Phone Review

Acer neoTouch review: Gallery, music player, video player, FM radio, audio quality

2010-02-28T23:59:00.002+07:00

Multimedia management

The Acer neoTouch offers a small amount of storage - about 300MB. This is barely sufficient and you'll definitely find yourself needing a higher-capacity microSD card.

The WinMo file manager on the neoTouch
The file manager is the standard Windows Mobile one and won't surprise anyone.
Image gallery stays the same, Albums are a bit better
Acer neoTouch offers two galleries available from the Multimedia folder in the Start menu.
The first one is the standard Windows Mobile 6.5, which is the same is 6.1, except for the touch optimized menu. It has no accelerometer features and you can't flick scroll images.

Windows Mobile 6.5 image gallery
The Album app is a new addition by Acer and may not be something innovative or beautiful, but is still better than the WinMo one. It's touch optimized and has accelerometer auto-rotation. Once the image is opened, you can zoom in or out or continue to the previous/next by sweeping a finger on the current one.

The new Album gallery
Scrolling to the next image is smooth and instantaneous with a single sweep of the finger.

Opening an image • overlay controls
Music and video - Windows Media player only
Unfortunately Acer did not include any music or video player and left the users with the embedded Windows Media player. As usual it's horrible at managing playlists with your favorite songs, and generally it has limited functionality and the interface is less than touch-friendly.
Watching varied video content is almost a no-go as there is a limited number of supported video formats.

Windows Media Player is a letdown
Core player comes to the rescue
Unless you really want to leave that Snapdragon sleeping in its lair, you may want to install a third-party multimedia player such as Core player. It successfully played all DivX/Xvid movies up to HD resolution, except those which use the AC3 audio codec.
Well, we have to admit that the neoTouch disappointed us when it came to HD. We expected most of the HD videos to play smoothly with that Snapdragon core inside, but we were so wrong. The official DivX HD commercials reached 15-16 fps only, while the videos recorded by Omnia HD hit the 19 fps mark. And that's as high as it went.

The Core Player
Anyway if you can skip the HD playback (it doesn't really make sense on a mobile screen anyway), you will be happy to know that all other videos we tried played smoothly with no audio problems or dropped frames. We ran some benchmarks with the Core Player against the HTC Touch Diamond and here are the results. As you can see, the difference is similar with the Spb benchmark results we did before.
28 Days Later DivX trailer

Acer neoTouch • HTC Touch Diamond
Transformers XviD trailer

Acer neoTouch • HTC Touch Diamond
Home-made DVDRip movie 640x272 resolution

Acer neoTouch • HTC Touch Diamond

The FM radio does the job perfectly

The Acer neoTouch built-in FM radio naturally requires the headset to be plugged-in.
The neoTouch FM radio has an excellent interface and offers memory for 20 radio stations.

The FM Radio on the Acer neoTouch
RDS is available too - so overall, radio is handled pretty well on the Acer neoTouch.

First-class audio output

Now that caught us totally off guard. Not only is the audio quality of the Acer neoTouch very good for a first attempt, but it is great all over. In fact not too many of the handset we have tested can rival the neoTouch balanced output, let alone the WinMo ones.
The frequency response graph is virtually perfect throughout the audible range. The noise level, dynamic range and stereo crosstalk results are also some way above the average others achieve in this test.
And here goes a table comparing the Acer neoTouch to some of its competitors.

Test	Frequency response	Noise level	Dynamic range	THD	IMD + Noise	Stereo crosstalk
Acer neoTouch	+0.08 -0.24	-84.1	84.9	0.022	0.065	-81.8
HTC Touch Diamond2	+0.12, -0.60	-86.9	89.1	0.022	0.191	-86.8
Samsung I8000 Omnia II	+0.17 -2.63	-88.3	88.2	0.0024	0.133	-32.8
Samsung i8910 Omnia HD	+1.29 -2.74	-87.6	86.6	0.0023	0.255	-85.2
HTC Hero	+1.04 -2.13	-91.3	92.3	0.458	0.902	-95.8
Apple iPhone 3GS	+0.01, -0.05	-92.1	92.1	0.0035	0.011	-95.0

Acer neoTouch vs HTC Touch Diamond2 frequency response
(Source : gsmarena.com)

Acer neoTouch review: Phonebook, telephony, messaging

2010-02-28T23:58:00.000+07:00

Acer-touched contact manager

Contact management is usually considered one of the strongest points of Windows Mobile. You have unlimited contacts list, unlimited info fields for each contact and brilliant synchronization options. Shame it's so damn ugly. Even when Windows Mobile reached its 6.5 version, the Contacts remained untouched.

The WinMo phonebook is still here
But that's no more. Same as HTC, Acer have added a new interface here which uses a small thumb icon for a person's phone (while HTC uses pictures), set against a gray background with a nice font. You can pick a letter of the alphabet by using the letter column placed on the right.
There is also an index search, where you see all used/unused alphabet letters and can choose one of them and see the contacts starting with it. We didn't find this option that helpful, largely because it was easier to use the handy letter column on the right. Still you can choose which of these two options will be your default or you can leave them both available.
Searching by gradual typing is also available.

Phonebook • searching using the letter column, index or typing
In contrast to the HTC's TouchFLO implementation, where editing all fields in a contact throws you back into the old WinMo skin, Acer did quite good job offering a whole new interface for this task. It uses the new phonebook design and colors and is nicely touch optimized. But don't worry - you still have a plethora of available info fields.

Editing a contact
Viewing a contact details is a whole new experience. Acer have done a great job again redesigning the whole interface into something quite stylish and visually attractive.
There are some functional changes too. The contact's information is divided into groups - names, communication and information. The new addition here is the social networking button which will open the Flickr/Facebook/Blogger account of the contact if available.

Viewing contact details

Good telephony

Making calls is always a priority for any cellphone - that still holds true for smartphones such as the Acer neoTouch.
The Phone application offers Smart dialing, so you hardly ever need to go to the Contacts list in order to dial a number. It also offers favorites tab where you can set up to 15 numbers for speed dial.

Smart Dialing • Dialing a contact • Call log • Favorites
During calls, the Acer neoTouch allows you to take some notes, as on every Windows Mobile device. Another OS feature is rejecting a call with a text message.
The Acer neoTouch scored a Below Average mark in our loudspeaker performance test, which was a nasty surprise. In fact, if there were a category lower than Below Average, neoTouch would have probably scored that instead. Those are some of the lowest results we've ever recorded. While it is noticeably louder when playing music through the loudspeaker, you are bound to have a lot of calls missed with ringing performance such as this one.
Here is how the neoTouch stacks up against some other handsets we've tested. More info on our test can be found here.

Speakerphone test	Voice, dB	Pink noise/ Music, dB	Ringing phone, dB	Overall score
Acer neoTouch	58.2	59.0	69.0	Below Average
HTC Touch Diamond2	69.1	66.6	76.7	Good
Samsugn B7300 OmniaLITE	73,9	70,4	73,7	Good
Samsung I8000 Omnia II	71.0	73.5	75.7	Very good
HTC Touch HD	77.7	73.7	76.7	Excellent

Old school messaging

The Acer neoTouch supports SMS, MMS and email. SMS and MMS share an inbox and a message editor and thanks to Windows Mobile 6.5, you can enjoy thumb scrolling in the inboxes and through longer messages.
Still the message tab remains the original and untouched Windows Mobile 6.5, where the only upgrade is the touch-optimized menu.
Threaded SMS is also available on the neoTouch, just as it is across Windows 6.5.

Typing SMS on the neoTouch
The email editor will hold no surprises for experienced WinMo users as it has not changed at all.
Setting up your email is easy as it is on most of the latest mid or high range phones. You type your email and password and all the other fiddly options are configured automatically.

Email set up • browsing the email inbox • reading an email • replying an email
Perhaps now is a good time to mention input options on the Acer neoTouch. Acer have equipped the device with two home-grown thumbable virtual keyboards. It's a commendable feature since the default Windows Mobile keyboards are fit for stylus use only.
The first keyboard is a full portrait touch optimized QWERTY and the second one is the same QWERTY in landscape mode. The regular WinMo QWERTY for use with a stylus is as usual onboard.
Handwriting recognition is also available and works just fine.

The keyboards on the Acer neoTouch • handwriting recognition
(Source : gsmarena.com)

Acer neoTouch review : User interface, performance benmarks

2010-02-28T23:56:00.000+07:00

Windows Mobile 6.5 is not breath-taking

In addition to the new Windows Mobile 6.5 homescreen, the Acer neoTouch offers a new one very similar to the Home tab of the new upcoming TouchFLO update. There you can find a digital clock, the date and nine customizable app shortcuts. At the bottom are found the lock, start menu and options buttons. The homescreen, as you can see, is touch-optimized and practical.
Still, if you are keen on the new default Windows Mobile 6.5 homescreen you can switch to it at any time. For more information about the new interface and features of WinMo 6.5, read our review here.

The Acer homescreen • the lock screen • the WinMo default homescreen
Pressing the Start menu icon at the top right no longer opens a drop down menu full of shortcuts. Instead it opens what we like to call the new Windows Mobile "Main menu". It's got icons ordered in that oh-so-popular honeycomb pattern that so many people can easily recognize as pure WinMo 6.5 stuff thanks to numerous official and leaked screenshots. A shortcut to the start menu is also available at the bottom of the Acer homescreen.

The Start menu
In the new main menu you've got all the installed programs plus shortcuts to the settings menu. That Settings menu also has received a facelift and displays icons in the same honeycomb structure.
There is another simplified Preferences menu provided by Acer where you can do some basic stuff such as change ringtones and sound levels, wallpapers, choose the end key functionality or start the Acer Communication Manager. It's very similar to every other custom Comm. Manager available today, where you can switch on/off the different types of connections - Phone, Data, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

The new Preferences menu and Communication Manager
The perfectly flat structure of the Main menu can certainly get a bit clumsy over time due to the huge number of icons that pile up there (iPhone users with loads of apps installed will know what we mean) but we'd still prefer that over the confusing experience that so many Windows Mobile new adopters have enjoyed in the past.
The Windows Mobile 6.5 brought larger fonts to all menus, which made them a lot more touch friendly.
Another nice change brought by the new version of the OS is the option to alternate tabs by simple finger sweeps wherever Windows offers you tabbed screens. You no longer need to aim for the tiny titles at the bottom of the screen as on the WinMo 6.1 handsets - you just swipe your finger across the screen and the next tab opens instantaneously.
Since the Acer neoTouch is the first smartphone we've reviewed powered by the Snapdragon 1GHz CPU, we decided to do a benchmark and see how it stacks up next to a previous generation CPU - in our case HTC Touch Diamond with 528 MHz MSM7200 Qualcomm CPU. From the screenshots bellow you may see that CPU results of the Snapdragon are 3 times better than its older Qualcomm sibling, while the other benchmark results vary from two to six times better. The evolution is obvious and we are quite impressed with the whole Windows Mobile 6.5 performance - there is no lag anywhere in the Windows interface and all the stuff just flows smoothly.

Spb Bencmark - Acer neoTouch and HTC Touch Diamond
(Source : gsmarena.com)

Acer neoTouch review:Unboxing, 360-degree spin. design and construction

2010-02-25T23:48:00.000+07:00

Unboxing the Acer neoTouch

Starting with the basics, in the retail box you'll find a charger, data cable and a headset. The headset is one piece, but you can use your favorite headphones of course, thanks to the 3.5mm audio jack. The wall charger is universal and you get market-specific adaptors - just like you would with HTC handsets. The charger connects to the phone's microUSB port.

The neoTouch is cabled, but not quite accessorized
The retail box will also include manuals and a disk with software. Given that this is a high-end PocketPC, we were a little disappointed to see that there were no additional accessories in the box. There is no memory card - which the neoTouch certainly needs, given the 300 MB of onboard storage available to the user. A TV out cable is nowhere in sight either.

Acer neoTouch 360-degree view

For a phone that's easily in the top 5 in terms of screen estate, the Acer neoTouch size is quite friendly. It measures 118.6 x 63 x 12 mm and weighs in at 130 grams. Tiny it isn't, but the 3.8" touchscreen is a good enough excuse and the best way to prove this is putting it alongside some of the competition. The neoTouch is almost the same size as the iPhone and noticeably smaller than the Omnia HD and it beats both in terms of screen size. Yes, it looks massive next to the HTC Touch 2 but the displays are incomparable.

Size matters: the neoTouch gets it right

Design and construction

The first thing to note - other than the huge touchscreen - is perhaps the distinct styling of the controls underneath. Not too keen on the green / red receiver convention, we quite liked the original minimalist pictograms marking the hardware buttons. The actual controls - Call buttons, Home key, Back key - are touch-sensitive and haptic-enabled.

The four buttons on the front
Otherwise, the Acer neoTouch is not willing to go to extremes to distinguish itself from the countless touchscreen bars out there. Instead it takes a rather cautious and traditional approach to styling. The Acer neoTouch front is quite conservative with black glass framing the display and the surface of the buttons. The rest of the handset is made of glossy plastic and while it's not cheap looking, the fingerprints just love to make their home there. The whole handset was completely covered with smudges in no time and didn't look nice at all.
The glossy silver strip running the sides are the only accent and it works quite well. It's elegant and subtly emphasizes the huge display.
The Acer neoTouch display is a TFT unit, 3.8 inches in diagonal and within the limits of comfortable one hand use. The resolution is WVGA at 480 x 800 pixels - the highest any smartphone has gone so far. As far as screen sensitivity goes, the Acer neoTouch resistive unit is better than the XPERIA X1 and X2 and on par with the latest HTC handsets. We have nothing to complain about here.
Sunlight legibility is not one of its strengths though. It's far behind the iPhone and Nokia devices. Using the neoTouch in direct sunlight is near impossible, so you may want to look for some shade nearby if outdoor use is absolutely essential.

The display looks good, but sunlight legibility lets it down
As is expected on a Windows Mobile device, the Acer neoTouch screen has 65K-color support. On a screen this size, color banding really becomes an issue. But we all know the limited color palette is not Acer's fault, but rather a limitation imposed by Microsoft. To give you a bit of background, Windows Mobile uses a 16-bit color palette (that's 65K colors) for CPU friendliness and optimal performance. We are sure it made perfect sense a few years back, but now that we have Snapdragon processors and a lot more RAM we may as well start hoping for a boost to color support. That will perhaps involve the guys at Redmond rewriting the whole OS.
Back to the neoTouch physical description, the video-call camera, proximity and ambient light sensors, along with a status LED are placed above the display on both sides of the earpiece.

Video-call camera, proximity and ambient light sensors
On the left side of the handset you get the hardware Lock key and nothing else. The key is quite handy actually - conveniently placed for your index finger (for right-handed users).
The neoTouch right side features the volume rocker, reset hole and the camera shutter key. The camera key has a distinct half and full press and is quite responsive.

Side controls on the Acer neoTouch
A 3.5 mm standard audio jack and the stylus compartment are at the top of the Acer neoTouch. The bottom reveals the microphone and the microUSB port, which is not protected by a cover. The phone charges via the USB port, which is quite useful as you can skip the charger when traveling if you have a computer with you.

microUSB port and standard audio jack on both ends of the phone
Unfortunately the stylus is not active as those on the HTC devices. It would have been a really nice addition to the Acer neoTouch user-friendliness.
The Acer neoTouch rear is neat and simple - quite in line with the conservative styling of the device. There you'll find the 5 megapixel camera lens and the LED flash, along with a loudspeaker grill. The Acer neoTouch has no stereo speakers on board, but it's still not considered a standard feature even on high-end smartphones.
As there is no lens cover, the 5 megapixel camera lens is exposed to both smudges and scratches

The loudspeaker, camera lens and LED flash
Under the back cover, you'll find a 1350 mAh battery and the SIM card slot as well as the microSD card slot. Hot-swap is enabled but a card slot placed externally on the device would've been a lot better.

