite as eye catchingly zingy as the Samsung Tocco Ultra’s AMOLED display, but it is just fine for the sake of clarity and brightness. As you can expect from this kind of display, it is hard to be viewed in direct sunlight, but otherwise, puts on a good show.

On-screen Keypad:

The keypad responds fairly quickly to tapping, but without any doubts, the swift texters will find that it is slow and less intuitive to use than conventional handsets. Correction of texts feel more cumbersome than on a regular phone, and choosing from contacts on the phonebook through the touchscreen takes a little longer than on a mobile with a conventional display.

Buttons and Controls:

Around the sides, it is relatively uncluttered too. Below a volume and zoom rocker control, a standard issue Samsung multi-connector socket for USB cable, charger and earphones sits under a small cover. Unfortunately, there is no 3.5mm headphone socket on this handset. The display lock can be activated or deactivated by pressing this lock/unlock button, or alternatively by holding a virtual button on the screen. Occasionally, we found that the lock managed to unlock itself in-pocket and accidentally activate widgets, though we did not have any major problems, and the phone did not make any random calls. On the rear side are a camera button and a key for locking and unlocking the display.

User Interface:

TouchWiz:

As we had mentioned in the introduction, it works using a familiar Samsung Tocco TouchWiz touchscreen user interface, bringing with it on-screen widgets and finger tap and swipe control. You might be aware of this interface as this is the one that has been implemented before in the Tocco portfolio and other Samsung touchscreen handsets such as the Samsung Jet. Even though the feature set is light, Samsung has not stripped down the user interface, hence it is a neat and highly manageable finger prod- and swipe-controlled interface. Widgets for operating functions and applications are available for the standby screen too.

Menus:

The Samsung S5230 Tocco Lite Smartphone screen is a resistive rather than capacitive display, so do not expect the clever Multi-Touch smoothness of the iPhone; this phone has more modest aspirations than iPhone worrying. However, it feels quite comfortable to use; the layout of the menus and control button is generally spacious enough for fingers and you could do without stylus or pen-top intervention. Samsung has not opted for the “tricky for its own sake” touch gadgetry, it has kept it straightforward and simple.

Ease of use:

The structure of the menu system is broadly similar to that used on conventional Samsung mobiles, so newcomers to touchscreen devices should not have any issues getting their heads around what to do. As with previous touchscreen phones of Samsung, there are three alternative standby screens you can swipe between, with a swift left or right stroke. They are essentially the same, apart from the background image. One reason for having them is as a way of tidily organising on-screen widgets, which are nothing but the mini applications and functions you can select for display on your standby screen.

Widgets in S5230 Tocco Lite:

Widgets are one of the more immediately eye catching elements of the TouchWiz user interface. These can activate phone functions, control features or provide access to some of the online services. You get to select exactly which widgets you want to display on your standby screen from a selection pre-stored on the phone, giving you fast access to the functions you want. The Widgets can be selected from a bunch of icons that can be found in a widgets toolbar; just open up the toolbar and drag and drop on the main part of the screen the icons representing the widgets you want to use. As in the case of the previous Tocco models, a vertical widgets toolbar can be pulled up on the display with a quick tap on an arrowed tab towards the bottom of the screen. You can scroll or swipe through the widget icons, choosing which ones you want to drag and drop. They can be arranged on the screen how you like and, once the toolbar is closed, they will stay displayed until such time as you want to remove them again, by dragging and dropping.

Shortcuts:

You will find three buttons in the bottom of the standby screen, one is for bringing up the keypad, other for a virtual numberpad that you can use for dialling or texting and the last one is for the phonebook, plus one for taking you into the main menu. The numberpad is spacious enough to avoid any type of mis-pressing the keys, and the screen is quick and responsive enough so that you do not double up with extra presses. A touch of haptic feedback just confirms the fact that you have pressed an onscreen key correctly.

Samsung S5230 Tocco Lite Phonebook:

In the phonebook, there are three methods of hunting down a number. First of all, you can scroll down with finger swipes downscreen, which is not nearly as smooth as iPhone scroll spinning. Alternatively, you can search by pressing a search bar and then typing in appropriate letters from the numberpad. You can even use a small arrowed button on the top left of the screen to whizz through sections by letter, pressing the screen and dragging your finger down till you find the right letter. It does not take much practice for this to becomes quick, effective and almost second nature to operate. The device’s main menu though will be familiar to any phone user. A grid of 12 icons offers you with a usual manner to access further sub-menu sections, which are usually listed in standard mobile fashion. These can be scrolled by finger stroke, with a tap selecting them.  There is another control button among three at the bottom of the main menu screen that enables the users to pull up a list of Photo Contacts grouping together your recently used numbers in one carousel like panel, so you can flick to view and select when you want to make calls or send messages. If contacts have photos assigned, these appear on the carousel.

Features:

It has a stripped down set of features compared to its Tocco brethren, reflecting its Lite moniker and light-on-the-pocket price tag. The Tocco Lite does not have a high speed 3G mobile connectivity, and instead, relies on the quad-band GPRS/EDGE mobile data. You will also not find any Wi-Fi, which is something that is taken for granted on higher-end touchscreen phones. The Lite’s camera, is a routine 3.2-megapixel, fixed focus, flashless snapper, rather than the 5 and 8 megapixel shooters of the Tocco and Tocco Ultra Edition.  Although light on higher-end features, it has some decent functionality for a down-range touchscreen phone. It has a good-sized 3-inch screen for its touch-operated user interface, with a few dozen widget mini-applications to choose from, music and video player functions, and FM radio, plus a selection of online-based apps and social-networking options to work with.

Text messaging:

It is true that the Touchscreen phones have not yet been noted for their excellent text messaging functionality, but Samsung does a great job with its Tocco Lite software. To begin with, it sensibly gives enough room on the virtual number-pad for accurate key pressing. The buttons range across the full width of the screen, and unlike the keypad, it is not squished up with unnecessary control buttons down the side. This setup reduces the errors and frustrating accidental control activation.

Using T9 on this handset takes a little getting used to too, as you can either toggle through options with a key press or use a touch scroll panel to find them; however, you will be able to soon figure out what suits you best. As well as the number pad, turning the phone sideways automatically activates a Qwerty keyboard option for typing. The letter keys expand as and when you are pressing, so you will know if you have managed to hit the right one. Most of the time, you will get it right, as the keyboard does not require miniature fingers for accurate typing. Alternatively, two handwriting recognition input options are available, which do the job if that is what you prefer. An improvement we would wish to see on this mobile and even on the other Samsung phones is showing while composing a text if you have reached the one text limit, we are surprised that even the iPhone does not have this. This device only shows once you are ready to send when you have gone over into two texts. As with most of the other touchscreen mobiles, texting can feel less slick a process than on a non-touch phone, but Samsung does better than most in reducing the unnecessary hassle factor.

Email:

The Samsung S5230 Tocco Lite Touchscreen Mobile Phone also supports MMS and email using your regular POP3, IMAP4 and SMTP email accounts. The Mobile network email settings are preloaded, but you can also input your own; a set-up wizard takes you through the configuration process, although unlike phones from some manufacturers like Nokia and Sony Ericsson, it does not automatically configure the server settings. For this to work, you will have to know your POP3/IMAP4/SMTP details as well as your standard password details. Once it is set up, it has been structured in the same way as the conventional Samsung mid tier phones. A document reader function allows you to view attachment files sent with emails. It also allows viewing of documents, such as Word files, jpegs, PDFs and Excel documents transferred over to the phone from other sources. We were quite happy with the voice calling performance of the Samsung Tocco Lite.
It produces lovely clear audio with plenty of volume and it consistently produces high quality both with marathon calls and quick chats.

Browsing:

One of the biggest let-downs of this handset is having plenty of screen space for browsing but not having high-speed 3G or Wi-Fi data connectivity to make the browser run faster. It is capable of full web browsing, but the GPRS or EDGE speeds it chugs on means many sites take ages to load. The Samsung browser used here has a very user-friendly interface for this category of handset. It is surely not as effortless as the iPhone’s browser, but it is certainly better set up than most of the mid-tier mobiles. There are touchscreen icon labelled buttons for selecting the home page, back and forwards, reloading and for calling up bookmarks. You will be able get a full screen view at just a button-tap, and view either in landscape or portrait mode, depending how you hold the phone.

