PDA Reviews

If at all phones are capable of making kids, then once you place your hands on the HTC Wildfire, you could not stop thinking that it is the child of the Desire and Nexus One. The recent range of HTC models were running short of budget models and that is the main reason why the company manufactures some low cost solutions from time to time. But, obviously, the dull truth is that, this is just an Android 2.1 alternative for the flagship Tatoo.

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

Manufacturer	HTC
Model Name	HTC Wildfire Android PDA Phone
Dimensions (H x W x D)	106.8 x 60.4 x 12 mm
Weight	118 g
Colours available	Black, Brown, White, Red, Silver
Display size	3.2 inches
Display type	TFT capacitive touchscreen 16M colours
Display resolution	240  x  320 pixels
Display Features	Multi-touch input method Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate Proximity sensor for auto turn-off Touch-sensitive controls Optical trackpad HTC Sense UI Turn-to-mute and lift-to-dim-out a call
Memory	Internal: 384 MB RAM; 512 MB ROM Card slot: microSD, up to 32GB
Camera	5 megapixel colour camera
Camera Resolution	2592  x  1944 pixels
Camera features	Face detection capability Auto focus LED Flash Smile Detection Geotagging
Video	320×240 (QVGA) (24 fps), 352×288 (CIF) (15 fps)
CPU	Qualcomm MSM 7225
CPU processing speed	528 MHz processor
Operating System	Android OS, v2.1 (Eclair), upgradable to v2.2
Messaging	SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Email, IM
Browser	HTML
HTC Widgets	Bookmarks, Calendar, Clock, Footprints, Friend Stream, Mail, Messages, Music, News, People, Photo Album, Photo Frame, Search, Settings, Stocks, Twitter, Weather, Downloadable widgets
Social Networking	Facebook integration v Friend Stream Photo sharing on Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter Video sharing on YouTube HTC Peep for twittering
Internet	3G, Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g
Multimedia	Photos application for viewing photos and videos Music FM Radio
Audio formats supported	Playback: .aac, .amr, .ogg, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .wav, .wma Recording: .amr
Video formats supported	Playback: .3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .wmv Recording: .3gp
GSM	850, 900, 1800, 1900
UMTS	900, 2100
Bluetooth	Bluetooth® 2.1 with Enhanced Data Rate A2DP for wireless stereo headsets FTP and OPP (object push) for file transfer Other supported profiles: AVRCP, GAP, GOEP, HFP, HSP, PBAP, SPP, Service Discovery Application Profile
Radio	Stereo FM radio with RDS
Games	Yes
GPS	A-GPS support Internal GPS antenna Google Maps
Network Bands	HSPA/WCDMA: 900/2100 MHz GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
Windows  system requirements	Windows® 7, Windows Vista®, or Windows XP HTC Sync
Phone book features	Caller groups, Multiple numbers per contact, Search by both first and last name, Picture ID, Ring ID
Special Features	HTC Caller ID that shows the caller’s Facebook status and a birthday reminder App Sharing that lets you recommend apps straight from your phone Adobe® Flash® support on the web browser In-built, dimmable flashlight Ringer that automatically lowers the ring volume when you lift up the phone or mutes when you flip the phone face down
Connectors	3.5 mm stereo audio jack Standard micro-USB (5-pin micro-USB 2.0)
Sensors	G-Sensor Digital compass Proximity sensor Ambient light sensor
Battery	Standard battery, Li-Ion 1300 mAh
Battery life	Stand by: Up to 480 h (2G) / Up to 690 h (3G) Talktime: Up to 7 h 20 min (2G) / Up to 8 h 10 min (3G)
Warranty	One year standard warranty for parts and labour

The Samsung S5230 Tocco Lite is a competitively priced full touch-screen phone that has taken a goal squarely at LG´s extremely popular Cookie phone. If you were not aware, the LG Cookie is the best selling phone in the first half of 2009. The secret of its success was pretty simple; it was a touchscreen phone with loads of gadgets for just about £100. Now you can see what all the “competitively priced full touch-screen phone” is about. It has been designed for those who cannot afford the high end stuff like Samsung’s own i8910 HD, effectively bringing the touchscreen interface to a wider audience. The Tocco Lite is a progression in a long line up, in 2008 it was the Tocco Ultra Edition S8300 and before that, the original Tocco F480. Which do you think will win the battle? The LG Cookie or Samsung S5230 Tocco Lite? Read on to find out.

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

Manufacturer	Samsung
Model Name	Samsung S5230 Tocco Lite
Model Number	S5230
Dimensions (W x H x D)	104 x 53 x 11.9 mm
Weight	93.5 g
Colours available	Black, White, Pink
Display Type	3.0 inches TFT resistive touchscreen, 256K colours
Display Resolution	240 x 400 pixels
Display Features	Accelerometer sensor Handwriting recognition Smart unlock
Camera resolution	3.15 MP, 2048×1536 pixels
Video	QVGA@15fps
Camera features	Smile detection
Card slot	microSD, up to 16GB (verified)
Memory	50MB
Phonebook	Yes, Photo Contact
Messaging	SMS, MMS, Email
Browser	WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML
Supported Digital Audio Formats	MP3/WMA/AAC player
Supported Digital video Formats	H.263/H.264/MP4 player
Radio	Stereo FM radio with RDS
Alert types	Vibration; Downloadable polyphonic, MP3, WAV ringtones
Speaker phone	DNSe (Digital Natural Sound Engine)
2G Network	GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
GPRS	Class 12 (4+1/3+2/2+3/1+4 slots), 32 – 48 kbps
EDGE	Class 12
Bluetooth	Yes, v2.1 with A2DP
USB	v2.0
Battery	Standard battery, Li-Ion 1000 mAh
Battery life	Talk time: 10 hours Standby time: 800 hours
Warranty	1 year