The microSD card slot is hot-swappable but under the rear cover
The Acer neoTouch can be commended on its high build quality. The all-plastic looking chassis looks and feels quite fit and durable. The rear cover holds firmly in place, no annoying creaks.

Acer neoTouch knows comfortable handling
The Acer neoTouch weighs in at 130 grams and that's perfectly acceptable given the spacious screen. It's not a small handset but size is well atoned for by the classic, subtle styling and secure handhold. The extreme edges of the screen may be a little hard to reach for some, but the device is still pocketable and reasonably comfortable to navigate single-handedly.
(Source : gsmarena.com)

Acer neoTouch review: Introduction

2010-02-06T01:06:00.002+07:00

Introduction

It must be sweet October for Microsoft, with the launch of WinMo 6.5 on the 6th followed by the desktop Windows 7 on the 22nd. Acer are quick to sneak into the spotlight and make the most of the primetime coverage. Their neoTouch is leading a small PocketPC fleet, all powered by 6.5.
But it's the flagship of course to focus all the attention and the neoTouch should be conscious of its task. If you want it all you need to be prepared to take it - all the glory and all the enemy fire. The neoTouch is riding on the wings of a dragon but entering a territory long claimed by others.
The Acer neoTouch is not just the next in the growing line of Windows Mobile 6.5 handsets. It's the top device of a company that's determined to enter the mobile phone game with a bang. The 1 GHz Snapdragon CPU is a great way to start and the other ingredients look quite on par: complete connectivity options, spacious high-res screen and something becoming fairly typical for smartphones these days - a 5 megapixel snapper.

Acer neoTouch official photos
Today Windows Mobile is all about handset manufacturers customizing the OS with their own proprietary interface, such as the popular TouchFLO by HTC, Samsung's TouchWiz and the LG S-Class. Acer have given the neoTouch their own homescreen, brand new Phonebook and Organizer app (called Agenda), along with a neat Preferences menu and Communication manager.
But first, let's go over what the Acer neoTouch does and doesn't do. PocketPC spec sheets are quite a reading but potential deal breakers won't be overlooked either.

Key features:

3.8" 65K-color resistive TFT touchscreen, WVGA 480 x 800 pixels

Windows Mobile 6.5 with Acer Homescreen, Contacts, Agenda and Gallery

Qualcomm Snapdragon 1GHz processor, 256MB RAM, 512MB ROM (300MB user available)

5 megapixel auto focus camera with LED flash, geotagging, image stabilizer

VGA video recording @ 30fps

Quad-band GSM support

Tri-band 3G with HSDPA (7.2Mbps) and HSUPA (5.76 Mbps) support

Wi-Fi with DLNA technology

Built-in GPS with A-GPS functionality

microSD card slot (up to 32GB)

FM radio with RDS

Bluetooth and USB v2.0

3.5mm standard audio jack, TV-out functionality

Ambient light sensor, proximity sensor for screen auto turn-off

Accelerometer sensor for automatic UI rotation

Smart dial

Office document editor (but no PDF viewer)

Full Flash support in the web browser (IE)

Top-notch audio output quality

Main disadvantages:

Not enough user interface customization

No camera lens cover

Poor photo and video quality

microSD slot is under the back cover

No DivX/XviD video support out-of-the-box

No navigation software, even Google Maps is not preinstalled

No active stylus

High-gloss body panels are a fingerprint magnet

Poor ringing volume

The neoTouch is the first Snapdragon device we're reviewing but the bigger debut is Acer themselves. Since February 2009 - when they made headlines at the Barcelona WMC - Acer have released 4 handsets all in all that have no corresponding entry in the Eten glofish lineup. (It was the acquisition of Eten that put Acer on the mobile phone map.) And we're looking at one of them making a strong claim to challenge the big ones in the PocketPC game.

Acer neoTouch in our office
The Acer credentials as leading laptop manufacturer will have the neoTouch - and the phones to follow - held to a rather high standard. We're dealing with a debut but it looks bold enough at least on paper. And we won't mind another keen compatriot rivalry along the lines of Samsung and LG. Of course, HTC are well ahead at this point but Acer look like they should be taken seriously.
But much like every other Windows Mobile smartphone out there, the Acer neoTouch has it strong and weak points. You can be sure we will explore both of them, on the pages to follow.

Sony Ericsson Aino review: I know fun

2010-02-02T01:46:00.003+07:00

1. Introduction
2. Unboxing, 360-degree spin, Design and construction
3. Desk stand and headset, User interface
4. Phonebook, telephony, messaging
5. Touch user interface
6. Multimedia, gallery, players, Fm radio. audio quality
7. Camera, connectivity
8. Web browser, organizer and apps
9. GPS navigation, game, final words
10. Sony Ericsson Aino specification

Sony Ericsson Aino specification

2010-02-02T01:30:00.001+07:00

Sony Ericsson Aino Specifications

Sony Ericsson Aino specifications including size, weight, screen, memory, network support , battery performance and features.

General & Hardware

Date Announced	2009, 1Q
Network Technology	GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 HSDPA 850 / 900 / 2100 HSDPA 850 / 1900 / 2100 Aino (a) for Americ
Dimensions (mm)	104 x 50 x 15.5
Weight (g)	134
Screen Size	240 x 432 3.0 inch
Screen Color	TFT 16M colors
Type	Slider
Soft Keys	Limited touchscreen functionality
Other Keys	Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate,
Antenna	Fixed Internal
Phonebook	1000 x 20 fields
Internal(MB)	55 MB
Memory Slot	microSD (TransFlash), up to 16GB, 8GB included
Battery Type	NULL
Stand-by (hrs)	380 h (2G) / 367 h (3G)
TalkTime(min)	780 m (2G) / 270 m (3G)

Entertainment

Polyphonic
MP3	Yes
FM Radio	Yes
TV Receiver	Null
Video Record	Yes
Audio Support	MP3/AAC/MPEG4 player

Messaging

SMS	Yes
MMS	Yes
EMS	No
Email	Yes

Connectivity

HSDPA	Yes
WIFI/WLAN	Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, DLNA
3G	Yes
EDGE	Class 10, 236.8 kbps
GPRS	Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots)
Bluetooth	Yes, V2 (A2DP)
USB Port	Yes
Infrared (IrDA)	No
Data Cable	Yes

Software

Platform / OS	Proprietary
Java (J2ME)	Yes
WAP	Yes Ver 2.0
Browser	HTML (NetFront), RSS reader
Predictive Text Entry	T9
PIM Application	Organizer, Voice memo
Other Application	Remote play for Playstation 3, Google Maps, Picture editor/blogging, YouTube & Facebook applications, SensMe

Personals

Themes	No Info.
Caller ID	Photocall

Camera Specifications

Lens Type	CMOS, 8.1 Megapixel
Digital zoom
Max. Resolution	3264 x 2448
Flash	Yes
Night Mode	Yes
Extra Features	Touch focus, geo-tagging, face detection, image stabilizer, smart contrast, red-eye reduction, videocalling, autofocus
Photo Format
Video	Yes
Video Format

Sony Ericsson Aino review: I know fun - GPS navigation, game, final words

2010-02-02T01:23:00.001+07:00

GPS navigation is perfect, but comes for a fee

The Sony Ericsson Aino features a built-in GPS receiver. Its sensitivity is nothing spectacular - it managed to get a lock from a cold start in a couple of minutes but we had to go out into quite an open area.
The Aino is equipped with a Wisepilot navigation software and offers all the features you'd expect in a proper SatNav solution. There's voice-guided walk and drive navigation, maps are courtesy of NAVTEQ, there's 3D view of the maps, extensive route-planning settings, speed camera alerts, POI and weather.

Wisepilot navigation software
Its main downside is that maps are not stored locally but instead are downloaded over the air. A flat data fee is recommended but 1MB of data should get you about 600km of navigation. Still, we would have liked to have a map downloader as well, like with Nokia Maps. It really would have helped in avoiding data roaming charges.
We also wish there was a built-in compass, like on most of its competitors, to facilitate navigation.
The Wisepilot for Sony Ericsson comes with 30-days trial period, starting after the first time you start the app. After this month expires you will need a subscription – 1 week license costs 3 euro, while a full year global navigation goes as high as 70 euro. The Wisepilot for LG had similar prices, but for the 70 euro you get only European navigation.
Here you can also buy separately Traffic Information and Speed Cameras as an option - for 20 euro each.
Google Maps is included as well if you prefer it.

Google Maps

Two games onboard

Sony Ericsson Aino comes with two full Java games pre-installed: Crazy Penguin Catapult and Quadrapop.
The Crazy Penguin Catapult is very addicting game where you hunt bears using some penguin-kamikazes. Penguins get upgraded too as you advance through the levels.

Crazy Penguin Catapult
The Quadrapop is very similar to Tetris, this time with some colorful creatures instead of bricks.

Quadrapop

Final words

Rethink and renew is what Sony Ericsson are quite keen to do and the Aino is among the agents of change. Perhaps it doesn't have a stronger case for innovation than the Satio and the X10, but staying in touch with history is just as important. Obviously, part of Aino's responsibility is to carry on a tradition of feature phone excellence that climaxed in the Sony Ericsson C905 and W995.

Sony Ericsson C905 • Sony Ericsson W995 (Hikaru)
Cybershot and Walkman are still magic words in the world of mobile phones. And Sony Ericsson continue to exploit that sort of in-house cross branding. But this time it's PlayStation making hype around the new wave of Sony Ericsson handsets.
In all fairness though, Aino's PS3 connectivity is really making hype rather than making a mark. The Touch Media menu fails to really give it a big boost either. Good for the Aino that the standard Sony Ericsson UI is at its usual best. By the way, we cannot help the thought that some degree of touch may just not be inventive and advantageous enough. Especially against a couple of competitors that offer full touchscreens in the same form factor.
The Samsung S8300 UltraTOUCH doesn't have as complete a feature set as the Aino - WLAN is the most prominent omission. However, its camera is little short of perfect and D1 video recording with yet unsurpassed quality makes it a must-consider if imaging is high on your priority list. Not least, it's a full touch phone and Samsung's TouchWiz simply laughs in the face of Aino's Touch Media.

Samsung S8300 UltraTOUCH • Sony Ericsson Aino vs. Samsung S8300 UltraTOUCH size comparison
With a body to die for and absolutely unique transparent keypad, the LG Crystal is sure to claim some of the Aino's market. S-class full-touch UI, a WVGA screen and top of the line video and still photography give the Crystal quite a punch. The mix of skill and unrivaled styling are not to be underestimated.

LG GD900 Crystal• Sony Ericsson Aino vs. LG GD900 Crystal size comparison
Let's not forget though that - among other things - the Aino is a cameraphone. The 8 megapixel shooter is complete with geotagging, touch-focus and face detection. More importantly though, it has the image quality to stand up to some worthy rivals.

Sony Ericsson C905 • Nokia N86 8MP • Samsung M8800 Pixon • LG GC900 Viewty Smart
Sony Ericsson Aino is styled to get noticed. If nothing else - the PS3 remote play and Touch Media will add to the buzz. And Sony Ericsson do need all the hype these days - to give their new wave of gadgets a flying start.
The Aino follows in the footsteps of the C905 and W995 but tries to play its own game. The complete feature list, the PMP skill and styling and the great set of accessories are tempting enough. There are things we didn't like of course. The touch thing is perhaps not the best they could do. And while the standard interface makes up for that most of the time, the limited touch control does an otherwise excellent camera no favor.
So, the Aino is far from perfect as a phone. But we're tempted to look at it as a promise of what to expect of Sony Ericsson in terms of high-end non-smartphones. Whether they go for extended and polished PlayStation connectivity or full-touch feature phones - we'd be happy either way. Hope they do.

Sony Ericsson Aino review: I know fun - Web browser, organizer and apps

2010-02-02T01:21:00.002+07:00

Web browser

The web browser preinstalled on the Aino is the same as Yari's - an updated version of the popular NetFront 3.5 mobile browser. It offers a much smoother experience than before and renders web pages more quickly. Almost every time it nails the zoom level for comfortable reading.
Plenty of shortcuts arranged in a tree structure are listed on the homescreen, right under a search and an address bar. They grant access to free content, such as clips, tracks and games on the Sony Ericsson site, including a step-by-step guide for setting up email accounts or internet connections. The appearance of the home screen changes to a different bright color each time you start the browser too.

The extended home screen is a nice touch on the latest Sony Ericsson phones
Equipped with a mouse pointer, the new NetFront 3.5 web browser always operates in fullscreen mode and the four most important features are easily accessible on a toolbar - mini-map, enter an address, favorites and downloads.

Sony Ericsson Aino web browser
Additionally, we found some other features as well such as mark-and-copy, allowing you to copy text off web pages.
There is also automatic RSS finder. If you browse an RSS enables site, a small RSS icon will appear. If you click there you can access all the available RSS feeds.

Smart-Fit on • Automatic RSS
We really liked the simple web browser user interface. What we really miss though is touch support. With a capacitive screen on board the lack of touch capabilities is a shame. We'll say it again - the Opera mini was a joy to use on the touchscreen and it's just a third-party app we snatched off the web. It couldn't have been too hard for Sony Ericsson to do something about giving users better browsing options. As things are, the Aino creates a dilemma rather than a choice.

The Opera Mini works on the Aino's touchscreen
Another thing missing on the Aino is Flash support.

Organizer and apps

The Sony Ericsson Aino offers a wide range of time-management features. The Calendar offers monthly, weekly and daily views. When you add a birth date in the phonebook, the phone prompts adding it to the calendar. The to-do application allows storing of two types of tasks: simple Tasks and Phone calls. Notes are written similar to messages and the T9 dictionary can be used here as well.

The traditional Organizer with its apps • Calendar
There are two eye-candy additions to the calendar app. The first one is that the main menu icon shows the actual date, just like the iPhone UI. The other is available thanks to the bigger screen - every month of the year has its own cartoon background with seasonal motives.

Different cartoons are available for every month
The Alarms are part of the main menu and there are five alarm slots available. Each one offers a lot of options - you can choose to repeat the alarm on chosen days of the week or everyday. Text and a picture can be added to the alarm. Furthermore, the alarm's behavior can be defined in case the time it is due to go off comes while the phone is in silent mode.

The well-known alarm
The Calculator is the regular Sony Ericsson app. It offers the basic functions, no bells and whistles, but you can run the Converter from there. The stopwatch and countdown timer are also the familiar basic applications. The Voice recorder has no limit to recording length, making the available free memory the only restriction.

Calculator • Stopwatch • Timer • Converter
You can use the LED flash as a flashlight thanks to the Torch app.

Torch app
As for the additional applications, Sony Ericsson Aino comes with AccuWeather, Bluetooth Robot, YouTube, Music Quiz and Photo Mate.
Photo Mate offers help and practical tips for getting the most out of your camera.
The Music Quiz is exactly what its name says - you have to name the title, artist, album or year of release of random tracks in your music library. Long story short: a part of a song is played each round and you have 5 to 30 seconds to guess.
As far as the Bluetooth Robot is concerned, it's a very basic app that you can assign as wallpaper. It has no menus and options, its sole purpose perhaps to detect and display available Bluetooth-enabled devices in the vicinity.

Photo Mate • Music Quiz • Bluetooth Robot
The AccuWeather application gives you up-to-date weather information for locations of interest. Current conditions overview and a three day forecast are available for a great number of cities around the world. You should bear in mind that the data is downloaded in real time and data charges apply. Not that we can think of any other way for the application to work but we still feel a warning is due.
You have 9 available slots, where you can assign different cities. Then you have five different weather information tabs - general, five-day forecast, two-week forecast and more.