The volume and zoom keys allow you to quickly zoom in or out of pages, which can be useful for selecting and pressing links. Alternatively, you can also zoom in or out by touching and holding the screen, and moving your finger up or down. As you browse new pages, they appear again in standard default size rather than zoomed in. Scrolling around the page is done by finger dragging too, and is suitably responsive. Occasionally, while scrolling, we found that a lingering finger will be able to activate the zoom unexpectedly instead of dragging. However, it is not a major annoyance on what is generally a well laid out browser. We were left wishing for more speed to make the browsing experience zippier. In order to complement the browser, there is an RSS reader function is built into the phone, so you can get regular updates from your favourite web services.

Social Networking:

Samsung has also equipped the browser with a Communities folder within the main menu options, into which users can bring together and manage options for accessing social networking, blogging and other content sharing services. Links that are currently available are for Facebook, Picasa, Flickr, Photobucket, Friendster and MySpace. The users will be able to store ID and password details for their accounts and upload content from the device to the relevant services. Naturally, it is going to be much slower to upload than on a 3G HSPA or Wi-Fi-enabled device, though you can set the phone to automatically re-size images so that file sizes are smaller and quicker to send.

GPS:

Although there is no GPS functionality onboard the Tocco Lite, Google Maps is a welcome addition. It utilises the full size of the display, with zoom buttons to zone in or out of maps and satellite images. Without satellite positioning, Google Maps uses cell site triangulation to approximate the handset’s location to within several hundred metres radius, shown on the map by a shaded circle. While that does not mean pin-point accuracy it can be very useful if you are somewhere unfamiliar and need to find your way around, you can get a rough idea of where you are and zoom in to your position with one or two button presses and finger scrolling. The full assembly of Google Maps options for searching for places of interest and addresses and getting directions information are all provided. You can plan routes for driving, walking or using public transport. You can also get Street View shown on the maps, which works with finger control. It all looks good on the display, though some options, such as selecting journey end points by pressing on maps did not work too well, and maps and Street View images are slower to load than on 3G.

Camera:

When compared with the original Tocco, Samsung has gone a little light with the camera capabilities of the Tocco Lite. Its 3.2 megapixel camera is a fixed focus shooter, with no autofocus system built in, and also lacks a basic LED flash. Clearly, imaging is not a priority on this model. The fixed focus lens limits the precision you can get when composing images, offering point and shoot snapping rather than anything more refined. Close range shots are particularly limited, but generally the quality you can achieve with this type of camera is compromised. The camera user interface is rather good, reprising a similar look and feel to other higher end Samsung touchscreen models like the Tocco Ultra Edition. With a press of the side button the camera is ready to go in a couple of seconds. It has a very intuitive touchscreen interface, with plenty of clear settings icons flanking the main portion of the viewfinder. It is uncluttered, and touching one of the icons pulls up further options, with most showing large, clearly labelled symbols to represent the settings available.

Camera Options:

The Scene Mode even offers a line about what type of shot each setting is for. There are plenty of shooting options available if you want to override the auto metering system. As well as exposure control and a variety of white balance settings, users have six Scene settings to choose from, and a selection of Shooting Modes. They include continuous multiple shots, a neat panorama mode that uses a movement sensor to help frame a stitched together shot in low res, a mosaic mode, a ‘fun’ frames mode, plus a Smile Shot option that delays the shutter until the camera detects the subject you are shooting is smiling. The latter works surprisingly well over a few metres. You can even add colourisation effects, and there is a timer option too.

Picture quality in S5230 Tocco Lite:

Pressing the volume or zoom keys on the bottom in camera mode can activate the 2x digital zoom, and if you choose to view the photo gallery in camera mode, it can be used to zoom in or out, or pull up at a selection of pics in your gallery. Even though the interface works intuitively, the image quality is pretty average for this grade of camera phone. The shots do not have the level of detail you can get with a higher quality camera phone, and with a fixed focus lens it is always going to be shoot-and-hope. Mostly, the images are acceptable, and the close up shots are not impressive either. Though the colour is generally acceptable, though some of the brightly lit images were over cooked, with some colour bleed, which is not the best we had seen from a Samsung mobile.  Without a flash, low light shooting performance indoors in dark conditions was feeble, with shots murky. From the main camera interface, you can nip quickly into the image gallery by pressing one of the on-screen buttons.

Editing:

Samsung combines finger and accelerometer based scroll-through, which can be irritating when images flow past as you tilt the phone, though you can stop them with a quick finger press. It is easy then to zoom in or out, or even edit pics. Touch editing is relatively easy, and you can add effects, crop and even draw or scrawl over the images. It is also simple to select and send images, whether by email, Bluetooth, MMS or to upload online.

Video:

You will also be able to select the camcorder option from the main camera viewfinder. The Tocco Lite S5230  shoots at maximum QVGA quality at up to 15 frames per second, so you get typically mediocre quality, low resolution mobile phone footage that is a bit jittery. Watching video clips on the phone, you get a good sized display for a mobile phone. Slow data rates means, you are unlikely to spend much time streaming content, as video clips from services such as YouTube can be blocky and disjointed. Video transferred to the phone via memory card or copied over look much better on the display, running smoothly and utilising the landscape full screen mode. On-screen controls can be used to forward or rewind video, or the timeline can dragged by finger; these controls fade after a couple of seconds but can be brought up by brushing the screen.

Formats supported:

The Tocco Lite supports H.263, H.264 and MP4 files, and files copied are automatically processed into the appropriate video folder. The onboard music player is also similarly effective. With around 100MB of onboard storage to play with, you’ll need a MicroSD card if you want to make full use of it. Cards up to 8GB are supported, and slot in next to the battery pack.

Media Player:

The music player interface is functional rather than flashy, so do not look for any iPhone touch coverflow gadgetry. Still it is attractive enough, and the on-screen controls are intuitive and effective for working the tune player including a draggable timeline. Songs loaded up on to the phone or memory card are automatically sorted into the relevant music player categories. These are familiar MP3 player stuff like all tracks, playlists, recently played, most played, artists, albums, genres and podcasts, and the Samsung Tocco Lite S5230  PDA Phone can be synced with Windows Media Player 11 on a PC using the supplied USB cable. Songs can also be dragged and dropped, Bluetoothed to the phone or loaded up straight on to a memory card. No Samsung PC Studio software is supplied in box, though it can be downloaded if you prefer that syncing option.

The music UI allows you to control the player and for a selection of equaliser effects to be added during playback; though they do not appear to make a huge difference to the sound. Perhaps that is partly due to the average sort of earphones supplied, an in-ear headset that delivers reasonable but not outstanding audio quality. The performance is adequate, though it does sound a bit compressed. Bass is subdued and there is a bit too much high-end for our liking, particularly noticeable at loud volume, which this phone can do well. It is a shame that there is no 3.5mm headphone socket or adapter supplied to upgrade earwear, as the sound quality could otherwise be improved by swapping headsets. We were also unimpressed by the side location of the multi-connector earphone sockets, which results in easier in-pocket tangling of earphones.

Speaker:

The Tocco Lite’s loudspeaker playback is loud but average phone-style quality. It is ok though for FM radio playback; the headset needs to be plugged in as an antenna, but you can listen through the speaker.

Radio:

The FM radio is a doddle to use; it is quite simple to tune and switch stations. Similar to the music player, a separate widget panel can be used on the standby screen to control tune playing. Complementing the tune players, the Samsung Tocco Lite has a Music Search function for identifying tunes. You can record a piece of music you hear playing and automatically via a remote database, the service names that tune and provides cover art. It manages a high level of accuracy for nearby sounds.

Organising:

Samsung has provided a fairly standard set of organiser tools for the Tocco Lite. It features calendar, memo and task, functions and offers world clock, timer and stopwatch apps, a calculator and convertor. A voice recorder is also included. The touch user interface makes some of these features more visually appealing on the large screen; for instance, being able to swipe through a world map in the World Clock feature, or pressing virtual calculator buttons, feel quite intuitive. Having a bit more room space to view the calendar may be good for some, but essentially it does the same job as a mid-tier Samsung. Similarly, most text-based functions offer pretty much the same functionality as on a conventional handset, with the input method the main difference. Samsung does not include its new PC Studio software in the box, though this can be downloaded from Samsung’s website. The phone does support PC syncing, with a USB cable supplied and Bluetooth connectivity supported, plus SyncML remote syncing. A handful of games are pre-loaded onto the phone, including a motion-operated dice roller plus some trial-before-you-buy software.