Nokia never ceases to surprise us and the year 2009 has witnessed heaps of them. The persistence of manufacturers when it comes to touchscreen mobile phones has to be applauded. It might be that only a few notably HTC, Apple and Palm have really cracked the marriage of hardware and software, but that has not stopped everyone else attempting to achieve the same success. Nokia’s own efforts have been hit and miss. The Nokia 5530 XpressMusic is not without its good points, but had heaps of flaws. Nokia has finally managed to pull up a touchscreen music phone that is worth craving for: X6. This is everything that the 5800 XpressMusic should have been. Plenty of water has flowed under the bridge ever since the 5800 had been released, and the X6 does not break any new ground, but there is still much to like about this music maestro. But is the touchscreen a gimmick? The S60 operating system has a number of detractors, and just because a phone ticks all the right boxes on a specification sheet does not necessarily mean it will make its users happy.

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

Manufacturer	Nokia
Model Name	Nokia X6
Model Number	X6
Product Type	Smartphone
Dimensions (W x H x D)	4.37 x 2.01 x 0.54 inches
Weight	4.30 oz
Display Type	16 777 216 colours, Capacitive TFT
Display Resolution	360 x 640 pixels
Camera resolution	5 megapixels Resolution
Video	640×480 (VGA)
Camera features	Flash: Dual LED; Auto focus, Digital zoom, Night mode, White balance, Effects, Self-timer, Scenes
Processor	ARM 11, 434 MHz
ROM	512 MB ROM
RAM Supported	128 MB RAM
Memory	16GB and 32GB
Phonebook	Capacity depends on system memory; Ring ID, Picture ID, Multiple numbers per contact, Caller groups
PIM	Alarm, Calendar, To-Do / Tasks, Calculator, Stopwatch, Notes, Converter
Supported Digital Audio Formats	MP3, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA FM, Stereo
Supported Digital video Formats	MPEG4, WMV, 3GP
Voice	Dialing, Commands, Recording, Speaker Phone
Email	IMAP/POP3/SMTP/Microsoft Exchange
Network type	GSM Quad-band phone capable of global roaming (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) UMTS tri-band global 3G (900/1900/2100 MHz)
Data	EDGE/UMTS/HSDPA 3.6 Mbit/s
GPS Navigation	Built in A-GPS and Nokia Maps
Internet	S60 OSS Browser, HTML, XHTML, WAP 2.0, JavaScript, WML
USB	microUSB
WiFi	802.11b/802.11g
Bluetooth	2.0, Stereo Bluetooth
Package contents	Nokia X6, Nokia Battery (BL-5J) 1320mAh, Mains Charger (AC-8), Nokia USB Cable (CA-101), Nokia Stereo Headset/handsfree (WH-701), Spare earphone pieces (various sizes), User Guide, Mini DVD, 12 month ‘Comes With Music. licence
Battery	Li – Ion, 1320 mAh
Battery life	Talk time: 11.5 hours Standby time: 420 hours
Warranty	1 year

PDAs have raised the bar when it comes to telecommunication and computing at the smaller scale. No wonder why there is a lot of zealotry regarding these pocket computers which have of late transformed the meaning of computing. On the other hand, The Palm Inc., has earned the name as being one of the steadfast manufacturers of these PDAs. Its previous PDA, The Palm Pre has brought success home to the Palm. Shooting for the moon this time around, Palm has announced the release of its new PDA into the market, which happens to be the Palm Pixi Plus. At first, the Pixi was released, but only in the U.S. Shortly after that, Palm has improvised the device a little, added the all important Wi-Fi feature as a special attraction, and renamed the device as the Palm Pixi Plus. The name Pixi may not sound appealing, but the device really looks very appealing indeed. So let us stop prating and start analysing this new PDA from Palm.

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

Manufacturer	Palm Inc.,
Model Name	Palm Pixi Plus
Product Type	PDA
Dimensions	Width: 55.0mm (2.17 inches) Height: 111.0mm (4.37 inches) Thickness: 10.85mm (0.43 inches)
Colour	Glossy Black
Phone and Messaging	Yes
Camera	2 megapixel
USB 2.0	Yes
GPS	Provided (built in, powered by Google Maps)
Memory	Built in 8GB
Video	MPEG-4, H.263, H.264
Audio	MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC +, AMR, QCELP, WAV
Operating System	Palm webOS
Wi-Fi enabled	Yes
Battery life on single charge	About 5.5 hours of talk time
Utilities	Word, Excel, Power Point, Clock & Alarms, File Explorer, Notes, Voice recorder, Calculator, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yahoo, Google, Gmail
Wireless Communication	Wi-Fi 802.11b/g with WPA, WPA2, WEP, 802.1X authentication; Bluetooth® wireless technology 2.1 + EDR with A2DP stereo Bluetooth support; Wi-Fi router functionality for up to five devices using Palm mobile hotspot.
Warranty	One year