AccuWeather in action

Sony Ericsson Aino review: I know fun - Camera, connectivity

2010-02-02T01:19:00.001+07:00

Excellent image quality for a camera with no settings

As you should already know by now, the Sony Ericsson Aino has a 8 megapixel camera capable of producing images with maximum resolution of 3264 x 2448 pixels. The handset is equipped with a LED flash. The camera interface relies solely on touch - this should be enough to tell you not to expect anything fancy. We just saw how basic Touch Media is compared to the full-featured Media Center.
The Aino has a dedicated shutter key and it can fire up the camera of course - but only when the slider is closed.
Interface
So, the camera interface hardly had any other options than simplicity. Upon startup it displays a large icon (camera or filmstrip) to indicate the selected capture mode.
There is a simple settings toolbar at the bottom and some extra controls in the two upper corners. From the upper left corner you can change shooting mode, while on the right you'll find the exit key.
The settings toolbar is hidden by default. It only gets activated by touching the dedicated settings icon at the bottom of the screen. The toolbar holds a few basic camera controls - scenes, focus mode, flash, self-timer, image resolution and geo-tagging.

Camera interface
As to the rest of the settings, there are none. You can't even change the default storage setting - it is the microSD card if available or the inbuilt memory if no card is inserted. We are sure Sony Ericsson made that to simplify the touch-only interface, but a toolbar with some advanced settings would have surely been appreciated.
Image quality
The Sony Ericsson Aino camera image quality is splendid. The amount of resolved detail is among the best we've seen in an 8 megapixel cameraphone and noise levels are nicely under control. The colors are absolutely pleasing and contrast is spot on to give photos quite a punch.
We are really pleased that Sony Ericsson upped their game, notably improving the processing algorithm over the W995. The Aino should be one of the first handsets to check out if you are looking for a capable 8 megapixel cameraphone. Just bear in mind that the image saving can sometimes be a bit too slow.

Sony Ericsson Aino camera samples
Synthetic resolution
We also snapped our resolution chart with the Sony Ericsson Aino. You can check out what that test is all about here.

Sony Ericsson Aino resolution chart photo • 100% crops
Video recording
The Sony Ericsson Aino is also capable of capturing video - and it's VGA@30fps we're talking about here. The LED flash is usable in the video recording. The clips are recorded in 3gp format and take about 3 MB for every minute of recording.
The captured videos aren't as impressive as the photos, but still meet the pass mark. The resolved detail is not as much as we hoped and there are some duplicated frames, but considering how bad is the recent LG BL40 New Chocolate, the Aino is well within reasonable lines. We suppose we can even go as far as saying it's on par with what Nokia Nseries offer. Still, the Samsung S8300 remains our favorite when it comes to regular video recording (we're not talking HD here).
Here is a sample video for you to check out.

Camcorder interface

Extra packed connectivity

Sony Ericsson Aino is well versed in connectivity - all contemporary means of data transfer are supported.
Starting with the basics, there's quad-band GSM and EDGE support, as well as 3G network compatibility. The Aino has tri-band 850/900/2100 MHz support for worldwide coverage, as well as a tri-band American version at 850/1900/2100 MHz. Data speeds are quite high with 7.2Mbps HSDPA and 2Mbps HSUPA.
Local connectivity offers the obligatory Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP. Aino also comes with Wi-Fi, which includes DLNA support. Oh, and there's the wired connectivity, which unfortunately makes use of only the proprietary Fast Port connector.
Sony Ericsson have recently adopted the microSD card standard making it THE standard for GSM mobile phones. The card slot on the Aino is hot-swappable, but not easily accessible - it's hidden under the battery cover. It supports cards with a capacity of up to 16GB (it comes with an 8GB card in the box), which is more free space than we've ever needed.
Remote Play is the thing that makes the Aino so popular. The Remote Play compatibility is limited to PlayStation 3 only - there's no support for earlier versions.
Once connected to the PS3, you can stream some of your PS3 media directly to the Aino. You can browse pictures, listen to music and watch videos, which are stored on your console, or download them off the PlayStation Store. Even more - you can control the PlayStation 3 Home menu with your phone, without the need of a Sony PS3 controller.

The Remote Play app
Finally the Media Home app uses the DLNA capabilities of the Aino to share its media with other DLNA-enabled devices such as phones, home players or TV via Wi-Fi.

Media Home

Sony Ericsson Aino review: I know fun - Multimedia, gallery, players, Fm radio. audio quality

2010-02-02T01:18:00.002+07:00

Good old Media Center

Sony Ericsson Aino, just like most of its siblings, also runs the flash-based Media Center, which easily puts the basic Touch Media menu to shame. The Media Center is the launch pad to Imaging, Music, Video, Games and RSS feeds. Its settings menu is simple - you may opt for portrait, landscape or auto-rotate modes.

The old media menu
Image gallery
The Photo gallery stores the shots you've taken, along with prebundled or uploaded images, and offers some extra options like mark as favorite and photo feed. Latest Photo provides quick access to the most recent photos. Camera Album is a thumb list for each month of the year and when a month is open, it reveals a 3 x 4 grid of photo thumbs.
Scrolling down shows all the photos taken in the corresponding month with the highlighted photo slightly enlarged for better viewing.
The Pictures section again opens as a 3 x 5 grid of thumbs with non-camera images such as the preinstalled wallpapers. When exiting the fullscreen view of a picture, it smoothly zooms out to thumb view.

The familiar image gallery
Generally, the Photo gallery is a richly-featured tool for managing your photo collection and it offers very good customization capabilities. Photo Tags displays previously marked favorite photos. The sending options include Send as Picture Msg, as Email or through Bluetooth.
Other than that, you can set a photo as wallpaper, screen saver, startup screen, and contact picture straight from the gallery. The well known Pan and Zoom and slideshow features are also on board.
Finally, the Aino has geotagging enabled using Cell-ID - the phone has a GPS receiver too. When browsing tagged images in the gallery, the View-on-map option displays the location where the picture was taken directly on the preinstalled Google Maps.
Accordingly, picture browsing via the classic file manager is still possible, but we are sure only few users will make use of it.

The gallery through the file manager is still available
Music player
Much like the Sony Ericsson Yari and W995, the Aino comes with the latest Walkman player 4.0. It definitely looks the part - especially on a screen that big. You will find the new graphical styles here as well - tape recorders, gramophones, CD players - it's all part of the game of making the Walkman player more attractive.

The Walkman player
Video player
The video player in the media center supports fast-forwarding and rewinding, and the interface is simple and stylish. The video files are accessible via the file manager too. Other extras include fullscreen mode and subtitle support, but we can't confirm the compatible formats.

Video player in the Media Center
There's no XviD or DivX support of course, but according to Sony Ericsson, their MediaGo desktop software is enough to transfer any video from a computer to the handset in the correct format and resolution that the phone supports.
Our review of the desktop application proved it does the job alright, but there's still more to wish for.
Back to our Aino now, the Media center video section also houses the pre-installed YouTube client. It gives you full access to clips and uploading, bookmarked favorites and so on.

YouTube is integrated in the Media Center

FM radio with RDS and TrackID

The other FM radio app of Sony Ericsson Aino is found in the Entartainment menu and has memory for 20 stations and supports RDS. It has a nice interface and makes great use of the TrackID music recognition service. The radio can be minimized in the background much like the music player but offers none of the fancy fullscreen graphics the player does.

FM radio interface
TrackID is accessible through its original location in the entertainment menu. The service interface comes with the same expanded features that we first saw on C902 - "Find similar music", "Send music info via SMS", "TrackID charts" and a very extensive "Artist info" section.
TrackID also offers the online search option. It allows fast search in the entire database for artist, album, title, and lyrics.

Top-notch audio quality, but imperfect adapter

The Sony Ericsson Aino audio quality is near perfect with spot-on frequency response and no real weak spots.
While no specific area of the Aino performance (except for the frequency response) is record-breaking they are all good enough to provide great sonic experience. There's just a tiny bit more intermodulation distortion than the best in class but nothing that the large portion of the users can hear anyway.
The only downside of the Aino audio output is the less-than-perfect wireless headset, probably limited by the Bluetooth technology. When it comes into play the stereocrosstalk basically doubles and so do the distortions. The dynamic range also gets reduced TO make the Aino's audio quality just average.
In other words another handsfree (wired at that) should be a top priority of audiophiles who end up buying the Aino.

Test	Frequency response	Noise level	Dynamic range	THD	IMD + Noise	Stereo crosstalk
Sony Ericsson Aino	+0.03, -0.15	-81.4	81.2	0.0045	0.157	-80.2
Sony Ericsson Aino (bluetooth headset)	+0.04, -0.40	-82.3	75.2	0.022	0.308	-39.7
Sony Ericsson W995	+0.04, -0.40	-89.1	89.0	0.0033	0.048	-88.7
Apple iPhone 3GS	+0.01, -0.05	-92.1	92.1	0.0035	0.011	-95.0
Samsung S8300 UltraTOUCH	+0.68, -6.17	-67.7	63.2	0.033	0.271	-67.6
Nokia N86 8MP	+0.04, -0.32	-91.0	90.8	0.0064	0.870	-89.1
Samsung M8800 Pixon	+0.54, -1.25	-86.4	85.7	0.0048	0.0165	-38.3
Sony Ericsson Satio	+3.19, -2.91	-84.2	80.9	0.0034	0.148	-84.1

Sony Ericsson Aino vs Apple iPhone 3GS frequency response graphs

Sony Ericsson Aino review: I know fun - Touch user interface

2010-02-02T01:16:00.001+07:00

Touch and non-touch media don't really mix that well

The Sony Ericsson Aino is a media-centric slider, which doesn't differ much from high-end Sony Ericsson feature phones. But it's also a touchscreen device and gives users the extra option of handling media by touch. Keeping options open is always welcome and yes, we did think at first, that touch could be a nice bonus. Touchscreen is king on today's market but you'll never hear us say the Aino would've been better off if it was a full-touch device. But to be perfectly honest, touch could've been better implemented.
And before we start the tour, let us warn you about one of the biggest faults of the Touch Media application - the abysmal refresh rates. Every time you swap memory cards, the Aino's Touch Media will take about ten minutes to update its library. This isn't the case at all in the non-touch Media Center. And things get even uglier: without a memory card inserted it still takes 10 minutes to refresh the inbuilt memory, which isn't nearly as big.
But before we get to our UI description, you may want to check our demo video.

The new media menu is accessible only when the keypad is closed. It consists of five icons - camera, gallery, music, video and FM radio. There is no back button in the media menu. If you want to go back in the menus, you must touch on a blank spot on the screen. It's an obvious attempt of Sony Ericsson to keep the styling of icons and menus consistent across their product range - from phones to gaming consoles.

The new media menu
The camera icon throws you directly into the viewfinder. The gallery gives you access to all the images on the handset: albums are displayed by default in timeline view. Thanks to the capacitive screen, browsing thumbs is very smooth and fast. Tapping on any of the thumbs will open the selected picture full screen. Scrolling full-screen images with finger sweeps is very fluid too. Still, the touch gallery is nothing revolutionary. There's no kinetic scrolling and multi-touch support - even if it's a capacitive screen.
There are four available options in full screen view - send, edit, zoom and delete. Zooming is nicely done by a dedicated virtual zoom bar at the bottom of the screen, but it's really slow.

The image gallery • Viewing a picture • Zooming
The music section has one sub-menu with four buttons - Resume, Newly Added, Albums and Playlists. As you may have guessed - the last two have their own sub-menus in turn, with album icons or various playlists.

The music menu • Album menu
The video section has similar layout as the music department - the available options here are Resume, Newly Added, Videos and Camera album.

The video menu
The touch audio and video players look almost the same. There are three standard control buttons - previous, next and play/pause. The video player has also send and delete as additional options.

Selecting a song from an album • the music player

The touch video player
While the music player is running and the screen is locked an indicating red line appears at the bottom. If you touch there, the media controls will appear for a while, which is quite handy.

The red line at the bottom • The palyer controls on the locked screen
The FM radio has new touch optimized user interface and looks very good. Frankly, it may well be the best UI among mobile FM receivers.
There is an interesting thing to note about the FM receiver. It's embedded directly into the Bluetooth handsfree, not in the handset itself. This is quite handy, as you don't need anything plugged into the phone.

The FM radio

Sony Ericsson Aino review: I know fun - Phonebook, telephony, messaging

2010-02-02T01:13:00.001+07:00

Phonebook has no changes

The phonebook has space for 1000 contacts and 7000 numbers. You can choose to view contacts in the phone memory or on SIM, but not both. Either way you can set up the phone to autosave to SIM all contacts that are being saved to the phone memory. You can also back up the entire contact list on the memory card and restore it from there.

The Sony Ericsson Aino phonebook
Editing a contact employs a tabbed interface that's been heavily used on Sony Ericsson handsets in the past couple of years. There are five tabs that group related contact details. The first tab is for names and numbers, next up is web addresses such as e-mails and URLs. The third tab is for storing a picture, a custom ringtone, group, message tone and voice command, the fourth is for postal details and - finally - the fifth has fields for a note and a birthday (which you can add to the Calendar too).

Tabs keep things in order
The name of the contact is written in only one field, but you still have the option to order contacts by first or last name. The phone guesses which is which and it does it quite well. Naturally, you can search the contacts by gradual typing.

Wireless telephony is a nice option

Handling of calls is excellent and we didn't experience any voice quality or reception problems with the Sony Ericsson Aino. Call clarity is great in both the earpiece and speakerphone.
If you prefer to use the Bluetooth headset, you might have some trouble finding the right place to clip it. The microphone placement on the Bluetooth remote is not perfect and it may not always pick up your voice right. But once you discover the best position you'll have no further problems. The reception is good, you can go up to four or five meters away from the handset without signal loss. The voice quality is very good, so nothing to worry here either.
Sony Ericsson Aino offers video calling, but since there is no front-facing videocall camera, it's more like video sharing - meaning that you can see the other party on your display but you can only share what your rear-facing primary camera "sees".
Smart dialing or "Smart Search" as Sony Ericsson call it, is a great boost to usability. It looks up contacts whose numbers contain the digits you have typed or whose names begin with the corresponding letters.

Smart dialing makes life easier • Call log • Making a call
The tabbed Call Log application should be familiar too if you've used a fairly recent Sony Ericsson handset. It displays in four tabs, including All, Answered (Received), Dialed and Missed. When there are several calls made to or from a single contact, only the last one gets displayed.
We did our traditional speakerphone test with Sony Ericsson Aino. The maximum volume was a bit disappointing and the device scored barely made it past the good mark.
Usually a Good mark in our test guarantees OK ringing volume levels. However we noticed that the music player playback volume is subjectively lower than the one from the ringer on incoming calls. So just bear that in mind if you'd like to use the Aino as a portable jukebox - it will barely cut it.
Here is how it compares to some of the other handsets we have tested. You can find information on the actual testing process, along with the full list of tested devices here.

Speakerphone test	Voice, dB	Pink noise/ Music, dB	Ringing phone, dB	Overall score
Sony Ericsson C905	65.7	66.1	73.8	Average
Sony Ericsson W995	66.1	66.6	75.7	Average
Sony Ericsson Aino	66.5	66.2	75.9	Good
Samsung S8300 UltraTOUCH	70.1	66.7	75.8	Good
LG GD900 Crystal	73.2	71.6	73.5	Good
Samsung M8910 Pixon12	75.7	72.8	77.3	Very Good
HTC Touch HD	77,7	73,7	76,7	Excellent

Perfect messaging

Typical of the latest Sony Ericsson phones, the Aino sports the threaded message view. SMS to and from a certain contact is organized in speech bubbles much like in an instant messenger.
Switching between the conversation-style layout and the regular Inbox is only a matter of toggling a tab.
Another interesting fact is that if you get a reply while you're still in the thread, it will be automatically added to the conversation, instead of appearing as an alert on the home screen.