Battery life:

The more power-hungry gadgetry that is onboard, the higher the potential to eat up battery life, so the lack of 3G, Wi-Fi and GPS may be a good thing as far as extending battery performance. Samsung estimates battery life for the Tocco Lite at around 10 hours talktime or 600 hours in standby mode. Although it is a touchscreen phone, the Tocco Lite manages to run comfortably for more than three days on a full charge, with normal amount of calling and texting. Using the music player regularly will reduce battery life, but overall the Tocco Lite gets good marks for power handling.

Warranty:

The Samsung S5230 Tocco Lite comes with one year warranty for parts and labour.

Verdict:

Despite going light on the big-ticket features, the Samsung Tocco Lite offers a decent way to get into touch control on a limited budget. It has its limitations, with its data connectivity hampered by a lack of high speed 3G and Wi-Fi, and there are compromises on other features. If you want a phone that offers bargain-priced touch operation and do not mind these limitations, this is a decent handset that is pleasant to handle. Other users with more demanding requirements in the functionality department are likely to head further up range.

Samsung S5230 Tocco Lite – Technical Specification Details

Design:

Body:

Most of Nokia’s previous touchscreen phones had resistive touch screens. Among the other factors, they all came with old fashioned styluses, and they did not work properly when you touched the screen with more than one finger. That meant reduced typing speeds, and user gestures that are so intuitive on other phones are not available. Nokia seems to have given ears to its customer’s complaints. The Nokia X6 PDA Smartphone seems to be a traditional slider phone and at a thickness of 13.8mm, it looks like it could accommodate a physical keyboard. However, there are hardly any physical controls on the 3.2” touchscreen which is capacitive, theoretically making the physical keyboard quite redundant.

Nokia struggled to make us crave the 5800, due to its chunky design and unresponsive resistive touchscreen. The Nokia X6 feels like the 5800 reborn, with a capacitive touch screen and sleek, angular body. We just cannot say we are greatly pleased with the overall build quality really, because the Nokia X6 just does not feel as good in your hand as such a high-end device should, not to mention the back panel appears, downright cheap. Still, keep in mind the phone is quite tall and you will definitely feel it clearly in your pocket, not last due to its weight of 4.3 oz. In our opinion, the phone looks slightly boring, or to put it in other words, it failed to capture our imagination.

Display:

Being touch-screen only and stylus-free, all of the on screen buttons have been sensibly sized for fingertips, and the screen itself is excellent. With its 3.2″ diagonal screen, you can be forgiven for thinking it is almost the same size as the iPhone’s 3.2” screen, but the reality is that the different aspect ratio, which is16:9 when compared to the iPhone’s 1.5:1, this means you actually get more real estate on Apple’s phone or the HTC Hero, with which the iPhone shares screen size and resolution.

However, the Nokia X6 Mobile Phone is of higher resolution than either phones, with its 640 x 360 pixels display. Presumably with its tongue in its cheek, Nokia describes the display as High Definition, but you should not be fooled into thinking you will be able to shoehorn an actual HD video onto it. Though the display is not huge, it is certainly bright. Photos and videos look great on the glossy screen. The sensor does a great job by adjusting the brightness of the screen depending on your surroundings. It is also highly accurate when it comes to fingertip commands, although it is disappointing that Nokia has not taken full advantage of its capacitive screen, for instance, the pinch to zoom, which is such a natural feeling gesture on most of other smart phones is absent. In order to zoom you need to double tap the screen. The X6 also gives a little buzz of haptic feedback every time you touch the screen, which helps indicate you have managed to tap successfully if you cannot view the button behind your finger.

Keyboard onboard:

The only major drawback to the keyboard is the relatively narrow screen, the 16:9 aspect ratio and relatively high resolution might make the X6 excellent for watching films, but this means, there is very less space for the keys and messaging window. It can all feel a little cramped, particularly in the first few days.

Navigation:

The screen is the primary method of navigation and there are only a few other physical controls available. The fascia of the Nokia X6 hosts video call camera, touch sensitive button that calls up a dedicated shortcut menu, send and end keys as well as a main selection control to open the main menu. The right hand side of the phone hosts the volume control, shutter release, and a sliding switch that locks and unlocks the phone. The SIM card slot is located on the left hand side, but since it lacks spring eject mechanism, you would have to remove the back panel and battery to take the card out. There is an almost invisible extra touch sensitive control in the top right of the screen, which when tapped produces a small menu giving you quick access to the most used like photos, music, videos and the internet. The 3.5mm jack is on the top, along with the charger and microUSB ports and power on button. We did not encounter any issues with any of them, since they all feature proper travel.

Interface:

Consumers who had used a Nokia phone in the last couple years will know what to expect from the fifth Edition of Symbian 9.4 S60. Several home screen themes come preloaded onto the handset, but the one we like best is the pack that allows for visualization of contacts with pictures. Unlike the Nokia N97 and N97 mini, you are not permitted to rearrange the on-screen interface elements. We need to point out that the interface of the S60 5th edition feels comfortable to work with on resistive screens. One of the phone book options that we liked the best is that filtering shows only relevant letters of the alphabet, i.e. only those making up the names of your contacts. Moreover, you can add heaps of details about any single entry, although unfortunately, you do not have the option to filter names by punching in digits and dialling numbers.

Note that, the interface is not without its quibbles, though. For instance, some menu selections are made with a single tap of your finger and a few others require a double tap of the finger to highlight an option, and a second tap too to activate it. This type of inconsistency means that it can be difficult to tell when the X6 is working on launching an application, or is simply waiting for you to confirm a choice. And, you will also be seeing it working to launch an application a lot. There are numerous performance problems. Once you sync the calendar, contact and message set with it, launching contacts from the front page takes ages, and other applications are often launched impressively fast. This is just yet another inconsistency that can make the X6 frustrating to use. The 434MHz processor should be able to keep up.

Features:

The Nokia X6 Smartphone has a wealth of features. With a whopping 32GB 1nd 16GB of internal storage along with a FM radio, it makes the device quite tempting for entertainment even before you consider Nokia’s intriguing Comes With Music service. Even the camera has got the kind of attention you will not find on the budget models, with a 5MP sensor behind Carl Zeiss optics gives the X6 plenty of sheen.

Memory:

The Nokia X6 PDA Phone is a powerful device in terms of memory too. Though, it does not feature any slot for microSD, which means memory expanding is not possible. However, with 32 gigabytes of internal memory, it is probably not required to add expandable memory feature. The model is also available in 16GB. The capacity of RAM is 128 MB. The device can keep track of call records up to 30 days.

Nokia Ovi Suite:

Nokia has released yet another version of its desktop syncing software to help you get music on and off the phone, and it is an improvement on previous versions. Now called Nokia Ovi Suite, the software is a good attempt at creating an iTunes-style music store. We found downloading tracks easy, and syncing the phone was surprisingly simple. We particularly like the ability to sync the phone over Bluetooth, so, if your laptop has built-in Bluetooth, you may never have to break out the USB cable once the phone is set up. You can also download tunes directly onto the phone when you are on the move.

Ovi Store:

Nokia’s Ovi store has been included. Music is just not the only thing you can download onto the X6. Slowly but surely, the Ovi Store is developing into a handy place to get apps for Nokia phones. The Nokia X6 16GB/32GB Mobile Phone makes it easy to get started, providing links on the home screen to the Ovi Store and other Ovi features, such as email and an online calendar. Ovi is still hit and miss. You will not be able to sync your Ovi calendars with other online calendars, like Google’s, for example. But it is a good service to have if you want to back up your photos online or manage your contacts on the Web instead of on the phone.

Camera:

The five mega pixel camera in Nokia X6 is quite excellent indeed, thanks to its fast shutter speed. You can capture snapshots without having to wait around, even when shooting at the highest quality settings. Similar to all other high-end models of the manufacturer, it is equipped with Carl Zeiss Tessar optics and in addition, a double LED flash. This pair of LEDs allow you to snap pictures in low light, and the images show good detail resolution and a high degree of colour accuracy. It has reasonably good well balanced exposure and pretty high contrast levels. You can share snapshots over Ovi and Vox right on taking them, but additional services like Facebook, Picasa, Flickr etc are not allowed.

Video Camera:

The Nokia X6 handset captures video with maximum resolution of 640 x 480 pixels and at 30 frames per second, plus you have the option to take widescreen content. The image quality is slightly noisier than what we would have liked to see, but the quality is acceptable on the overall and the sound tracks to the videos are proper. A second front-mounted video camera enables video calls to be made too.

On the other hand, the overall quality is pleasing, videos played smoothly and it would have been great it the handset featured native support for DivX and Xvidcontent, because we would have, by no means, objected to being spared all the hassle involved in converting videos. However, you can get such support by installing third party software. You will be happy to find out that all clips you take are suitable for both various websites and being watched on a normal TV set. You can actually do the latter directly from the handset, but you would have to shell out for a TV cable, since you are not getting one with the phone.

Multimedia:

The X6 syncs nicely with Windows Media Player, and you will have no trouble transferring a few DivX files without needing to view the folder structure of the X6 manually, and the same goes for music. The 32GB version of Nokia X6 also gives you unlimited access to tunes for a year through the ‘Comes with Music’, you can either connect to a PC and transfer tracks over, or switch to 3G and Wi-Fi to download them directly to the phone. This service allows for download of music completely free of charge from an online server that features rich audio library and you will be able to do it without violating anybody´s copyright, and you are allowed to keep all the tracks you downloaded onto your phone or computer when the subscription expires. The tracks are chained-down with DRM, so you cannot listen to them on your other music players. The Nokia X6 16GB version has chopped off this CwM functionality, and at half the internal storage it is no slouch. Flipping between music tracks is fine; swapping out of the video interface proved trickier and the X6′s performance foibles rose to the forefront again here.

Playlist DJ:

There are a few other interesting features and one of them is the Playlist DJ which gives you four sliders, representing happiness, love, anger and tranquillity, and the idea is you slide them around depending on your mood to generate a playlist to suit you. Profiling songs can take a while and requires an internet connection, and takes longer if your music is not named properly. The function is quite similar to Sense Men available on Sony Ericsson devices, with the major difference being you can define the required tempo and mood directly from the handset, without having to resort to your desktop computer. The whole system itself is somewhat hit and miss.

Messaging:

The high resolution screen might be great for watching some odd video and looking at pictures, but the one area that it makes life difficult is creating messages. With the phone held in portrait mode, you will be presented with a predictive text T9 numeric keypad. This is all well and good if you have shifted from another candybar style phone, but frequent mailers will prefer to be presented with a full QWERTY keyboard when the phone is held sideways. The accuracy is definitely good the capacitive touchscreen means you will not need to lift your finger off the screen before placing another one down, and you will be able to reach much higher speeds on this touch-screen than on any of Nokia’s previous efforts. In fact, with a bit of practice it is actually easy to reach almost the same speed on the X6 as on a phone with a physical keyboard. The on-board dictionary is not quite as clever as that of the iPhone’s so you need to be a little more careful when typing, but overall it works well.

The Nokia X6 offers automated email setup if you are registered with major service providers, which means accessing your inbox is, more often than not, extremely easy. You are allowed to deploy several email accounts and switching between them is quite hassle-free.

Internet and Browsing:

It comes in as no surprise that the X6 browser offers the full internet, attempting to render pages the same as on a desktop PC. It generally works well as the accelerometer is reliable when it comes to flipping pages, and being prompted to save user names and passwords each time you enter them on a new site is handy. Again, however, there are a few performance constraints. On large pages with several pictures or worse, with busy Flash elements the browser would often freeze, leaving you unable to drag the page around or even enter a new address. However, you will never need to reset the phone, the hang-up button was just enough to take you back to the main menu but it is quite annoying that the X6 offers functions it does not seem quick enough to perform in a proper way.

You can watch Flash videos, but you are limited to YouTube only, unlike with Symbian based devices equipped with normal and not touch sensitive displays that come with support for YouTube videos embedded on whatever web pages. We do believe it is about time the feature came to all touchscreen models of Nokia. We like the built-in Facebook application that is properly made and gives you the option to use all basic functions of the social network.

Office and Connectivity:

The Nokia X6 Touchscreen Mobile Phone is compatible with Nokia’s ActiveSync application, which gives you access to an Exchange server and Google Apps, allowing you to use your calendar, contacts and email in the X6′s native applications. Frustratingly, the calendar does not have a shortcut on the X6′s home screen, although this default can be changed in the phone’s settings menu. Else, the default applications of X6 are rather thin on the ground. There is no stopwatch included by default, and the unit does not even come with a trial version of Quickoffice, giving you no easy way to open Word documents received as attachments, for instance. Nokia’s good PC Suite software is compatible with the X6, and offers a handy way of syncing local information such as calendar appointments and emails. And, if you would rather not use Media Player to sync music and video, PC Suite gives you the option, as well as trans-coding content it does not think will work on your phone. A-GPS is included, which works with the new Ovi Maps.

Performance:

Call Quality:

Though there are far more interesting things to do with the X6 than simply to make calls, fortunately the actual dialling interface is straightforward to use and there are no issues with the call quality too. Voices of people sounded realistic and pretty loud on our end of the line. The bundled earphones too are quite reasonable, and for those who are not big fans of them, the 3.5mm headphone jack on the top of the phone is a bonus for sure.

Audio Quality:

As a whole, one of the best aspects of the Nokia X6 is the audio quality it delivers that is, hands down, one of the best we have ever witnessed. The loudspeakers do not pack much punch really and happen to be weaker than what the Nokia N95 8GB is equipped with, but they offer sound with utmost clarity and the audio quality through the boxed headset is comparable to what standalone music players offer. Still, we would advise you to avoid relishing your favourite music with the volume going at full blast, you certainly may end up damaging your hearing, plus the sound tends to get unpleasantly sharp.

Box contents:

You will not find anything coming out of left field in the box, the handset comes boxed with a pair of headphones, USB cable, software CD, user guide and a booklet that contains your own “Comes with Music” registration code. It would have been great if Nokia had thrown a phone cover designed to protect the device against scratches into the deal, but apparently Nokia has opted to remain true to its newly established corporate policy of cutting corners. You will not fail to notice that last year´s top music oriented handset of the manufacturer, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic came with quite richer accessory pack that included things like, say, TV cable. Well, the financial meltdown seems to have made everyone stingier, tighten their belt and batten down the hatches.

The Nokia X6 is available for free on a £35 per-month on two years contract or £400 SIM-free.

Battery:

The 1,320mAh battery in the Nokia is dependable. When we made a few phone calls, browsed the internet via Wi-Fi, and watched a few videos, the X6 managed to last around 30 hours away from the charger, which is a respectable figure. Nokia claims a GSM standby time of up to seventeen days, which is impressive, although the sheer number of features offered by the X6 means you are quite unlikely to leave it alone if you find yourself with a quiet moment. The claimed music playback time of 35 hours is iPod touch-beating.

Warranty:

Nokia offers X6 one year warranty for parts and labour.

Verdict:

As a whole, the Nokia X6 smartphone has one truly brilliant aspect, namely most impressive sound quality during both audio playback and talks. If music is your passion, the Nokia X6 offers an inexhaustible supply of tunes, thanks to its Comes With Music service and huge 32GB of memory. The same, however, applies to virtually all devices with the manufacturer’s “Comes with Music” service. Finally, the capacitive touch-screen is not as zippy as we would like, but the X6 is a huge improvement on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic in terms of functionality and looks. An excellent camera and standard 3.5mm headphone jack are the gravy on top of this tasty package.

Check other Latest PDA Phones in this website.

Nokia X6 Smartphone – Technical Specification Table

Design:

Excellence in engineering:

Probably the most curvaceous PDA on earth, the Pixi Plus has become very popular due to its excellently engineered design. With all the smoothness in the world seen on its ends and also with the shiny appearance, this would have already won the hearts of many people. Let us detail you regarding the dimensions of the device: (W x D x H) 55 x 10.85 x 111 mm. The mobile also weighs just about 92.5 grams, which is normal for any modern PDA since PDA have to be pretty light at the end of the day. There is the QWERTY keypad at the bottom half of the device, just below the screen. The device also looks quite attractive with a shiny Black finish, which has become quite common these days. Overall, all aspects considered, this is one of the best designs you will ever see in the present market.