The the messaging department
Along with the standard messaging functionality, Sony Ericsson Aino offers the proprietary Manage Messages feature, plenty of settings for accounts and the option to assign categories to messages.
The Manage Messages application enhances message handling. Messages can be moved to memory card or phone memory, arranged by categories, date, size, and contact. Categories also allow quick and comfortable sorting of messages with separate folders.
There is also a rich T9 dictionary. The SMS and MMS messages share an editor; when typing SMS you can easily convert it into an MMS via the options menu or using the attach-stuff toolbar below the text box to insert images, animations, videos or sounds.

Converting an SMS into a MMS is just as easy as it gets
The phone automatically downloaded the settings for our Gmail account. The options to view messages full screen and change font size really helped get a lot of text on the screen. Even at the smallest font setting text remained legible.

The comfortable e-mail client with some of the options
For email you get the Manage Email feature, which has the same functionality as the one for text messages. Saving attachments is problem-free, even if the phone doesn't recognize the file type.
Unfortunately, the Sony Ericsson Aino (much like all other Sony Ericsson feature phones) can't preview any documents including the ones attached to emails (such as .xls, .doc, or .pdf files for example) due to the lack of any document reader.

Sony Ericsson Aino review: I know fun - Desk stand and headset, User interface

2010-02-02T01:11:00.001+07:00

Desk stand and headset - a great addition

The desk stand and the headset are great and they mean more bang for your buck (and some buck it is). Very few phones come with a wireless headset, most opt for a wired one, and desktop cradles are very rare.
If we have to describe the headset in one word, that word would be "awesome". It may sound too much for a tiny tube of black and white plastic (about 6 cm in length) but this thing does nearly everything you'd need to be in charge of your music or calls. On top there's a 3.5 mm audio jack, the bottom features the charger port, which connects to the docking stand, and the power button.
The front of the Bluetooth headset is actually semi-translucent and reveals four multi-colored LEDs, which offer basic visual feedback. For example, a single click on the power button flashes a number of lights corresponding to the available battery charge.

The headset viewed from all sides
The headset is a full-featured remote control. The Call button on the front can do voice dialing, accept and reject calls (it's even enabled for call-waiting). The playback controls on the side include skip tracks (or fast-forward/ rewind upon a press-and-hold) and a play/pause button. The mic hole is just above the call button.
The volume control is on the opposite side and it's touch sensitive - slide your finger towards the plus sign to turn the music up or towards the minus sign to turn it down. The LEDs automatically appear to visualize the volume bar.
Interestingly, the headset also acts as an antenna for the FM Radio on the Aino, so no worries, you don't need to connect an extra pair of headphones just to listen to the radio.
Now for the only gripe with the headset - whenever you have music playing, the LEDs pulse to the rhythm. We would've liked an option to turn them off. We don't quite fancy wearing Christmas decoration all the time.
If the wireless headset's battery dies you can't unplug the headphones from the remote and jack them into the phone itself. Not in the Fast Port at least. And there's no 3.5mm jack as well.
We gotta admit that the range of this thing is exemplary - its A2DP streaming connection ran happily over a distance of more than 5 meters, which included 2-3 solid walls. Now we don't specialize in Bluetooth headsets, so take our words with a pinch of salt, but we've never seen another Bluetooth headset go as far as that one without serious sound interferences.
The Aino and its magical wireless headset didn't stay in our hands long enough for a proper battery test. We left the headset playing music at the highest volume for 2 hours and made a couple of phone calls all through the headset and its battery charge indicator went down a single notch. It may last 5 or 6 hours but we'd recommend you dock it in overnight to make sure it doesn't run out of juice right in the middle of a busy day.
Another wireless headset that pulls off radio stunt is the MW600 and it’s even cooler. It tops the one that comes with the Aino (model number MH100) with an LCD screen. Strangely, the list of compatible handsets includes only low end phones and the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 - the Aino isn’t listed for some reason.
The Aino desk stand is mostly covered in plastic matching that of the phone itself - that means it's black or white, depending on which color version you bought. At the bottom there's a very discreet Sony Ericsson logo.

The desk stand could have been better
In the left part of the cradle, there's a Fast Port - this is where the Aino goes - and on the right is the power plug for the headset. The bottom has four rubber studs, which hold the stand in place. It can charge both the Aino and the headset at the same time and it holds the phone in landscape mode - ideal for viewing video and photos.
Well, not quite. The Fast port is the only physical connection of the phone to the cradle and we gotta say it gives it quite some wobbles when you touch it.
Though they felt almost like they're going to break any moment, the projecting legs of the cradle plug managed to survive operation with the docked Aino. Certainly the sensitivity of the touchscreen did help to an extent, allowing for applying little or even no pressure on the screen at all.
The real issue is the limited functionality of the Touch menu - it can't even start a proper slideshow so the Aino can serve as a picture frame. At least, when docked, you can use the phone as a nightstand clock
On the back of the cradle there are not one but two Fast Ports - one for charging, the other for USB connection. They are not interchangeable and can't carry sound through. A jack for external speakers would have been nice too, but we guess the wireless headset can handle that well enough.

User interface: to touch or not to touch

The Sony Ericsson Aino is blessed with the ambiguous gift of touch. We say ambiguous, as it's definitely got the hardware to support it, but it only works in landscape mode within a limited multimedia menu (well, with the only exception of some touch-enabled Java apps). This touch menu grants access to multimedia features such as gallery, music, video and FM radio, and it's also the only means to operate the camera.
Leaving this brand new touch menu aside, the Aino interface is the regular Sony Ericsson feature phone UI used in most of the company's top handsets. You can only navigate around it using the D-pad on the keyboard - touch doesn't work here. The only exception is when you install a touch enabled Java application (Opera Mini in our case), which seemed to work like a charm with the Aino touch system even in portrait mode and had its own virtual QWERTY keyboard.
But even without that extra touch functionality, there are a few other tweaks to set the new-wave Aino apart from the elderly C901 and W995.
The user interface is Flash-based, all the visual eye-candy implied. Let's just say that it's hard to find a better looking or more customizable feature phone interface than Sony Ericsson's - especially now that it has just been updated again. The Aino uses even more animations and 3D backgrounds than any other previous handset of the house.
The standby screen is arranged in the usual manner with information on top indicating signal strength, currently used data carrier, active connections and battery status. At the bottom of the display, just above the context keys are their labels.

The well-known Sony Ericsson home screen
The options for the menu layout are the standard foursome - theme-dependent, 3 x 4 grid of icons, rotating view and single icon view.

Setting up the menu layout
The rotating view features three animated front icons on the display, the center one showing the active selection. The other two icons are half-hidden, just as an indication of what comes next. Five other menu icons can be seen in the dim background.
The icon view displays a single icon at a time and a vertical bar featuring tiny pictograms for the other main menu entries. Neither of those view modes works with shortcut keys. Only the Grid view allows quick numeric keypad access.

The alternative main menu layouts
The well-known Activity menu offers quick access to a user-defined list of favorite features, web, recent events and, of course, the Running Apps tab that takes care of multitasking.

The Activity menu is among the best examples of feature phone multitasking
The interface is visually appealing and snappy. Auto rotation is enabled in the Media Center and is generally quite responsive. That goes for the stock media menu, of course. The new touch media menu works in landscape only and rotation is not an option.
Sony Ericsson Aino supports Flash Lite themes, which change the color scheme and wallpaper. Our handset has two themes preinstalled: Clarity and Unlimited. The latter is specially designed for the Aino.

Unlimited and Clarity themes
Sony Ericsson handsets have an extra option for their wallpaper - you can use an application as background instead of an actual image. Of course you can't just use any application - the choice is limited to a few apps. In the Aino it's just one actually and near useless - the Bluetooth Robot.
The touch-controlled parts of the interface are all media-related, so they'll be covered later in the review

Sony Ericsson Aino review: I know fun - Unboxing, 360-degree spin, Design and construction

2010-02-02T01:08:00.001+07:00

Unboxing the Aino - a bag full of goodies

The retail package of the Sony Ericsson Aino is one of the richest we've seen - there's a wireless Bluetooth headset with a 3.5mm audio jack, headphones to match and a desktop docking cradle included. These two are easily one of the biggest selling points of the Aino so a dedicated chapter is well in order. The prebundled 8GB microSD card is quite a treat too.

A whole lot of goodies in the box
The rest is the standard fare - a charger, a Fast Port to USB cable, and manuals. The software you need to connect the Aino to a computer is preloaded on the microSD card and you're prompted to install it when you connect the phone, so that's easy peasy.

Sony Ericsson Aino 360-degree spin

The Aino display is 3 inches wide and sports the somewhat peculiar WQVGA resolution of 432 x 240 pixels. We don't remember seeing such a rare pixel count since the Samsung F490, which we reviewed a long time ago.

Design and construction

The closed Sony Ericsson Aino instantly creates the impression of a full touch device. The smooth simplistic front and the relative slimness do make the slide-out keyboard quite unexpected.
The truth however is Sony Ericsson Aino does have touchscreen capabilities but those are only limited to a few multimedia parts of the menu. Not that we haven't seen a similar approach before - the LG KF750 Secret had the same semi-touch multimedia thing going on.

Sony Ericsson Aino is an eccentric slider
The Aino front is mainly occupied by the large 3" display and a bunch of sensors located in the vicinity (some of them are hidden in the earpiece). The screen sunlight legibility is quite good.
As far as picture quality is concerned, the Sony Ericsson Aino performs decently but the resolution is on the low side for a 3" display. It's barely more than the typical WQVGA used in affordable touch phones with the same screen size, and Aino is set well above that category. Still, the screen has near 16:9 aspect ratio, which means movies and TV shows will make the best use of its real estate.

The touchscreen display sports the peculiar 432 x 240 pixel resolution • the sensors are on top
The touchscreen capabilities are centered on a new and specially designed multimedia menu, which has nicely thumb-optimized icons. It's a capacitive screen actually - nicely responsive to ensure fluid navigation.
Opening the slider reveals a whole bunch of keys and turns the Aino into an incredibly tall handset.
The dedicated Call and End knobs are crammed between the soft keys and the Activity menu and C key, but they are still large enough and easy to hit. The soft keys are slightly raised but perhaps too tiny, which makes them a little hard to use.

There is quite a lot going on down there
The alphanumeric keypad of the Sony Ericsson Aino is using a waved layout but is somewhat rigid, much like the navigation keys above.
The Sony Ericsson Aino has its Fast Port on the left side - it's high time Sony Ericsson drop it and moved on to more standardized ports such as microUSB. But we guess that time will come sooner or later with Sony Ericsson scheduled to implement it in 2010.
It's good that the supplied wireless headset does well to at least partly address the problem.

Yet another FastPort from Sony Ericsson
The volume rocker (which also doubles as a zoom lever) and the camera button are on the opposite side. Those are both comfortable to use and do not ruin the user experience.

No complaints with the shutter key and volume rocker
The microphone pinhole and (quite surprisingly) the loudspeaker grill are at the bottom of the Sony Ericsson Aino. It's pretty strange for Sony Ericsson to claim the Aino is equipped with stereo speakers as the earpiece certainly doesn't give out any sound.

The loudspeaker is next to the microphone
The only control on top of the handset is the lock key. It only works when the handset is closed and serves to lock and unlock the touchscreen.

There's a single Lock key at the top
The backside is neat and simple with the 8 megapixel camera lens and the LED flash at its top left corner. The camera lens has no cover, most probably to reduce the handset's thickness, but that makes getting it scratched a pretty probable scenario.

The Sony Ericsson Aino rear: neat looks and a powerful shooter
The Sony Ericsson Aino draws its power from a 1000 mAh Li-Po battery. The official numbers put the battery life at 300 hours of standby and eight and a half hours of talk time.

The choice of battery is standard for a feature phone, but is it good enough for touchscreen
The microSD card slot is under the battery cover too. It's still hot-swappable though even if you have to remove the rear panel every time.

Sony Ericsson Aino held in hand
The Aino handles nicely and has a solid feel without being too heavy. The sloping edges top and bottom make it quite comfortable to hold - especially given the landscape position in which the touch media is exclusively used.
The capacitive screen is very responsive, the slider action smooth. The keypad is big enough, but the actual key press could've been better. Overall, the handset feels quite solid and durable, never mind the all-plastic build.
The white version we tested looks quite inviting. An unusual paintjob runs the risk of putting users off but this isn't the case with the Aino.
By the way, we can't help but remember the old saying that anything new is long forgotten old. The Aino did evoke memories of the O2 Cocoon - we're not sure if it was the white finish or the docking cradle. Anyway, the Cocoon is minor league stuff compared to the Aino but it did have some style.

Sony Ericsson Aino review: I know fun - Introduction

2010-02-02T01:06:00.001+07:00

Introduction

Sony Ericsson are on the move recently and the Aino is very much part of the agenda. But living in the shadow of the Satio and X10 is not much fun we guess. So, the Sony Ericsson Aino is keen to live a double life. At first glance, it's a touchscreen PMP, but on a second look it's a regular slider phone with an extra big screen. It's not the ultimate PlayStation phone but it does have Remote Play, to wirelessly pair with Sony's PlayStation 3.

Sony Ericsson Aino official photos
As far as feature phones go, the Aino has pretty much everything - excellent connectivity, full-featured navigation, a great camera, plenty of internal storage and a simple-but-snappy touch media menu.
By the way, don't let anyone tell you touchscreen functionality is limited to the proprietary Sony Ericsson multimedia menu. We were pleasantly surprised with Opera Mini, which seemed to quite agree with the Aino touch system. Touchscreen navigation is all there and it performed very smoothly. This means touch controlled Java games might work as well.
All right, this was just a single little secret revealed. Let's take a closer look at what else the Aino may be hiding there.

Key features

3" 16M-color capacitive touchscreen, 240 x 432 pixels
Quad-band GSM support
Tri-band 3G with 7.2Mbps HSDPA, 2Mbps HSUPA
8 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash; geotagging, touch-focus, face detection, image stabilization; VGA video recording @ 30fps
Some degree of touchscreen functionality - touch-enabled media and camera interface
Touch works in Java apps as well, e.g. Opera Mini
Built-in GPS receiver with A-GPS; Trial version of Wisepilot navigation software
Wi-Fi with DLNA
FM radio with RDS
Stereo Bluetooth 2.1
microSD card slot
Wireless Bluetooth headset with 3.5 mm audio jack and nice headphones, desktop docking station and 8GB microSD card in box
Remote play for Playstation 3

Main disadvantages

No standard USB port
No 3.5mm audio jack (but there's one on the Bluetooth headset)
Touch control is limited to camera, gallery, multimedia players and some Java apps
Media library updates very slowly in the touch media menu
No DivX/XviD support
No xenon flash
No camera lens cover

The box contents are a sweat deal too - the matching desk stand and wireless headset would fetch a pretty high price as a separate purchase, but with Aino they are part of the experience. And the 8GB microSD card in the box should be enough for most people.

Sony Ericsson Aino live shots
Uncomfortable questions start to emerge though - the Remote Play feature doesn't really do much more than DLNA and is useless with anything but PlayStation3. The touch functionality sounds great but not having it in the built-in browser sucks.
But asking these questions is missing the point. If you owned the original PlayStation, then upgraded to PlayStation 2 and have the 3rd version sitting next to your BRAVIA set, well this love letter in the shape of Sony Ericsson Aino is addressed to you.

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 preview: First look

2010-02-02T01:01:00.001+07:00

Introduction

With the X10 Sony Ericsson have gone from zero to hundred in a split second. While they may know their way around high-end devices, pulling off an undertaking such as the XPERIA X10 must have been a special challenge. And they have yet to get to the finish.