Display:

The Palm Pixi Plus PDA Phone comes with a 2.63-inch multi touch screen along with a vibrant 18-bit colour and 320 x 400 pixel resolution Sub-HVGA display. This means that you have got a really wonderful display mechanism with you. Palm has also gone one step ahead as it has provided a multi touch screen. This means that you can click, hold and drag the subjects on the screen and do a whole lot of other entertaining things when you come across different applications. Watching videos on this screen with the device in landscape mode, is really great and 2.63 inches, means that there is ample space for you to watch movies, pictures and other stuff. Taking these and a few other sundry features into account, it can be said that the display mechanism is top notch this time around from Palm.

Features:

Hold on to your hats. The features that are seen on the Palm Pixi Plus PDA are going to be analysed now in detail and we are going to give you a complete review of what is on and inside the Palm Pixi Plus PDA, which looks very promising.

Memory:

Memory is in fact a very important feature and fortunately the Palm Pixi Plus has got plenty of it. It comes with an 8GB built in memory and this is quite enough for you to store music files, documents, videos and many other useful files. There is also the USB mass storage output and you can have an external memory source if necessary. But, considering the general public, 8GB is really good for memory on a normal PDA and it will really be appreciated by the commons if not all.

Contacts:

When it comes to maintaining contacts, the Palm Pixi Plus Smartphone is second to none. One of the most brilliant things regarding this PDA is that you can have multiple sources for just one contact. Let us be more specific. Now, if your friend, whose number is already on the device, is a user of one of the social networking websites, then you can also store that information at the same place. So, with this, it becomes easier for you to go through all your contact information because, you will find the phone number, email, address, Facebook and other information regarding your contacts, all at one place. Currently, the Palm Pixi Plus is offering this facility for Facebook, LinkedIn, yahoo and Google. We thought that this is a cool idea but when we were browsing through the contacts as a part of the tests, we found that very interesting and it is really fun to scroll through all the details of your pals at one place. One more thing here that makes you fell easier is that if the contact information of any of your friends is changed, then you will see that the changed information will be updated automatically, thanks to Internet. This is also another really good thing about the Palm Pixi Plus.

Messaging:

Again, we come across a similar situation. All the messaging details are put up at a single place so that you do need to search for them in different places. For an example, when you have texted your friend, or have sent some multimedia message, or have chatted through either Google or Yahoo, you see that all that information is stored at one place. This means that you can pick up a conversation from chat box and continue it by texting or vice versa. Calling friends was also never easier than now. Just by tapping the header of your friend in the chat box makes you call that particular contact. Hence, just like contact information, all your contact options, like calling, messaging and chatting can be done from and viewed at a single place.

Email:

Here is a look at customisation on the Palm Pixi Plus PDA Mobile Phone for the first time in our safari. You can decide the manner in which your email inbox looks and behaves. You have the option to choose either separate or combined mail addresses. This means that if it is official, then all such emails can be seen at one place. Otherwise, if it is informal, then it is all the more fun. Your work email can be combined with the personal emails like Yahoo and Google and then see all the messages at one place. Now, when you are browsing through the internet, or listening to music or even watching videos on your device, you will be informed about a new email by the means of a notification at the bottom of the screen. You can also choose how often you want your emails to be checked, like every hour, or every day or you can also check the mail manually. Another feature here is that the search option is now revived and this means that you do not need to scroll through all the messages and mails in order to find the one you need. Just type the first few letters of the mail or the contact and you will find a shorter list of mails that matches the name. Hence, we find these options to be very interesting and also very useful at the same time.

Calendar:

Another really cool feature you will find on the Palm Pixi Plus. The calendar also enables customisation option and you can be very selective here. First up, you can view all your calendar or to-do things, which were done in different places like Google or yahoo. All those can be seen on a single page which makes you feel really comfortable. The new calendar list is updated automatically when you connect to the internet. Now, you can also colour code your emails so that the official and the personal calendar items can be identified easily, since all of them appear at a single place. You can also select dates on the internet while browsing and set them as calendar items. Palm Pixi Plus has many integrated third party applications that make you add movie tickets, flight timings, concerts and so on to your calendar. The Palm Synergy application always keeps you updated with the important things you need to do.

Internet:

Mobile Internet has become very common these days and it is deeply rooted into the lives of many. Coming to the Palm Pixi Plus, browsing the internet is never this easy. With the help of the all new webOS, you will be able to browse through real web pages, instead of boring and inelegant HTML pages. This means that each and every website that you browse, is going to look exactly like the original one which you will see on the internet browsers on your computers. You can easily play videos on websites like YouTube and also upload photos onto PhotoBucket. Like many high tech PDAs, the Palm Pixi Plus also allows browsing the web in both the portrait and landscape orientation modes, which means that it makes you feel comfortable while reading news or watching videos. We have also found out that simple gestures can pan, zoom in, zoom out, and scroll the web pages with ease. This particular option makes browsing simple. Another very interesting and funny feature we have found here is the switching of the different web pages. You can, with the help of this webOS, open multiple web pages and switch them easily just be swiping your finger across the screen. Just to sum up everything, the internet browsing on the Palm Pixi Plus is simply fun.

Video Capture:

With the help of the very good camera that is built right in this PDA, you can record videos of above par quality. The video mode can easily be switched on and the recording can be begun by just a small tap on the video icon. The videos on this PDA look good, in fact, better than those seen on most mobile phones. After the capturing part is over, there is an application that asks you if you need to make any changes regarding the video. You can crop it, cut some parts of it, and do some more activities. This makes editing of the videos very easy and you do not need to have any video editing software on your computer in order to do this. After editing the video, you can save it and then you will be asked to choose whether or not you want to upload the video to any one of YouTube or Facebook. The selection of either of these two options will automatically upload the video on to the respective websites, and again you do not need any computer with an internet connection to do this. This is what we have liked about this PDA. It makes things easy for you, so easy that you do not need a computer for most of the things.

Applications:

We have now moved on to the more entertaining part of this Pixi Plus PDA. The Palm webOS has got some very good and interesting applications for you in order to provide some real entertainment. Since Facebooking has become a very serious aspect of the lives of many people, we think that the Palm Pixi Plus provides you excellent social networking. Also considering the fact that the newly designed web browser has gained a lot of popularity, we can hence declare that you will love Facebooking on this device. Apart from Facebook, you can also visit popular websites such as Yelp and read reviews, keep in touch with your pals and do a lot of other interesting stuff. The specially designed application, The New York Times, allows you to read the latest news online. The Palm Pixi Plus PDA also features the all new exciting 3 D game, The Need For Speed Undercover. Along with this, there are also a few other games which will keep you entertained when you are bored of the monotonous life. In addition to all these facilities, as we have seen earlier, there is a built in application that connects some of your web dealings like booking of tickets, attending to meetings, so on and so forth, to your calendar list so that you will be reminded well in advance. And whenever you read a review regarding a restaurant or any other place, the contacts will be automatically added by the device.

Music:

Every PDA manufacturer knows that you people cannot live without music in your life. Hence, the consequences are obvious. You might have seen that almost all devices are coming with music as one of their priorities. The Palm Pixi Plus is no exception from that trend. It supports various formats of music files so that you will not be facing problems of compatibility while playing music on your device. There are quite a few ways that enable you to listen to music on your device. You can sync the Palm Pixi Plus to your computer using the USB cable provided along with the device, and then send the music files. You can also receive these music files through multimedia messages. You can arrange the music file in any order you like, by artist, by genre or any of that sorts. There is also the search option just in case you do not find the required song. But the most appealing feature regarding music on the Palm Pixi Plus is coming up, The Amazon Mp3.

Amazon Mp3 Store:

The Amazon Mp3 store is one of the applications seen on The Palm Pixi Plus and is very useful when you need to search, buy and download the latest music that is released into the market every day. Just after connecting to the internet, open the Amazon Mp3 application and a web page opens up where you can see all the latest releases. It is thus very easy to buy and download music from here. You can also search for your favourite songs online by just typing the first few letters of wither the artist or the song. The download costs are also DRM free and this means that after the songs are downloaded once, they can be shared with any other device and there is no limit for this. Hence, you can download once and keep on sharing them without extra charges. Music lovers will be having a wonderful time with the new Amazon Mp3 Store application.

Camera:

Camera has also been one of the latest additions into the PDAs. They have become an integral part of any mobile device today. Coming to the camera on the Palm Pixi Plus, you have got some very good applications and options that make your photography experience better. You can click the pictures in both the portrait and the landscape modes. The built in flash also comes in handy when the outside light is pretty dim. Now, there is this photo application, specially designed by Palm for the Palm Pixi Plus that takes care of all the photos on your device, whether taken by you, downloaded from the internet or received as multimedia messages. All those photos are stored in one single place which makes it easy for you to scroll through them. Once you open a particular photo, you will be notified regarding what to do with that; like to set is as a wallpaper, to share it on the social networking websites, or to upload them on to some websites like Flickr or PhotoBucket.

YouTube:

You all know that watching videos on YouTube is really fun. Now, fun is right in front of you as the Palm Pixi Plus has come with the YouTube application. This is a kind of special application, since, unlike most other YouTube applications seen in other mobiles and PDAs, this one looks closest to the real website. The webOS has finally made it possible for you to experience real YouTube videos. Now, to be frank, we were surprissed to see the way the videos are arranged based on the number of views, favourites and ratings. You can also now rate and comment on the videos since this YouTube application is made compatible for user interfacing. The videos also buffer quickly and so you will not need to wait for eons before they are played. Hence, watching videos on the YouTube application is really entertaining to say the least.

Bluetooth:

With Bluetooth, there are so many things you can do. Of course it is one of the most famous applications ever in the history of mobile communication. You can send and receive different kinds of files through this application. You can talk hands free using a car kit or a Bluetooth enabled headset; either of them is available separately in the market and they must be bought separately. This Bluetooth is also kind of special and unique because it features the latest technology available at present. The EDR or the Enhanced Data Exchange Rate comes very much in handy when you have to send large files of different extensions. All these and a few other sundry points considered, it can well be said that the 2.1 version of Bluetooth will be one of the attractions to the Palm Pixi Plus.

Wi-Fi:

Wireless Fidelity or Wi-Fi has been quite a remarkable achievement of technology, since it brings the world into your hands. Since it has been pretty busy all these years featuring in almost all the electronic devices, we would have had the shock of our lives if the Palm Pixi Plus Touchscreen PDA Phone did not feature it. With the loyal support for 802.11 b/g you can experience true wireless internet connectivity in airports, libraries, offices, cafes and so on. While we were testing the Palm Pixi Plus, we have observed that the device is pretty quick in catching the signals and the signal strength has been quite good and also lasted a tad longer than normal. Hence, the performance of the device is good regarding wireless connectivity. Sometimes, this can also be faster than the wired communication system, but that cannot be taken for granted since the speed depends on several other factors as well.

GPS and Maps:

Since technology has been making the world smaller and more familiar, you will not be foreign to any place. The Palm Pixi Plus comes with a built in GPS system that enables you to easily pinpoint any place in the world and take a closer look at it. Powered by Google Maps, this application will be the Bible for you whenever you are out of town and more importantly, out of your country. Imagine having this system with you when you are touring the eastern countries, where you encounter language incompatibility. Just by typing the name of the place you need to visit, you will see an array of direction help points, where you can get the distance between that place and you, the directions to reach it, the traffic conditions and an estimate fare in order to reach that place using different means. Thus, this sounds so cordial and hence features as one of the best user friendly applications ever.

Mobile Hotspot:

Are you travelling? You have a laptop computer with you but not a data card? Now, this is where the Palm Pixi Plus helps you. It acts as a hotspot for the various Wi-Fi enabled devices with you. Just turn the PDA on and open the mobile hotspot zone and this will turn the mobile into a Wi-Fi hotspot. You can hence enjoy wireless internet connection on as many as five devices at a time. Isn’t that amazing? Even we, as tech experts, wowed at this feature when we first happened to notice it. Of course, this facility needs some additional requirements regarding compatibility from your carriers. If they support this feature, then sky is the limit when it comes to mobile browsing.

Tasks and Memos:

You can save your tasks or to-do items and also memos for future correspondence. You can also prioritise the tasks so that they will stay organised and also updated. These tasks can be synced with the Microsoft Exchange server in order to make sure that they will be stored online. You can also save your memos and send them over email. These are small but significant features indeed and they offer a lot of help especially if you are business pro.

Touchstone:

Ever heard of wireless charging of your mobile? The Palm Touchstone is providing such a feature. There is this smooth dock that acts as a charger and all you need to do is just place your device on it. The mobile will be charged in surprisingly lesser time than normal. Another important thing here is that whenever the mobile is put on the dock, the settings are automatically changed and the speaker phone mode is switched on. You can also place the device in both portrait and landscape mode so that it will be comfortable to either answer calls or watch videos while the device is still being charged. This is also one of the X factors regarding the Palm Pixi Plus. It is a kind of special attraction added to all the other very good features. In order to avail this facility, you need to buy the Touchstone Back Cover, which is sold separately in the stores.

WebOS:

Of late there has been a lot of talk regarding this new operating system from palm and it is widely known for its excellent compatibility for the web applications and also browsing the internet. It is hence named as webOS and it shows the importance it has when it comes to internet. Since this is the first time ever that such an operating system is released, let us have a detailed analysis of the webOS operating system designed by Palm to be featured on the Palm Pixi Plus.

Multitasking:

Of course, multitasking has become the order of the day since the world is speeding up each and every day. Life has become easier after the introduction of multitasking into the electronics as well, which would have been miserable otherwise. Palm has introduced multitasking on the webOS platform for the Palm Pixi Plus Phone. This enables you to open as many applications as you need and then to flip and switch between all of them. When a PDA has so many features, it is really appreciable if it supports multitasking.

Integration:

With the introduction of the Palm Synergy feature, you can now get the cumulative information from multiple sources at the same time. As we have already discussed above, you can get all the contact information of your pals from different emails and social networking website profiles. All this is done automatically. All your conversations with your contacts are also saved in one place.

Miscellaneous:

The new touch screen of the Palm Pixi Plus is a very user friendly as it makes your job easier. It supports multi touch and also Drag and drop options. These kinds of gestures really make navigation through the device simple. They are especially useful for flipping through applications, zooming, panning and many others. Similarly, Notifications, Universal Search, Applications, Launcher, Cut, Copy and Paste, over the air services and the Palm profile are the important highlights regarding this very new and successful operating system, the webOS.
Performance:

There is nothing more left to talk about the performance since it has been already covered under each of the topics in the features section. But, in general, the overall performance of the device is very good. Palm seems to have not compromised on a single aspect regarding the Pixi Plus. The audio, video and the connectivity are really impressive and we believe this is the best performing PDA ever from Palm.

Battery:

Just like all the PDAs on earth, the Palm Pixi Plus comes with a Lithium ion polymer battery. But this one is rather exceptional because it is capable of providing about five and a half hours of talk time and more than 350 hours of standby time. This is really exceptional for any PDA, even if it is one of the best. But one must expect such a huge battery life for the Palm Pixi Plus since there are quite many features on it and also many new applications are included. Hence a stronger and a more durable battery is required in order to reduce the burden on the battery and that is what Palm has done this time.

Warranty:

The Palm Pixi Plus comes with a limited one year warranty for parts and labour. The warranty period starts from the day of purchase.

Verdict:

The whole review is quite clearly a reflection of what we think of the Palm Pixi Plus. It has everything in it and for everyone. It is also priced quite reasonably. Hence, we recommend you to go for it since we already know that by now, you have already liked it.

Palm Pixi Plus Smartphone – Technical Specification Table

Design:

Rugged Body:

The PDA’s design is a bit retro. Most Pocket PCs these days have a more hidden speaker, yet on the Asus A636, you have got a big circular speaker grill that echoes back to the boom boxes of the 80′s. This is intended to emphasis the high quality speaker that was used here. In the center you see the directional pad along with the action button.The body measures 4.8 x 2.8 inches with a thickness of 0.7 inch and weighing 6.5 ounces. The body is grey and dark silver in colour. The antenna is about 1.75 square inch and can rotate 90 degrees.  Antenna is quite strong and grabs the signals when swilled at 90 degrees.