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 official photos
The thing is that Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 is the first Android smartphone by Sony Ericsson. It's also a Snapdragon first for the company, and they've even come up with a first of its kind proprietary Android UI. Making the X10 a reality seems like a long way full of potential pitfalls for a company that hasn't still recovered from its financial woes.
But the XPERIA X10 or Rachael, or X3, or whatever it has been called in the long months of development, seems like a device that's worth all the hard work.
Even more so, X10 will not be a solitary device but more of a high-flying start for a full-blown platform of Android devices with their own distinct interface and user experience. That kinda sounds familiar. A year and a half ago, we were again there listening to Sony Ericsson presenting the XPERIA X1 in much the similar words. Well, let's hope they'll have better luck with starting off and developing this new part of their portfolio this time.
We had the pleasure of attending a very limited press event held in London, at which Sony Ericsson presented their latest and greatest before they showcase it for the general public. Much like attending a press-only movie screener we had the opportunity to gather some first-hand impressions of what is probably going to be the Sony Ericsson flagship next year. But before making our first go at the XPERIA X10, let's recap its features.

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 at a glance:

General: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, UMTS 900/1900/2100 MHz, HSDPA, HSUPA

Form factor: Touchscreen bar phone

Dimensions: 119 x 63 x 13 mm, 135 g

Display: 4" 65K-color TFT capacitive touchscreen, 854 x 480 pixels

Platform: Qualcomm QSD8250 Snapdragon 1 GHz processor

OS: Android 1.6 (Donut)

Memory: 1GB storage, 256MB RAM, microSD card slot, 8GB card included in the retail box

Camera: 8 megapixel auto-focus camera with LED flash and face detection

Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, standard microUSB port, GPS receiver with A-GPS, 3.5mm audio jack

Misc: Sony Ericsson custom social networking and media UI, built-in accelerometer

There have been numerous leaks about the XPERIA X10 so chances are you already know most of those specs well enough. As to the few new ones, let us assure you that some of those came as a surprise to us as well.

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 presentation for the press
Take the Android OS version, for instance. Despite all the hopes for getting the latest and greatest of the Android crop, Sony Ericsson are serving a cold meal to all the gadget lovers out there. They refused to comment any further on the matter but perhaps all is not lost. Our best guess is they'll have some hard time adjusting their proprietary UI for Android 2.0 (Eclair) so they prefer to stick to 1.6 for the time being in an effort to get the XPERIA X10 out in the market as soon as possible.
And the current plans for the X10 availability say Q1 2010. Yup, missing the holiday season and shipping the handset during the tight-pocketed January and February is certainly the last thing they'd like to do, but proper product development obviously demands it.
Speaking of which, the Sony Ericsson X10 units presented at the event were devilishly fast in all Android tasks and applications, but the proprietary UI by Sony Ericsson clearly needed a lot more work.
But let's not waste any more time and jump into the physical details of the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10.

Design and construction

The XPERIA X10 is anything else but a compact handset - but that's expected in a device with a 4" display. Still, due to the curved edges, the phone feels extra thin despite the fact that a girth of 13mm is not ground-breaking (the Toshiba TG01 is 9.9mm).
The XPERIA X10 is also impressively light for its huge screen real estate, so much so that it feels almost plasticy. But don't let that sound bad, we really liked how the X10 felt and handled.
The XPERIA X10 is the second Android handset sporting a resolution of 854x480 pixels. Believe it or not, that resolution has been a set standard even before the X10 and the Motorola Droid/MILESTONE came to being. It's even got its own abbreviation FWVGA - short for Full Wide VGA, which simply denotes it's got pure 16:9 aspect ratio. That FWVGA resolution is actually quite common among widescreen multimedia projectors.
By the way, don't miss checking out the cool lockscreen on the second image below.

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10: a device with an extra large display, but with an extra thin waistline
The 8 megapixel camera lens is on the back of the XPERIA X10. There's also a tiny LED flash here, to keep the lens company. On the top of the device, there is a standard microUSB port, a 3.5mm audio jack and a huge on/off key.
Interestingly, that right there is the only the second Sony Ericsson handset to use a microUSB port (though there should be more to come in 2010). The first one was its XPERIA X2 cousin.
When asked, Sony Ericsson explained they've designed, constructed and manufactured the X10 from the ground up all by themselves and they're not relying on another company such as HTC to do the manufacturing this time.

Sony Ericson XPERIA X10: an 8 megapixel camera and a microUSB port on top
Obviously using Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 for web browsing will be a real treat. In fact there are a lot of websites that will fit into 848 pixels worth of width without having a side scrollbar. It almost feels as if next year we'll be seeing mobile phones matching the resolution of your regular netbook, doesn't it?

Browsing GSMArena.com on the 4-inch FWVGA display is a nice experience
You're welcome to jump over to the next page, where we'll give the Sony Ericsson Android UI a quick rundown coupled with some videos for an extra treat.

Hands-on video

While we have the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 covered on the next page, here's a low down of what the device all about.

Customized Android OS 1.6, but no multi-touch

The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 runs on the user-friendly Android 1.6 OS (codenamed Donut). Unfortunately, version 2.0 is still a no-go for the time being and there are no plans for an official upgrade to the latest version.
Another nasty surprise is that the OS won't be making use of multi-touch gestures such as pinch zooming in the web browser and gallery.
That being said, Sony Ericsson still had some impressive new UI all set on the Android phone and though it still needed a lot of polishing around the edges, it surely showed some nice potential.
Timescape is a user interface (or simply put - an application) that brings all your communications together. It gets activated by pressing the Timescape widget on the homescreen and displays an aggregated view of your SMS, MMS, email, missed calls, Facebook updates and Twitter updates all on one screen. A longer press on a tile lets you preview its content.

Sony Ericsson proprietary Timescape UI for XPERIA X10
You can easily filter the displayed stuff by event types or by contacts (strangely called Infinite view).
The following video we took should give you a good idea of what the Timescape UI is all about:

Customized Android OS 1.6, but no multi-touch (continued)

Quite similarly called, Mediascape gathers all your media together. Music photos and video each have a dedicated homescreen divided in two parts – local and online.

Sony Ericsson proprietary Mediascape UI for XPERIA X10
The following video we took should give you a good idea of what the Mediascape UI is all about:

Camera

A clever automatic face recognition system has been integrated in the images department as well, recognizing up to five faces in any image. Once you name each of those faces, it goes ahead and recognizes all its appearances in your phone gallery. What's even more, tapping on the face on any of those photos afterwards, allows you to call or text that person.
Sony Ericsson are also promising that the 8 megapixel camera on the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 will have all the features you would expect from a Cyber-shot cameraphone including, but not limited to, Face and smile detection and Touch focus.

Sony Ericson XPERIA X10 camera interface
We were unable to take any photos and videos with the XPERIA X10 during its official announcement but, luckily, we managed to find some nice camera samples (Thanks, Sony Ericsson!). However, don't forget that those have been shot with a pre-release unit (probably like the one we are now previewing) so don't be so picky and just enjoy them.

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 camera samples
The photos certainly look great for a pre-production unit. The amount of resolved detail is pretty satisfying, although not as impressive as it was on the Sony Ericsson Aino. We are pretty pleased with color saturation as well.
The noise levels are pretty decent with chroma (colored) noise almost nowhere to be seen on these shots.
The first three shots were probably taken with a different metering mode enabled as the handset tried to retain as much detail as possible, resulting in a flat and unrealistic image. While it will give you more headroom in post-processing we are pretty certain that most of the users would prefer the punchier output, witnessed in the last couple of shots.
When it comes to the video, it is recorded in WVGA 800 x 480 pixel resolution at almost 30 fps (about 28fps to be exact). And here you can download the full resolution sample itself.

Final words

Well, it's been nice to check out what Sony Ericsson have been up to lately. From what we see they certainly have been hard at work in the upper segment of their portfolio and we really like to think that they've been equaly hard laboring in the midrange behind closed doors. Anyways, the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 might as well be their magnum opus after a long period of setbacks and we really hope it will get them back on track. We quite enjoyed what we saw and we're looking forward to seeing some more once the X10 gets a more polished custom UI and more balanced performance. Hopefully, it should be out on the market some time in February.

(Source : gsmarena.com)

HTC Touch2 review: Beyond the basics

2010-02-02T00:04:00.001+07:00

Introduction

Affordable isn't the most common word in the HTC vocabulary but a company whose sole line of business is smartphones is not quite expected to speak the language of the masses. That said, we really need to define affordable first. It's what HTC Touch2 tries hard to be but… let's face it… doesn't get too close to. After all, there's little a PocketPC full of high-tech goodies can do about it.
But there's much a company needs to do to keep pace with an evolving market. HTC are busy updating their portfolio and the Touch2 is yet another in a growing line of sequels. Alright, it may be a small step for PocketPCs but a solid move for HTC in the midrange.
The launch of TouchFLO is a landmark but the original Touch will also be remembered perhaps as the first HTC device to actually have some exterior design and compactness. No offence, but prior to that PocketPC's were just big enough to get away with the lack of style.
Anyway, the Touch Viva and the Touch 3G followed soon after - near clones that tried to give PocketPC's mass appeal.

HTC Touch2 official photos
So, that means the HTC Touch2 will be trying to walk in three pairs of shoes and give the company some flexibility in the midrange. The newbie is smart, fast (in fact, surprisingly fast), compact, and friendly. The sharp contemporary looks are a definite asset but there's more than enough stuff under the hood to motivate upgraders too.

Key features

2.8" 65K-color QVGA display

Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional OS with TouchFLO

Qualcomm MSM7225 528MHz CPU and 256MB RAM

Quad-band GSM support

3G with HSDPA 7.2Mbps

Wi-Fi connectivity

Built-in GPS receiver with A-GPS support

Stereo FM radio with RDS

3 MP fixed focus camera

microSD card slot

Touch-sensitive zoom bar

Standard miniUSB port and Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP

Standard 3.5mm audio jack

Great audio quality

MS Office Mobile document editor

Opera 9.5 web browser

YouTube client, Facebook integration

Excellent video playback performance

Main disadvantages

Low-end display resolution

Camera lacks auto focus, flash, geotagging or a dedicated camera key

No accelerometer sensor

Poor screen sunlight legibility

Preloaded CoPilot Live navigation software is a trial version

No secondary video-call camera

No handwriting recognition

Actually, the real troublesome bit is screen estate. The QVGA 2.8-incher on the HTC Touch2 is so 2000-and-late - an unpleasant surprise in a phone that takes meticulous care to upgrade its predecessor. Less than the Cookie and on par with the Corby is hardly a compliment for a PocketPC, be it midrange. While the user interface is quite thumbable, the display does feel small at times and the stylus unavoidable.

HTC Touch2 live shots
At the end of the day though, the Touch2 seems to have enough to make up for this misfortune. And if size looks like an invitation to lower your expectations don't be too keen to take it. The Touch2 - among other things - is the first HTC phone to run Windows Mobile 6.5.

Keeping it slim and compact was a priority for the HTC Touch2
Even if sticking to the size limit was vital, HTC were quite generous with the equipment of the Touch2. From processing power to connectivity - the Touch2 is a solid and extensive upgrade. The smartphone runs the latest WinMo, packs Wi-Fi, HSDPA and an inbuilt GPS receiver. The fixed focus camera is not much of a perk but the standard 3.5mm audio jack will sure come in handy.
There is quite a lot to test so let's open the box and meet the handset in person. We're back after the jump with unboxing, design and construction. It's Touch2 time.

OK retail package, could've been better

The moderately-sized retail box is not exactly brimming with content but it has the basics. The wall charger, a software CD and a miniUSB cable to use with the charger or connect to a computer. In the box you'll also find a one-piece headset which isn't your only option though since the Touch2 is kind enough to offer a 3.5 mm jack.

The Touch2 unboxed
The only letdown here is the lack of a memory card in the package. HTC didn't bother enclose even a 1GB microSD so all you get for starters is what's left free of the 512MB system memory.

HTC Touch2 360-degree spin

The friendly size was one of the key assets of the original HTC Touch and the Touch2 follows suit, staying almost as compact as its predecessor. The biggest difference is in height. At 104mm, the Touch2 is visibly taller but it's thinner and narrower.
Anyway, it's a pocketable yet powerful handset, which weighs only 110g. And we shouldn't forget the added zoom bar and the couple of new buttons which are a boost to comfort and usability.

Design and construction

In terms of design, the Touch2 is really hard to call a sequel. So much has changed since the original Touch. The D-pad has been removed, new buttons have been added but the most noticeable difference is the touch-sensitive zoom bar, which debuted in another pair of sequels: the higher-ranking Diamond2 and Touch Pro2. The zoom bar can be used on images, web pages, messages, and doubles as a music control as well.

The new Touch looks much sharper than its predecessor
The new Touch2 will be available in three color versions - silver, black and brown. The variety of color combos may as well suggest HTC are preparing for a solid demand for this entry level in PocketPC.terms device.
The front panel does look like it could've accommodated a larger screen but the zoom bar and handy hardware buttons didn't leave much room for growth. Again, a 2.8" QVGA resistive touchscreen made sense on the original Touch but is quite a letdown some two years later.

The display could've been bigger
The poor sunlight legibility doesn't make things any better. Customary for a PocketPC, the Touch2 hardly is the best device to work with in the bright sun.
Above the display we find the earpiece and the LED status indicator. The phone has no secondary camera for video calls but we don't think it will be badly missed.

The Touch2 has a status light and earpiece atop of the display
The five keys and the touch-sensitive zoom bar below the screen do make for comfortable handling. Just like on the Touch Diamond2 and the Touch Pro2, the hardware controls and the zoom bar make up quite well for the missing D-pad.
The keys are well defined and solid to press, and this time there's even a dedicated Home key. On the Diamond2 and Touch Pro2, the end button served as a Home key too. The End key on the Touch2 is in charge of screen lock.
Unlocking on the other hand takes after the moves of a well-known handset by a company called Apple. Sliding the on-screen padlock icon does it here, while a tap displays a dropdown with missed events or incoming messages. Well done - iPhone owners would have to jailbreak their device to get the secondary functionality on the lockscreen.

The five keys and the touch-sensitive zoom bar are nice to use • the Touch2 lockscreen
The back key is a handy control that takes you a screen back wherever you are in the Touch2 interface. Simple though it might sound it's another boost to user-friendliness.
The zoom bar can be used on images, web pages, messages, and doubles as a music control. We are delighted with its response when it comes to the actual zooming in and out, which works like a charm in the image gallery.
The right side of the handset is completely bare. It would've been nice to find a camera key there. Not essential perhaps given the fixed-focus camera, but wouldn't have hurt.

The Touch2 has no shutter key
On the left side of the Touch2 we find the volume rocker, which is very prominent and nice to press. Next to it is the microSD card slot and that's where we couldn't quite get the point. The thing is you can't lift the cap unless the battery cover is off.
Still it's a hot-swappable slot, so you don't have to remove the battery or restart the device, but it couldn't have been too hard to make it easier to access. Anyway, the phone worked fine with a reasonably full 16GB microSD card. It's only that you have to buy a card by yourself as HTC didn't enclose one in the retail package in an attempt to keep the price of the thing down.

Not the most comfortable card slot solution

Design and construction (continued)

At the top of the Touch2 there is a standard 3.5mm audio jack. Now we're talking.

The 3.5mm audio jack broadens the connectivity options on the Touch2
The bottom features the miniUSB port for connecting the data cable and the charger. The other thing to note here is the stylus compartment, which isn't magnetic like on the HTC Touch Diamond or not even active as on the HTC Touch Diamond2. We really miss the functionality of launching the relevant applications as you pull out the stylus - that was quite neat.

The miniUSB port at the bottom • the stylus compartment isn't active
The backside of the Touch2 features the 3-megapixel fixed focus camera lens and the loudspeaker grill. Don't look for a flash, there isn't any.