Display:

The screen size and display quality are the most rated when it comes to devices like these. While viewing maps the screen size should not be disappointing. Our A636 does not disappoint either. Asus MyPal A636 GPS PDA has a 3.5″ transflective colour display which has a very strong contrast, excellent colour saturation and brightness.  It looks better in the indoors compared to the outside, and it comes with a resolution is around 240 x 320 pixels.

Control pads:

Two circular control pads are located just adjacent to the speakers. The keys are well marked and have the advantage that we can use them single handily. In addition to the volume controllers, the device has separate buttons for voice notes, calendar, and contacts as well as options to switch between modes like the landscape or portrait.  Mapping applications are not launched instantly but you have options to reprogram any of the shortcut buttons for this. The front scroll up and down buttons do a good job, the jog-dial button would have been a better option to browse the web pages quickly.

Sound:

The speakers are typically good, and the sound through the front facing speakers is pretty loud. This is a mandatory feature required for the GPS feature for the sake of hearing voice guidance in the car. The stereo headphones are good for listening to MP3 and movies.  This ASUS product comes with a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, mic, and a voice recorder application.

Feature:

Software:

Software package included in the Asus A636 MyPal Handheld PDA include operating system, mobile office suite including Outlook Mobile, and desktop Outlook, Terminal Services, Mobile 10, File explorer, Hand writing recognition, games like Solitaire, Bubble breaker, calculator, VPN connections. In all, this PDA is comprised of calendar, contacts, tasks, notes, message applications.  Also inclusive are several utilities, like ASUS Status program which resides on the task bar. Click on this task bar to see the CPU speed setting, available memory, storage, battery and of course, the backlighting. There is a screen rotation utility, along with shortcuts to Bluetooth and WiFi. Additionally, these icons can turn radios on and off. Customisations for balance, volume, treble, bass and 3D effect are provided along with mic gain settings and Automatic Gain control.

Wifi and Bluetooth:

Connectivity in the Asus A636 PDA is quite good, especially being offered with Bluetooth 1.2 and WiFi 802.11b. The blue tooth software is especially user friendly and fully featured. The software used by ASUS is Broadcom stack and software which is typically nice when compared to other software. This features a wizard that settles the connectivity with variety of other devices like high quality audio gateway devices such as stereo headphones, connecting to a mobile phone for wireless internet access, ActiveSync, hands free/headset profiles, business card exchange, keyboard, mice, serial port.  The ASUS application provides you with useful data about status, data rate, signal strength, IP address. The settings section allows to set the power saving, auto power off, radio power usage and the preamble. Information regarding the current connection is given in the IP info. Site survey shows all access points in range with SSID name, channel, signal strength, and MAC address of the base station.

GPS:

There is a built in receiver which you can flip open and swivel, so that the receiver plate is parallel to the sky. It is equipped with the latest SiRF III GPS chipset which provides GPS receivers high sensitivity, low power consumption and time. With this chipset our GPS receiver becomes powerful and particularly sensitive and can get excellent signal even when the signal is weak like areas of dense foliage, downtown buildings, and indoors.  Hence, the device has a faster time to fix especially time to first fix speed.  The device roughly takes about 35 seconds to start from the time the receiver is activated. This is a twenty channel GPS receiver that tracks nine satellites and gets strong signals from at least eight of them.  The GPS interface shows the current longitude, latitude, altitude and velocity as well as graph that shows the number of satellites the receiver is tracking and their signal strength. To launch this GPS applications go to the Destinator app, tap the satellite symbol on the lower right corner or up top on the GPS Status icon in the Destinator Settings.

Map:

This software is in the SD card which also has some map data pre-loaded. To install the Destinator application, simply plug the SD card. To create your own maps install the Destinator map console on your PC from the Destinator CDs in the ASUS package. The maps can tell you about the size of the map data and also come in thirteen languages.

Navigate:

Real time navigation is something that is really striking. The destinator provides all the necessary tools to navigate the routes and customise the guidance.   The tools are grouped into three: the first is the Destination group where you have options to enter the addresses for route navigation. Pick up POI s from the map database, or input a new address if the location is elsewhere. You can also pick your point in the map and set it as the destination. Tools to customise the visual guidance like directions view, map view etc are found in the Options group. The last group of icon based tools are settings for maps, GPS Status page, route options. With aid from these tools Destinator makes it easy to quickly find or input an address as destination. Overall the Asus A636 navigates routes in a very professional way in both quickest route and shortest route tests.

Ease of access:

Both visual and voice guidance are provided by the Destinator PN software. The Visual includes map view where you can spot the area where you are in and the route highlighted in easy to spot lines from your current location. There are few shortcuts in small icons on the map view to give us a quick access to zoom, check GPS satellite stats, daytime and night view and turn directions that show the street names and symbols. The visual is offered in many colour themes and also in many languages.  The voice guidance is bang on target. The voice quality is perfect and the natural human voice used here is far too good compared to older versions. The voice alerts come on at 500 yards by default which seriously is good. You have a choice to select or deselect some types of voice alerts like GPS status warnings, speed warnings and likes. There are 5 languages in which the voice guidance comes: English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.

Performance:

Powered with a 416MHZ PXA 272 Intel XScale processor, Asus has chosen a better battery life and could deliver considerably good performance. The applications run with good speeds after slight launch delay. ASUS A636 offers options to customise the CPU speed settings so you can set it to maximum, normal, power save, or auto setting.  The auto setting is quite effective and maintains a decent battery life while improving the CPU performance as needed. The RAM is plenty with 64 MB installed, 58 available and 49 free with no programs running on it.  The device also holds a 128 MB of flash ROM with 59 available and 25 additional MB available as flash disk.  So, overall the performance is a mixed bag.  Considering its navigation ability, the A636 MyPal can easily connect with satellites in 20 seconds and can plot our exact location. The routes are efficient and it quickly calculates new routes without much delay. As a PDA the A636 is a performer that offers reliable performance for daily use. The battery life of 9hours has turned to become a very attractive feature of the PDA.

Battery:

Packed with a 1,300 mAh Lithium ion battery, the A636 MyPal Pocket PC PDA gives it good runtimes, and has enough staying power to last a full length movie played using Windows media player and MP3 for over 13 hours with the screen turned off and CPU set to save power. Compared to other models our PDA, it has a hold switch on its rear so that you can use it as a portable MP3 player without the fear of battery drain which would occur while an accidental push on some buttons. Adjust the screen brightness to around 75%, your Aus MyPal PDA would just consume about 50% of its battery capacity. Overall, the battery life is satisfactory.

The Package:

Asus includes a vinyl slipcase, AC and auto power adapters, a synchronization cable, a 256MB SanDisk Secure Digital card, a car cradle, and a gooseneck windshield-mounting arm that attaches to a car’s windshield with a suction cup. We noticed that the car cradle has a tendency to shake loose of the windshield arm.

Warranty:

Asus offers the A636 a parts and labour warranty for a one year period from the date   purchase.

Verdict:

By elegantly integrating a GPS receiver and a foldout antenna into a PDA, Asus turns the heads of the perpetually lost with its Asus MyPal A636. While it’s heavier and thicker than competing mapping PDAs, the A636 has excellent controls, and its well-designed maps provide an accurate location fix and reasonably good directions. There are many occasions when a GPS enabled PDA make compromises in either section. So, at times, the PDA portion might lack power, recent OS, or wireless connections. Till date the Asus A636 My Pal is one that rules both departments. The chipset and underlying hardware are simply excellent. So to sum up you have a product that could simply fetch you a machine that only lacks in looks.

Asus MyPal A636 PDA Pocket PC – Technical Specification Table

Design:

Iconic Form factor:

The design of the PDA is the first thing that came to our notice. This new Motorola  Moto Q 9h Mobile Phone comes with a slim and sleek design which is the iconic feature in this form factor. The high end finishes includes exquisite and soft touch materials which gives you a rich and seamless product experience. It comes with a QWERTY keyboard and display of good resolution that makes typing out emails, SMS messages, notes and even presentations quite cool. The screen adjusts itself well under lights.

Wide, Wider, Widest:

Distinctly, compared to its companions in the Q series, Moto Q 9H seems to be the first one to be in a GSM carrier while others come with a CDMA carrier. The speakers are located in the front on top of the QPGA screen. This looks as wide as Nokia E 61i which is regarded as the widest smart phone till date. It looks way thin compared to Blackberry but surely is difficult to wrap your hands around.

Display:

Designed with a QPGA screen of resolution 320 x 240 pixels, the Q 9h gives you a top class display set up. The screen lets you watch your emails or movies and gives you clarity which you could expect from a high end mobile like this one. It has the self adjusting technology that allows you to read your mails irrespective of the environment. Even in this tiny volume you could watch MP4 and WMV clips with no hiccups. But we must accept, it is still a pain navigating through full sized Web pages on this tiny screen.
Buttons and Ports:

The slot locations have not changed much from the previous versions. There is a Micro SD slot which appears to be the easiest slots to reach from left. The  micro card SD reader is designed to accept cards up to 32GB.There is also a Micro USB port which would be particularly useful for charging sinking or accessories. On the right there is the volume control along with a back button typically used to exit an application and move to the front menu. The rear side hosts the 2 mega pixel camera along with a flash. The battery cover encloses the battery and also near it is the speaker which could be used as a play back or as a speaker phone while in a drive.

Keyboard:

The QWERTY keyboard in Moto Q 9H Smartphone is big and accounts for the overall size of this phone. The keypad is something special with the keys smooth and sensitive. The keys are brightly backlit for typing in darker environments. The keys are highlighted in blue. The scroll wheel in the previous models have been replaced with up and down keys, as well as select and back buttons on the right side of the phone. It is crammed with many tiny keys which includes @, #, & etc., along with numbers visible on the letter keys. There are also the ‘Enter’, ‘Shift’ and ‘Alt’ keys that perform the same functions as the computer keyboard. Motorola has sorted the problem of finger slips by providing a much rougher grip. Along with the normal keys are the short cut keys which are aligned at the bottom tray along with the spacebar which are dedicated for launching Calendar, Address Book, Music Player and Camera applications plus speaker toggle key. The only problem that possibly arises is that, you end up pressing the short cut keys instead of pressing the space bar. The up, down, select and back are available for easy access on the right side.

Connectivity:

The connectives include a single external port, a micro USB jack, USB sync cable and Ac adapter. The company gives you a Motorokr S9, Bluetooth stereo headset and hands free phone. The S9 head set would be your favourite pick if you have the habit of listening to music while jogging or walking. It is also hands free phone that works well to switch between a call and music listening.  Unlike other PDA s, the Q 9H has omitted a standard stereo headphone jack, which disappoints some of those who would have loved to plug their connectors to it.

Features:

Jet Set Go Connectivity:

We would like to describe the connectivity speed with this term. The Moto Q 9H is the first one to incorporate the HSDPA (High Speed Down Link Packet Access) service which accounts for its very high DSL speeds. With this technology, you could experience downloading speed of 3.6 Mbps. Equipped with all materials in its arsenal, this phone would allow you download music at high speed, or stream a video, or browse the internet. It is sure to give you access to your choice no matter where ever you are.  The hardware takes time to process the information and is not as swift as the network. Hence, you could expect some delay.  Despite all this, we felt down when we found that this is devoid of WiFi. Though the phone has a 3G network to support, the network would become bleak at certain points.

GPS Built in:

With GPS built-in, you would be able to track your routes through this phone. Applications like Google maps, Live search would give you real traffic information with the help of satellites. TeleNav GPS navigator service provided by AT &T and Rogers has been used here. The software sends GPS information to the server which sends back the necessary mapping information to Q 9H, thereby, freeing it from storing huge map files which are required while using a GPS service. On top of this, the service is offered at a much lower price with flexible plans.

Camera:

The Motorola Moto Q 9h sports a 2 MP camera with flash is on its rear. The flash allows you take pictures even when the light is quite dim. The camera application gives you easier means to upload and download pictures to your phone. For still images you have several shooting modes and a choice of 4 resolutions. The maximum zoom is up to 8x. You are also given the luxury to adjust pictures with white balance and brightness settings. But unfortunately, the clarity of pictures are just average. The camera is still haunted with fuzzy images, focus and hit – miss results on exposure.

Operating System:

The Motorola Moto Q 9h PDA has employed the Windows Mobile 6 operating system. This operating system is best suited for mobiles considering its ability to multitask. It also supports computer attachments to share the internet connectivity through USB and Bluetooth. The current date, email messages and tasks would be displayed on the screen which really gives you a good user interface experience.

Software Package:

Motorola has packed some additions into the hood of Q 9h. To start off, instead of the standard windows explorer, it has the Opera pre installed. The makers must have realized the change people had craved for. It also has the latest Office Mobile, Java Manager if ever you would require a java application. Other than the lone occasional problem this package gives, while you access your Gmail, no further bottle necks could be spotted. A handy wizard lets you access POP3 and IMAP accounts just by entering your password. Several popular instant messaging clients including Yahoo and Windows Live are pre-installed in Q 9H. In addition to the PDF viewer and a ZIP manager, other personal information tools like calendar, track list, notepad and calculator have also been included.

Downloads:

This part features the software you could possibly download. Initially you will be able to download the My Q Pak Bundle which includes various useful applications. You have wide number of choices open ranging from My Space Mobile to Mc Afee VirusScan Mobile Ready handset.

The Specs:

Underneath this brilliant form factor lays the champ who is responsible for the functions the phone does. It is none other than the TI OMAP 2420 processor with a speed of 325 MHZ. Along with a 256 MB flash memory and 96 MB RAM, the processor delivers a performance much higher than Blackberry Curves 312 MHZ. With about 120 MB of user available storage and 39 MB of available memory performance is above average.

The Extras:

The Motorola Moto Q 9H PDA phone includes 3 way calling, conference calling, speed dial, text and multimedia messaging. The SIM can hold up to 250 contacts. The system allows you to assign a picture or a group ID and even ringtones for caller ID purposes.

Performance:

When it comes to performance the first thing that comes to my mind is the HSDPA technology which would allow you faster and better speeds to download your favourite songs or videos, or to connect you with your friends. The Q 9h PDA shows its capability as a media player. Rendered with a 320 x 240 pixels resolution display and a colour depth of over 65,530, it could play movies smoothly with a jump or jerk here and there.  The Bluetooth and wireless have done their jobs in ensuring fast connectivity.  With this kind of processor and memory available, the speed performance should be excellent, unfortunately, there is some delay in response, particularly in the case of multiple tasks. The system crashes have declined compared to older versions which is very good news considering that performance has shot up well.

Loud and Clear:

This is yet another remarkable aspect of this phone. As a phone, the clarity of voice and the speaker sounds are two things you would love to talk about. The reception on the other side is clear and loud. The speakers are so audible that you could place them near the cup tray while driving and still you would be able to hear them clearly. With the dual speaker technology, the music player sounds rich with plenty of sound.

There is relatively very less parts where the phone has not shown quality. Along with top quality applications and with a superior Windows mobile 6 operating system the phone has notched a top quality performance.

Battery:

Battery is the area where the Motorola Moto Q 9h PDA stands distinctly ahead.  The Q 9H comes with 2 types of batteries; a BT 90 for heavy usage and BT 60 for normal usage. Interestingly, it also comes with 2 new coverings because; BT 90 needs a slightly larger outfit to cover it. The batteries are claimed to last nearly 9 hours of talk time and 30 days standby. The larger battery would last three days without charging despite the fact that you could use the phone in speaker mode and surf the internet. Overall, Battery ends up being one of the highlight selling points of the PDA.

Warranty:

Motorola offers its Moto Q 9h one year limited warranty for parts and labour.

Verdict:

Now comes the final word for the Motorola Moto Q 9h PDA. Seriously, the pros have outweighed the cons by remarkably greater margin. The makers have focused on email access and entertainment and hence, have blended functionality with entertainment in one device. The price is seriously low compared to other PDAs which are devoid of these features. The Quad band technology lets you stay connected across the globe. The Bluetooth wireless technology gives you a better sound quality. USB 2.0 full speed download enables faster file transfer from PC to micro SD card in the phone. With a frame rate of 30 per second watching live videos have become less cumbersome. The sound is excellent plus keys are perfect and lets you message fast. We could go on and on with the positives and we feel satisfied except for the few cons here and there. Well, the screen is devoid of touch. Added to that, the phone also lacks Wifi, making it vulnerable at certain points where the 3G connection goes down. Apart, from these there are not much faults to point out. Finally, this has its own flaws which would never pull your mind back once you eye its umpteen features.

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Motorola Moto Q 9H – Technical Specification Details