The camera lacks autofocus and flash
Opening the battery cover reveals the 1000 mAh Li-ion battery that powers the HTC Touch2. The original Touch had a 1100 mAh unit but the Touch2 is obviously running on a much more power optimized platform and can claim up to 500 hours of stand-by against the 200 hours of the predecessor. The talk time of the Touch2 is quoted at 7.5 hours.

A 1000 mAh Li-Ion battery may as well be enough, given the small and low-res screen
The build quality of the HTC Touch2 is quite impressive. During the week we spent with the device we had no reason to doubt its construction and long-term durability. When it comes to comfort - the Touch2 handles very well and has a commendably solid feel in hand - especially for such a small handset. In essence, the Touch2 is a compact and friendly phone and that's a good premise for a wanna-be-popular smartphone.
Compromises were obviously inevitable though to keep within size and price limits. Our main concern is screen size, a three-incher would've been more like it. Some improvements in the camera department would have certainly made a difference - such as adding auto focus. On a different note, the 3.5 mm jack and zoom bar are more than welcome.

The HTC Touch2 is compact and friendly

More TouchFLO, less 3D

The TouchFLO goes without saying on the HTC Touch2 but the attractive and user-friendly plug-in has lost some of its 3D embellishments. Despite the slight differences though, the TouchFLO does well to make WinMo more responsive to touch.
The absence of a capacitive touchscreen on the HTC Touch2 is barely noticeable. The TouchFLO is highly touch-optimized and responds admirably. Of course, when you eventually hit the underlying Windows Mobile, you'll meet some of the not so thumbable parts of the interface.
The TouchFLO Home screen, as usual, offers a choice of full-screen tabs, decked out with some impressive graphics. You can no longer skip through the tabs with a single finger sweep across the screen - instead you have to side scroll the tab thumbnails at the bottom of the screen until you find the one you need.
The available tabs include the home screen itself (with a large clock), favorite contacts, text messages, email, Internet, photos and video, music, weather, map search, settings, and programs.
Now, let's have a closer look at those tabs. A nice thing is that each tab comes with its own set of context keys, but the downside is that those are not customizable to suit your needs. With that TouchFLO homescreen at hand, you'd rarely have to resort to the standard Windows menu.
Other than showing the clock, the Home tab gives you access to the HTC Call log, the calendar, world clock and alarms. The context keys are assigned to the dialpad and the camera.

The Home tab
The second TouchFLO tab is called People and that's where you can set favorite contacts with an assigned image or, in the absence of that, a generic one provided by the software.

The People tab
The Messages tab shows your latest SMS/MMS, and a single finger sweep will take you to your next message. A small shortcut in the top right corner will automatically start a new SMS/MMS in the default Windows message editor.

The Messages tab
The Email tab shows your emails and, again, you can finger-flip through them one by one.

The email tab looks nice
The Internet tab launches the Opera 9.5 web browser or the slick preinstalled YouTube video client. You can also scroll your bookmarks and launch a webpage directly from there.
Opera mini is the default browser in the Internet tab and that's non-negotiable. Now, that's limiting - even if we like the Opera very much. But the bigger problem of the Internet tab is the Search bar, which we saw in the Touch Pro2, has gone missing.

The Internet tab

TouchFLO (continued)

Now that the Calendar is readily available on the Home tab, we move on to Photos and Video. This is the entrance to the gallery of images and videos and you also get shortcuts to the still camera and camcorder.

The Photos and Video tab
The Music tab has barely changed. It displays albums with their covers and they are smoothly thumbable. By the way, the Images and Music is where the lack of 3D in TouchFLO is most obvious. Album art and thumbs are flat on the screen and don't get anywhere near the spatial view of other TouchFLO handsets.

The Music tab with album art
The Weather tab continues to amaze with its beautiful graphics. You can check the weather in up to 7 locations and you can flip through them with a finger sweep. You can also get a 5-day forecast for these locations via the first context key.

The Weather tab is quite elaborate
There is also a Map Search tab which does what it says and is quite convenient. It can be used as a shortcut to the Google Maps (which it uses).

TheMap Search tab
The next tab is Settings and it lets you control various system options and replaces the old and confusing Windows Mobile Settings page. You can control the syncing and location settings, personalize phone profiles, change wallpaper, enter the communication settings menu, and setup an email account. As for the new Windows Mobile Settings page, it is perhaps better than before but you still get the familiar white screens with text.

The Settings tab • the standard WinMo options
The Settings tab allows you to set the ringing profile, volume level and ringtone all from one central place, which is really handy. Even pressing the volume rocker brings up a fancy custom-made fullscreen slider instead of the usual WinMo mini-sliders.
You also have access to the HTC custom Communications manager, which handles all on-board transceivers.

The Comm manager • the user-friendly sound settings
The last tab on the homescreen is Programs. There are shortcuts to favorite apps, but you can also access all the programs that are available using the left "soft key".

The Programs tab
HTC have replaced the System status screen, too. When you touch the icons on the top of the Home screen, the notifications area will appear where you can check missed events, operator messages, etc. This idea is most probably borrowed from the Android notifications, which do the same.
The Communications manager for quick toggling of connectivity options is also accessible by touching those icons.

Notification screen

Windows Mobile 6.5

Pressing the Start button on the Touch2 opens something similar to the menus found in non-smartphones. In the new main menu you've got all the installed programs plus shortcuts to the settings menu.
And of course, as of Windows Mobile 6.5 the Main menu comes in a honeycomb pattern, which is supposed to make touch control even more comfortable.
The perfectly flat structure of the Main menu can surely get a bit clumsy in time due to the huge number of icons piling up, but still we'd prefer that over the confusing experience that so many Widows Mobile new adopters have had in the past.
Icons within the main menu are easy to rearrange: a press and hold is enough to move the frequently used icons to the top.

The customizable Start menu
Without doubt, Windows Mobile 6.5 is the user-friendliest WinMo ever made. Unfortunately the improvements over its predecessor 6.1 aren't big enough to make it able to compete with the other contemporary platforms in terms of usability. Of course there is some touch optimization but the truth is a complete overhaul is needed rather than a facelift.

6.5 has brought little changes to the deeper levels of the WinMo interface
We recently published a dedicated article on the new Windows Mobile 6.5. Feel free to take a closer look and see how far WinMo has gone.

The contact manager is a winner

Contact management is usually considered one of the strongest points of Windows Mobile. You have an unlimited contact list, unlimited info fields for each contact and brilliant synchronization options.
Since the Diamond2, HTC have added a new interface which uses a small thumb icon for a person's picture, set against a gray background with nice font. You can pick a letter of the alphabet by using the letter column placed on the right.
Searching by gradual typing is also available.

Phonebook with thumb scrolling • searching by typing or via the alphabetical list
The standard editing is OK, but unfortunately the advanced editing of a contact throws you back into the old WinMo depths. But hey, you still have a plethora of available info fields - and if by any rare chance those are not enough, you can always rename some of the existing ones and use them instead.

Editing a contact
Viewing a contact is a whole new experience. HTC have done a great job again redesigning the whole interface into something quite stylish and visually attractive.
The contact's information is divided into groups - names, communication and information. There are four different icons at the bottom - the current info, all SMS with this contact, all emails and call history.

Viewing contact details

Good telephony, no perks

The Touch2 has no troubles during calls but skimps on some of the nice little perks that we liked in the Touch Diamond2 for example. The lack of an accelerometer leaves the Touch2 without turn-to-mute. Another omission is the active stylus. On the Diamond2 and the Touch Pro2, pulling the stylus out automatically launches the Notes application and even puts down the call details (the caller's name and the time of call) on the note for you.
Smart dialing is enabled though, so you hardly ever need to go to the Contacts list in order to dial a number.

Calling Dee Dee
The Call log on Windows Mobile devices offers practically unlimited entries. HTC have pimped the look of the regular WinMo call log and have added thumb scrolling.

Call Log
We also conducted our traditional speakerphone test and the Touch2 scored an Excellent mark, ranking pretty high on our list of tested devices. You can find more details about our test, as well as the results of all other tested handsets here.

Speakerphone test	Voice, dB	Pink noise/ Music, dB	Ringing phone, dB	Overall score
Apple iPhone 3G	66.1	62.1	71.7	Below Average
LG KC910 Renoir	69.7	64.7	70.9	Average
Samsung i900 Omnia	70,2	64,8	75,2	Good
HTC Touch Pro	74,9	69,7	73,7	Good
Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1	75.5	66.6	82.7	Very Good
HTC Touch Diamond2	74.6	70.0	78.1	Very Good
HTC Touch2	75.7	75.7	82.7	Excellent

Messaging: all the usual skill but no landscape QWERTY

The HTC Touch2 supports SMS, MMS and email. SMS and MMS share an inbox and a message editor and thanks to TouchFLO, you can enjoy thumb scrolling in the inboxes and in longer messages.
The Message tab offers a great interface for managing messages. With the nice interface and touch-optimization it's highly unlikely you will ever switch back to the standard Windows SMS inbox.
Threaded SMS is also available on the Touch2, just as it is across all Windows Mobile 6.1 and 6.5 devices.

Typing SMS on the Touch2
The email inbox is also available as a homescreen tab with eye-catching finish. The email editor will hold no surprises for experienced WinMo users.
Setting up your email is easy as it is on most of the latest mid or high range phones. You type your email and password and all the other fiddly options are configured automatically.

Browsing the email inbox • reading an email
Perhaps now is a good time to mention input options on the Touch2. Since the device lacks any form of keypad you get a set of home-grown thumbable virtual keyboards. You can choose between a full QWERTY keyboard, a half QWERTY one, and an alphanumeric keypad displayed in portrait mode on the touchscreen.
Handwriting is not supported this time. But the bigger issue is all the keyboards - including the full QWERTY - are only available in portrait mode. That and the small Touch2 screen don't exactly suggest comfortable typing. Unless stylus is your game.

The touch-optimized keyboards on the Touch2

The multimedia is well covered

The HTC Touch2 offers a small amount of storage - less than 512MB. This is barely sufficient and you'll definitely find yourself needing a microSD card.

The WinMo file manager on the Touch2
The file manager is the standard Windows Mobile one and won't surprise anyone. Well, it's sure to not let you down either.

Image gallery: no accelerometer

The Touch2 offers a nice thumbnail browser straight from the Photos and Video tab on the Home screen. There's another thumbnail browser in the Album app available from the context menu on the Home screen or from the Programs menu.

Browsing images as thumbnails in the Albums application
The image is opened automatically in landscape mode and there is no option to rotate it to portrait view. Once an image is opened, you can zoom in or out using the touch-zoom bar or continue to the previous/next by sweeping a finger on the current one.

Opening an image • context menu
Scrolling to the next image is smooth and instantaneous with a single sweep of the finger. Zooming in and out is extra fast, as well. The Zoom bar comes quite handy for that purpose.

Music player

Just like the previous HTC devices, the Touch2 has a music player that makes good use of Album art. The music player is accessible straight from the TouchFLO home screen, however, the cool Apple-like Cover Flow animation known from the TouchFLO 3D is missing.

The attractive music player runs directly from the home screen
In case you want to filter tracks by other criteria beside album, the Library shortcut will take you to the player backend where you can sort music by artist, genre, composer, purchased tracks or simply create custom playlists. The visual interface of the library is fluid and eerily reminiscent of iPhone's very own music player.

The music library
Equalizer presets are available only when you have the headset plugged in. They are not part of the music player itself but of a separate application called Audio Booster. That setup allows you to make use of the presets when you watch videos or even when you listen to music on an alternative player.

The Audio Booster app is a system wide setting
Luckily, there is a 3.5mm audio jack on the Touch2, so you won't have to stick with the supplied headphones. The headset looks decent enough, but listening to music is not among its strengths and is best left for making phone calls.

Decent audio quality

The audio quality of the HTC Touch2 is only a tad worse than that on the Diamond2 which we rated pretty high. The Touch2 has decent frequency response, which only deviates around the +-1db level at the very end of the audible range.
The noise level, dynamic range and stereo crosstalk readings are pretty good, rivaling some dedicated music phones. The total harmonic and intermodulation distortion scores are also decent.

Test	Frequency response	Noise level	Dynamic range	THD	IMD + Noise	Stereo crosstalk
HTC Touch2	+0.17, -1.61	-84.6	87.1	0.023	0.182	-84.9
HTC Touch Diamond2	+0.12, -0.60	-86.9	89.1	0.022	0.191	-86.8
HTC Touch Pro	+0.35, -1.12	-85.3	87.9	0.027	0.267	-86.3
HTC Touch Diamond	+0.42, -2.46	-84.0	87.0	0.023	0.338	-85.6
HTC Touch HD	+0.20, -2.29	-86.7	89.2	0.024	0.253	-86.1
Apple iPod Touch 2G	+0.04, -0.05	-91.4	91.5	0.0027	0.012	-90.0
Samsung i900 Omnia	+0.37, -1.15	-79.3	79.3	0.0039	0.027	-78.7
Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1	+0.11, -0.47	-93.2	94.8	0.448	0.897	-96.3

The HTC Touch2 frequency response graph compared to the Diamond2 and the iPod Touch 2G
You can learn more about the whole testing process here.

FM radio with RDS

The HTC Touch2 built-in FM radio naturally requires the headset to be plugged-in. As we already told you however, you would be better off using a third-party headset as the bundled ones are not well suited for listening to music.
Nevertheless, the Touch2 FM radio has an excellent interface much like the rest of the multimedia players on board and offers memory for some 20 radio stations.

The FM Radio on the Touch2
RDS is available too - so overall, radio is handled pretty well on the Touch2.

Multiple video players

TheTouch2 comes with the standard well known - and sadly underperforming - Windows Media Player. It only manages mp4 and 3gp and for DivX/XviD support you will need a third party application.

The Windows Media player
The HTC Touch2 has an extra video player but it only supports the video/audio codecs available to Windows Mobile. To enjoy a wider range of video options on the Pro (DiVX or XViD for example), you will probably need to purchase a dedicated video player with additional codec support.
We resorted to the well-known Core player for that purpose and as usual it did a great job.
The HTC Touch2 is pretty good at full-screen video playback - we played an XviD-encoded DVD rip for PC playback and, luckily, there were no skipped frames. Probably because of the lower screen resolution, the Touch2 fared a bit better than the HTC Touch Diamond2 in terms of fluid playback.

The Core player
However, videos didn't look as well as on the WVGA displays of Diamond2 and the Touch Pro2.

3 megapixels worth of disappointment

The HTC Touch2 has a 3 megapixel fixed-focus camera producing photos with a maximum resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels. The camera offers an intuitive user interface and shoots in landscape mode.
It lacks a dedicated camera key so the only way to capture is the virtual shutter key on the screen.
The Touch2 camera lacks a flash whatsoever.

Interface and features

The Touch2 viewfinder is free of any overlaying controls by default but you can display those by touching the dedicated key under the "capture" button.
In terms of camera features, the HTC Touch2 has the usual: self-timer, white balance presets, light sensitivity settings (up to ISO800), color effects and viewfinder gridline.

The HTC Touch2 camera options
There is no geotagging (strange, but not unseen), but this time the biggest letdown is the lack of autofocus. This means you have no macro mode and you can't focus either on a preferred object.
There is also a panorama mode that offers on-screen framing guidance. After all the individual shots for the panorama are taken, the Touch2 stitches the images together automatically.
When it comes to image quality, we have to admit that the Touch2 camera is generally not as good as we would have liked.
Noise suppression is too aggressive at times, eradicating all fine detail (notice that the building facades lack any kind of texture). Worse yet, noise is still an issue - especially in the shadows - and color rendering is inaccurate on many occasions.
There is some red tint in many of the images too (take a closer look at the clouds, for example).

Sample images of HTC Touch2 camera
Synthetic resolution
We also snapped our resolution chart with the HTC Touch2. You can check out what that test is all about here.

HTC Touch2 resolution chart photo • 100% crops
Video
The Touch2 video capturing capabilities are rather basic - CIF recording at 30fps. It takes a lot more to be impressed these days and given the reasonably powerful CPU on the Touch2, we probably expected more.
But what we didn't expect at all is the actual video quality - it's well below the decent line, the detail is way below normal, the colors are not accurate at some places and at times the picture is simply blurred.
The interface of the camcorder resembles the one of the still camera. You can only adjust the white balance, resolution, brightness and finally add some color effects.

The Touch2 camcorder interface
Here is a sample CIF video (0.5MB) produced by the Touch2.

Full pack connectivity

When it comes to connectivity the HTC Touch2 has it all - HSDPA 7.2Mbps, Wi-Fi, stereo Bluetooth + EDR.
The Touch2 has quad-band GSM support and dual-band 3G - 900 and 2100 MHz are the compatible bands (that's Europe and the like). You can check out our Worldwide Network Bands distribution database.
USB 2.0 is supported as well through a miniUSB adaptor. Actually it's extUSB, but miniUSB cables fit just fine, and the port also serves audio input and output. When paired with a computer, the Touch2 prompts you to select among ActiveSync, Mass Storage or Modem modes.
In Mass Storage mode, the memory card is handled as a removable drive on the computer for faster file transfers. The only downside is in this mode you have no access to the memory card from the handset UI itself.

Web browsing is a single landscape-mode short of top-notch

The HTC Touch2 as usual comes with the Opera v9.5 browser. There's IE Mobile if you really want it, but the default browser launched from the homescreen is Opera. And with good reason, since it puts IE Mobile to shame.
The Opera browser is extensively touch-optimized and draws inspiration from the iPhone's Safari. The browser has matured since its inclusion in the Touch HD and now suffers no rendering bugs.

GSMArena.com on HTC Touch2 (Opera 9.5)
The browser is heavily optimized towards vertical scrolling - it rolls complex pages without missing a beat. Panning sideways is a little slower - a checkerboard pattern appears for a moment before the content is drawn, but this lasts for no more than a second so it's no big issue.
Zooming in and out is also very fast. Here the Zoom bar can be used or you could opt for the regular double-tap zoom. Double tapping is more accurate as it zooms in to where you tapped, eliminating the need for much panning. On the other hand, the Zoom bar gives you finer control over the zoom level.
Landscape mode is not supported though and that's a major downside. The on-screen QWERTY keyboard is also portrait only.
And a few words about the Opera 9.5 interface. By default web pages are opened fullscreen free of any overlaying controls. A tap on the bottom right corner, however, brings up the available controls. When entering a URL there's a special '.com' button on the keypad, saving a few presses.
First, you've got the address bar at the very top. At the bottom of the screen there is a row of icons that can take you back, take you to bookmarks, bring up the tab switcher (you can open up to two tabs), the home page or the browser settings.
Opera 9.5 has a handy download manager which tracks the progress of the files you're downloading.

Keeping you organized is the PocketPC game

Windows Mobile offers several time-management features and all of them are easily syncable with Outlook.
The Calendar offers daily, weekly, monthly and even yearly views. When viewing tasks, you can also see weather information for that particular day if available.

The Calendar daily and monthly views • viewing and editing a task
The To-Do list allows you to add tasks and assign them priority. The Note editor will also come in handy. The Voice recorder and Calculator need no explanation.
The Alarm clock has three alarm slots. Each Alarm can have its own repeat pattern. Unfortunately, due to the limited customization options in the default Alarms application, we suggest you check out some free third-party alternatives.

Document editor is also aboard

Among the other WM core applications is the Office Mobile package featuring support for viewing and editing Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. With the latest version of Office Mobile, you also have the OneNote application.

The Office Mobile allows viewing and editing Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote files
Thanks to Adobe Reader LE, there is also support for viewing PDF documents. We are pleased with the performance of the Touch2 in this area, as opening and handling PDF documents is usually rather slow on handhelds.

Opening a PDF document with Adobe Reader LE

See ya at the Marketplace

The HTC Touch2 comes with plenty of preloaded applications - the essentials are already installed, which means you can start using them straight away. There's the regular stuff such as an RSS Reader, a YouTube application and a Streaming Media manager. There is also Facebook intergration and MSN Money app.
As we've come to expect from HTC, their nice Task Manager comes preinstalled. It blends in with the TouchFLO interface seamlessly and is convenient for switching between open apps or stopping them (not that there's any shortage of RAM, but still).
The Task Manager is available, as always in the top right corner of the homescreen. You can also access it through the settings menu, which comes in handy since an application's close button replaces the Task Switcher button. This does hamper its task-switching ability a little and we'd have liked to see a more elegant solution to the problem.

The Touch2 task manager is available on the TouchFLO homescreen
The Touch2 comes with two preloaded games - both classics - Bubble Breaker and Solitaire.

Bubble Breaker and Solitaire against boredom
The RSS Hub app is an RSS reader for staying up-to-date with the latest news and content at your favorite web places. The Streaming Media manager allows access to custom sources of streaming audio and video.

The RSS Hub reader • the Streaming Media manager
The YouTube application is here again. It offers a fluid, excellent looking interface - shinier than even the iPhone's.

The Touch2 YouTube client • video quality settings
Another application is the rather handy Search software, capable of searching throughout applications and the whole file system. You have the option to set filters so that the application searches only in the places you need.

The system-wide Search application
As for the Search widget, when you enter the keyword you are being redirected to the Bing website.

The Search widget in action
The MSN Money application keeps you posted on the latest in stocks.

The MSN Money app
Nowadays almost every device comes with some sort of Facebook integration. And the Touch2 is no exception.

Facebook is a click away
Now, that's what you get on the phone. But if you need more - the Touch2 will gladly take you to the Marketplace. The structure is reminiscent of what we've seen before (read Appstore) but still needs another touch or two to get user friendly enough. As for the number of the available apps, it is still limited but growing. Follow that link to find out more about the Marketplace.

The Marketplace needs some final touches

GPS does matter

The HTC Touch2 features a built-in GPS receiver - it's the Qualcomm gpsOne chipset, which comes along with the Qualcomm MSM7225 platform.
The HTC Touch2 supports the A-GPS so you can download current satellite data over Wi-Fi or the 2G/3G network for a much faster GPS satellite lock.

The Touch2 A-GPS data download manager
The HTC Touch2 comes with a trial version of CoPilot Live 7 and the free Google Maps. The 2.8" touchscreen of the Touch2 is hardly enough to rival dedicated GPS units. Anyway, you have 14 days to test the CoPilot Live and decide if you can cope with a screen of this size.

CoPilot Live in action
Chipset sensitivity of the HTC Touch2 seems to be quite decent for a reasonably fast initial satellite lock.

Final words

The HTC Touch2 makes a small point but makes it right for the most part. To begin with, it looks sharp enough to get you interested but won't intimidate first-time PocketPC users. It has a solid enough spec sheet with a few nice bonuses like a 3.5 mm audio jack and the zoom bar.
However, some of the things it lacks cannot go unnoticed. The essentials are well covered of course - and in PocketPC terms essentials imply quite an all-round set of connectivity and office features. But the Touch2 tries to be a budget balancer which makes compromises inevitable.
It becomes all too obvious in direct comparison with the most important rival - Samsung B7300 OmniaLITE. Between the two, the Touch2 looks by far the more credible PocketPC but that impression won't hold upon closer inspection. Screen size and resolution, autofocus camera and the accelerometer are the key points in favor of the Samsung - not to mention the multimedia capabilities (losing on 3.5mm audio connectivity but gaining back on DivX and XviD video support). And what is even more important, the OmniaLITE keeps the asking price lower than the Touch2.

Samsung B7300 OmniaLITE
And that's hardly the only source of pressure on the Touch2. The Symbian powered Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is a year old already but packs a good enough punch and costs way less. The recent HTC Tattoo and the Samsung I5700 Galaxy Spica go around at nearly the same price as the Touch2. They offer similar capabilities but have one major advantage (well, some would call it a disadvantage - a matter of taste): Android OS.

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic • Samsung I5700 Galaxy Spica • HTC Tattoo
It looks like the HTC Touch2 has more responsibility than its rank suggests. While the whole place is abuzz with Android, HTC are quite reasonably trying to update their midrange and respond to the competition, while in the same time reshaping the company and brand image from the ground up.
The Touch2 has another important role as the first HTC handset running the updated Windows Mobile 6.5. For a company that does PocketPC for a living, it's quite an important role. But then, WinMo 6.5 turned out not much of a big deal - so that's why the Touch2 is just another sequel - quite in line with the company's recent naming pattern. Maybe it will take Windows 7 for HTC to display the depth of their vocabulary.

(Source : gsmarena.com)

Palm Pixi Plus and Palm Pre Plus Review

2010-02-02T00:03:00.001+07:00

What's hot: Palm's webOS is a pleasure to use, Verizon's strong network is a plus.

What's not: Both could be a tad more responsive, the Pre Plus outshines the Pixi Plus.

Reviewed January 20, 2010 by Lisa Gade, Editor in Chief

They're back, this time on Verizon and with a "Plus" tacked to the end of their names. Though nearly identical to the Sprint versions, the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi, the Verizon versions add a few tweaks while keeping the contract price the same as Sprint's models. The Pixi Plus gains WiFi 802.11b/g and the Pre Plus doubles the Pre's storage to 16 gigs. Both models will be available on Verizon on January 25, 2010 and the Pixi Plus will sell for $99 with contract while the Pre Plus will sell for $149.

Our review of these two will be brief because honestly, you've read it all before in our Palm Pre review and Palm Pixi review. There's very little difference between the Sprint and Verizon versions beyond carrier customizations (e.g.: Sprint's products have Sprint Navigation while Verizon's version has VZ Navigator) and the increase in storage for the Pre and added WiFi for the Pixi. Our feeling is the same when it comes to picking between the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus: it's really worth the extra $50 to get the Pre Plus. It has a larger, higher resolution display that's noticeably more vibrant and bright, it has a better QWERTY keyboard and it can also play 3D games that the Pixi Plus can't.

Verizon's got another value-added for both the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus: Mobile HotSpot. This free downloadable application basically turns your webOS Palm smartphone into a MiFi. Run the app, create either an open or WPA/WPA2 WiFi network and turn on the HotSpot feature. Your Palm becomes its own WiFi network and it shares its EV-DO Rev. A connection with your notebook, PC or other WiFi enabled device. Gone are the torturous tethering setups over Bluetooth and USB. If you wish to use the Mobile HotSpot feature, you'll have to pay an additional $40 a month on top of the the Pre and Pixi $29.99/month unlimited data plan.

Palm's application store is now a reasonably lively place, and you can download free and paid apps directly to the phone. While the selection isn't as overwhelming as the iTunes store nor as robust as the Android Market, there are some good apps now including various weather programs, AP News, the New York Times webOS app and even good quality 3D games like Need for Speed for the Pre. If you wish to purchase applications, you'll do so using a credit card and your Palm's App Catalog program since there's currently no billing through the carrier. Many apps are 99 cents to $4.99, while tier one games like Need for Speed cost $9.99. Overall, there's quite a lot of fluff in the nascent App Catalog, but there are enough useful titles to keep one entertained and productive. Palm includes an Office suite so you don't need to purchase that.

Palm's Synergy is alive and well on the Verizon versions of these phones, and we still love its impossibly solid ability to sync PIM data from multiple sources without creating a bucket of duplicates or munged contacts. The Pre Plus and Pixi Plus can sync to Google, MS Exchange, Facebook, LinkedIn and Yahoo and it can handle POP3 and IMAP email too. Palm's webOS phones don't sync over USB or Bluetooth to your desktop computer-- it's all cloud syncing. But they do notoriously sync music via iTunes (though Apple frequently breaks syncing with iTunes updates).

After some time away from webOS, we have to say it's great to dive back in: it's a thoroughly modern and attractive operating system that handles multi-tasking with aplomb yet manages to be stable. It's not as customizable as Android and it doesn't have the huge ecosystem of applications that the iPhone does, but it's very visually appealing, powerful yet easy to learn.

Palm Pre Plus

While the Sprint version has a gloss back, the Verizon version opts for a soft touch finish that's less slippery and doesn't get mucky with fingerprints. We still like webOS and the Pre's decent speed even when multi-tasking, though it's a bit slower than the iPhone 3GS and faster Android phones like the Motorola Droid and Nexus One.

The 3.1" capacitive display is bright and so colorful you could mistake it for an AMOLED screen. The 320 x 480 resolution is the same as the iPhone's, and significantly lower than the Droid's and the HTC Imagio. But Palm's webOS is fresh, fun and easy to use, so hardware isn't everything. And the Pre's impressive 600MHz ARM Cortex A8 CPU is modern and among the faster smartphone CPUs. WebOS multi-tasks (take that, iPhone) and it's incredibly easy to switch between applications: just tap the illuminated touch bar below the screen to minimize an app. Throw its window up toward the top edge of the display to quit the program.

The smartphone comes with the usual webOS applications including a YouTube Player, Google Maps, a photo viewer, capable webkit web browser, memos, music and video players and PIM applications. The Pre Plus ships with VZ Navigator, Verizon's $9.99/month navigation and spoken directions application that works with the Pre Plus' GPS.

The Pre Plus has Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR, a 3 megapixel fixed focus camera with a small LED flash, and a slide-down QWERTY keyboard with tiny, rubbery keys that aren't among the best for serious typing.

Palm Pixi Plus

The Pixi Plus is a lot like its big brother the Pre Plus, but it doesn't do most things as well. It has a smaller 2.63" capacitive touch screen that runs at a slightly lower 320 x 400 pixel resolution. Its display isn't as bright and vibrant as the Pre's, and finger control is slightly more difficult since the on-screen targets are smaller. The Pixi Plus carries the same list of features as the Pre Plus: WiFi 802.11b/g with Mobile HotSpot support, Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR, a GPS that works with Google Maps and VZ Navigator and a 3.5mm stereo headset jack. The Pixi Plus has a lower resolution 2 megapixel camera with a small LED flash and a fixed focus lens. Rather than the Pre's Cortex A8 CPU, the Pixi runs on a 600MHz Qualcomm MSM7627 CPU. Though their clock speeds are the same, the Pre Plus is noticeably faster and has support for high quality 3D games which aren't available for the Pixi Plus. The Pixi Plus does run more responsively than the Sprint version did with the original firmware. Unfortunately, we no longer have the Sprint Pixi in house to compare them with the newest firmware.

Like the Pre Plus, the Pixi has tiny, rubbery keys. But the Pixi's are even smaller and the keyboard rows are straight rather than curved in a more ergonomic smile configuration.

The Pixi Plus targets folks who are upgrading from the once very popular Palm Centro, and it sports a modern version of the Centro form factor. If you like QWERTY bar phones and prefer a thinner phone, the Pixi gains points against the Pre Plus. But in all other respects, from display quality and speed to camera quality and QWERTY keyboard, the Pre Plus is the better phone. It's a fun and affordable smartphone, but as we noted in our review of the Sprint version, the Pre is the Pixi's biggest enemy.

Video Review

Here's our 7 minute video review of the Palm Pixi Plus and Palm Pre Plus:

Conclusion

Both the Palm Pre Plus and the Palm Pixi Plus are fun, modern and enjoyable smartphones. Combined with Verizon's strong network and EV-DO Rev. A fast data, these phones are definitely worth a good, long look. Palm's webOS is capable and multi-tasks well, but we'd say its simple and non-customizable UI is best suited to smartphone novices and those who don't want to spend hours, days or weeks customizing their smartphone. If you're a power user who likes to tweak and have a customizable desktop, or craves a higher resolution display to better view web pages and MS Office documents, Verizon's Droid duo and their HTC Windows Mobile phones might be a better choice. But then, it's great to have choice, isn't it? And between the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus, if you can afford the $50 additional, you know which we'd pick.

What about the Sprint vs. Verizon versions? Honestly, the phones are so close that we can't say the Plus phones are a really signficant improvement. We'd wager that WiFi on the Pixi Plus is a lot more important to most of you than the increased storage capacitity on the Pre Plus. What it comes down to here is choosing the carrier that suits you best in terms of service, features and price. Again, it's great to have choice.

Price: Palm Pre Plus is $149 after rebate with a 2 year contract. The Palm Pixi Plus is $99 after rebate with a 2 year contract.

Websites: www.verizonwireless.com, www.palm.com

Specs:

Palm Pre Plus:

Display: 24K color capacitive touch screen. Screen size diagonally: 3.1". Resolution: 320 x 480, supports both portrait and landscape modes in certain applications (has accelerometer). Has proximity and ambient light sensors.
Battery: Lithium Ion rechargeable. Battery is user replaceable.
Performance: ARM Cortex-A8 (TI OMAP 3430), 600MHz CPU, 16 gigs flash storage built-in.
Size: 3.9 x 2.3 x 0.67 inches. Weight: 4.76 ounces.
Phone: CDMA dual band digital 800/1900MHz with EVDO Rev. A.
Camera: 3 MP with LED flash. Takes photos but not video.
Audio: Built in speaker, mic and 3.5mm standard stereo headphone jack. Stereo headset included. Can play MP3, AAC, AAC+, AMR, QCLEP and WAV files. Video player can play MPEG H.263 and H.264 formats.
Networking: Integrated WiFi 802.11b/g and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR with A2DP Bluetooth stereo profile.
Software: Palm Web OS 1.0.2. Messaging (SMS, Google Talk and AIM), web browser, email, photo viewer, video player, tasks, memos, music player, Google Maps, YouTube player, Amazon MP3, Sprint TV, Sprint Navigation, Nascar mobile, calculator, MS Office document viewer, PDF viewer, clock and App Catalog.
Expansion: None. Micro USB connector.

Palm Pixi Plus:

Display: 320 x 400 pixel capacitive display, 18 bit color. Screen size diagonally: 2.63". Resolution: 240 x 320. Has an accelerometer, ambient light sensor and proximity sensor.
Battery: Lithium Ion rechargeable. Battery is user replaceable. 1150 mAh. Claimed talk time: up to 5 hours.
Performance: Qualcomm MSM7627 600 MHz processor (dual core with 400MHz modem core). 256 megs RAM. 8 gigs flash storage.
Size: 4.4 x 2.2 x 0.4 inches. Weight: 3.26 ounces.
Phone: CDMA dual band digital 800/1900MHz with EV-DO Rev. A for fast data and fallback to 1xRTT.
Camera: 2.0 MP with LED flash (shoots photos only).
GPS: Has GPS that works with Sprint Navigation and Google Maps.
Audio: Built in speakers, mic and 3.5mm standard stereo headphone jack. Has ringer silencer switch.
Networking: Integrated WiFi 802.11b/g and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR with A2DP stereo.
Software: Palm web OS. Messaging (SMS, Google Talk and AIM), web browser, email, photo viewer, video player, tasks, memos, music player, Google Maps, YouTube player, Amazon MP3, Sprint TV, Sprint Navigation, Nascar mobile, calculator, MS Office document viewer, PDF viewer, clock and App Catalog.
Expansion slot: None.
( Author : Lisa Gade, Source : mobiletechreview )

LG Lotus Elite Review

2010-02-02T00:02:00.001+07:00

What's hot: More polished look and better build than the original model. Great reception and voice quality.

What's not: Not a great web surfing experience.

Reviewed January 20, 2010 by Tong Zhang, Senior Editor

In a competitive market of QWERTY texting phones, the original LG Lotus dared to look different. The square form stood out in a sea of candybar and slider QWERTY phones, and it found an audience among those who like their tech to look different. The Lotus Elite continues in that tradition, and the first model in the new LX610 series dresses in red and aims squarely at female phone buyers (don’t worry fellas, a black version is coming). The new Lotus Elite also adds a large QVGA external touch screen that matches the internal display in both size and resolution. You still get a 2.4” landscape screen on the inside, a built-in aGPS that works with Sprint Navigation, Bluetooth with A2DP, a microSD card slot with SDHC support, EV-DO 3G as well as access to multimedia content from Sprint Music Store, Sprint TV and games.

Design and Ergonomics

Compared to the original LG Lotus, the Lotus Elite looks more refined and better built. It has rounded corners, and the hinge looks strong and moves more freely. The keyboard and the keys also have more pleasing shapes that make the Lotus Elite look stylish. Measuring 3.43 x 2.44 x 0.73 inches, the phone is still quite wide and should be a handful for those with smaller hands. The biggest design change for the Lotus Elite from the original Lotus is the 320 x 240 pixel external touch screen. The internal display isn’t a touch screen but you’ve got the full QWERTY and plenty of hardware buttons to control the phone when the flip is open. We were glad to see that most built-in applications support touch control on the external display, and these applications include the music player, Sprint Navigation, Camera, video, Sprint TV and more. Applications that require the use of the keyboard such as the web browser, games and social networking don’t run on the touch screen. You can check your messages on the external touch screen but you’ll need to open the flip to type and send messages.

The QWERTY is spacious thanks to the phone’s wide body and the key layout is fairly standard. Since the Lotus Elite targets texters and social networking addicts, the phone has hardware buttons that can launch social networking sites, email and SMS with a single key press. The d-pad is large and works well for gaming. The microSD card slot is easy to access on the side of the phone, and there is a 2.5mm audio jack on the side as well.

The LG Lotus Elite has Sprint’s OneClick UI that launches most commonly used apps with a single click, and you can customize OneClick to include any applications you wish to see there. The carrousel of icons not only launches apps but also provides additional application related actions. For example, when you scroll to the Messaging icon on the carrousel you can actually see how many new messages, emails and voicemails you have; when you are on the Sprint Navigation icon you can go directly to options such as Drive To, Search, Maps and Traffic and Share and more.

Phone Features and Reception

The LG Lotus Elite has great reception and gets full bars in areas with good coverage and more than half of the full strength in areas with just OK coverage. The audio quality is excellent with very clear and loud voice on both incoming and outgoing ends, and it doesn’t have any background white noise. The Lotus Elite has a Contacts database that can store up to 600 entries with each entry capable of storing 7 numbers and full contact info. The phone can also store up to 98 speed dialing numbers and comes with excellent built-in voice dialing and voice command software. You can launch voice command by pressing and holding the Talk button or the Speaker button. The voice command software handles voice dialing, launching applications and checking the phone’s status.

The Lotus Elite supports text messaging, picture and video messaging as well as web-based IM (AIM, Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger). The phone supports popular POP3 email services including AOL, Yahoo!, Gmail And Hotmail; and it works with Exchange for email and contacts. For accessing the web, the Lotus Elite comes with the Access NetFront web browser (v3.5.1). The browser displays full HTML pages with images and columns altered from their standard desktop layout. The web pages are readable with the default font setting but the browser squeezes the page’s width to fit the phone’s 320 pixel-wide display which results in columns that are one or two words wide but incredibly long (requiring lots of scrolling down and patience).

Video Review

Here's our 7 minute video review of the Lotus Elite:

GPS and Sprint Navigation

The LG Lotus Elite has a built-in aGPS that works with Sprint Navigation. The GPS gets signal and position fixes quite fast and Sprint Navigation loads quickly. Sprint Navigation has real time route calculation, re-routing and turn-by-turn directions with voice guidance. The Lotus Elite is generally quick to calculate routes except at the beginning of a real time navigation session. It takes a bit of time to catch up with the current location, but once it’s found you, it can certainly keep up with your driving. The screen looks good for viewing maps and the speakers are loud and clear for voice guidance. Sprint Navigation (powered by TeleNav) comes with a large selection of POIs and offers local searches and location sharing.

Multimedia

The LG Lotus Elite is a good music phone thanks to the front facing stereo speakers, the support for Sprint Music Store, the microSD card slot and the built-in music player. The phone’s speakers are loud and ringy; audio quality is clear though not terribly full. The Lotus Elite has touch controls for the music player on the external screen to match the outward firing speakers. The phone works well with the Sprint’s Music Store, and the built-in music player can play MP3, AAC, AAC+ and MP4A files. We tested tunes ripped in the iTunes and they played well on the Lotus Elite. The microSD card slot supports SDHC and we tested high capacity cards which worked fine on the phone. The LG Lotus Elite has a 2.5mm headset jack, but it doesn’t come with a headset in the box. The phone also works with wireless stereo headsets via Bluetooth A2DP. We tested the music playback using the Jabra HALO, and the Lotus Elite had some trouble streaming music via A2DP to the Jabra HALO though it had no problem streaming voice calls.

The Lotus Elite supports Sprint TV, a collection of on-demand TV shows, movies and music programs served over Sprint’s data network. The streaming speed is decent on the Lotus Elite, and the video playback has some frame drops but not too laggy as long as you are in an area with decent EV-DO coverage. Sprint TV videos look a little blocky, especially in the full screen mode. The external screen can play Sprint TV content with touch screen controls, which makes a good use of the front speakers.

The large keyboard and the landscape screen provide good controls and display for gaming. Most games play smoothly on the Lotus Elite with good audio and excellent controls. Games don’t usually play on the external screen.

Camera

The LG Lotus Elite has a 2.0 megapixel camera that lives on the hinge of the flip. The camera faces out with the flip closed and the external screen becomes viewfinder. Like the music player, the camera app has touch controls that works on the external touch screen. The camera lens faces in when the flip is open for taking self-portrait shots. Still images taken with the Lotus Elite are decent by 2 megapixel camera phone standards. They look reasonably sharp and bright on the phone’s 2.4” screen. They are good enough for posting snapshots on the web, but on a big computer screen the photos have a noticeable amount of noise as you would expect from a 2 megapixel camera phone. The camera application offers settings for resolution, quality, white balance, brightness and more; and it has a night shot mode.

The Lotus Elite can also capture QVGA video with audio in short length for picture mail or long for storing locally. The QVGA videos look smooth and audio is in sync with video. You can choose from three resolutions, brightness and white balance for the video clips.

Battery Life

The LG Lotus Elite has a rechargeable Lithium Ion battery that’s 1,000 mAh in capacity. The claimed usage time is nearly 6 hours and the claimed standby time is 16.2 days. In our battery tests, the phone lasted us two days on moderate to heavy usage including making phone calls for 30 minutes, surfing the web for 30 minutes, pairing with several Bluetooth headsets, using Sprint Navigation for driving directions for 1 hour and watching Sprint TV for 1 hour.

Conclusion

We are glad to see that LG and Sprint are keeping the Lotus line as these are very capable messaging phones with a unique look. The new LG Lotus Elite serves up more fluid lines in design and an excellent OneClick UI. The external touch screen is an interesting update and has great integrations with most applications. The phone has great reception and in-call audio quality, making it a great voice device as well a texting phone. It offers plenty of multimedia content and strong messaging and social networking functions. It’s not a particularly good web browsing phone as the screen resolution squeezes full HTML page layouts too much, and the phone’s 2 megapixel camera will not impress mobile photographers. Sprint is also offering the LG Lotus Elite at a lower introductory price ($99) than the original LG Lotus ($149) under the same contract terms and rebate policies. If you are looking for a 3G CDMA phone with a full QWERTY and a different look, the LG Lotus Elite is certainly worth some consideration.

Pro: More polished look and better build than the original model. Great reception and voice quality.

Con: Not a great web surfing experience.

Price: $99.99 with 2-year contract after mail-in rebate. $299.99 without contract.

Websites: www.lge.com, www.sprint.com

Specs:

Display: Internal LCD: 262K Color TFT, 240 x 320 Pixels, 2.4". External LCD: 262K Color TFT, 320 x 240 Pixels, 2.4", touch screen.

Battery: Lithium Ion rechargeable battery, 1,000 mAh. Usage time: Up to 5.9 Hours. Standby time: 16.2 Days.

Performance: Phone book can store 600 entries.

Size: 3.43 x 2.44 x 0.73 inches. Weight: 4.8 ounces.

Phone: Digital CDMA phone. 800/1900MHz. EVDO Rev. 0 for data.

Camera: 2 megapixel with night mode and self timer. Still image resolutions: 1600 x 1200, 1280 x 960, 640 x 480 and 320 x 240 pixels. Can take video with audio.

Audio: Supports Polyphonic ringers and MP3 music tones. MP3 player onboard to play music in MP3, AAC, AAC+ and MP4A formats. 2.5 mm stereo audio jack. Can record voice memo. Supports vibration alert.

Networking: Bluetooth v2.1 + EDR. Profiles supported: HSP, HFP, DUN, OPP, FTP, BPP, A2DP, AVRCP, PBAP, HID. USB 2.0.

Software: Sprint One Click UI. NetFront HTML browser and web-based IM on board. Links to Twitter, MySpace and Facebook. PIM tools include Contacts, Calendar, Calculator, Alarm Clock, NotePad, Document Viewer, World Clock and Stopwatch.

Expansion: 1 microSD card slot. Supports SDHC cards. A 1 gig card included with the phone.

In the Box: The LG Lotus Elite phone with standard battery, a red hand strap, a 1GB microSD card with an SD adapter, AC charger and printed guides.

( Author : Tong Zhang, Source : mobiletechreview )

Samsung Armani 2 review

2010-02-02T00:01:00.003+07:00

As far as its spec sheet and form-factor go, the Armani 2 is totally identical to another Samsung-branded device, the B7610, representing their Windows Mobile branch. However in my opinion Samsung’s decision to launch a WM-based fashion-savvy phone (pardon my incompetence, it’s a Windows Phone after all) appears to be somewhat odd, unexpected and risky. I can’t tell whether it’ll work out for them or not – the Armani 2 doesn’t have any exorbitant expectations to live up to, nor does it aim to conquer the heart of the average consumer. So it’s best to look at the Armani 2 as a communicator with a quirky design and uncommon mix of materials for a WM-powered phone, rather than a rival to the HTC Touch Pro2.

Design, Materials

Design is what any fashion-conscious phone is all about, and the Armani 2 seems to have learned this simple truth – its looks, as well as some other components were co-developed with GA’s staff; furthermore, every screw and edge in its design had to be approved by Giorgio Armani, so it’s a true designer phone, make no mistake about that. Now a few words on how it looks in real life.

The Armani 2 is housed in a black-with-gold smooth plastic casing (the front fascia is painted in black, although there is a tiny gold plastic strip running along the perimeter), with its battery cover made out of gold lacquered plastic. Not only does it look stunning, the Armani 2 also seems to be pretty smudge-resistant.

I can’t say the Armani 2 spots any luxurious materials, but it definitely has a very nice feel to it: its build quality, coupled with a great mix of several types of plastic put it way ahead of other WM-based phones. Plus its black-with-gold color scheme won’t leave you indifferent - you'll ether love it or hate it, and there are no inbetweens.

Size

Size-wise, the Armani 2 is in line with the HTC Touch Pro2 and Nokia N97, plus it's pretty palm-friendly and pleasantly hefty. On the downside, it's somewhat thick, which is, however, a generic feature of all QWERTY-enabled devices.

Samsung Armani 2 – 118 x 57,3 x 16 mm
Nokia N97 – 117.2 x 55.3 x 15.9 mm
HTC Touch Pro2 - 116 x 59,2 x 17,3 mm

Samsung Armani 2 vs Nokia N97:

Display

The Armani 2’s display is no different from that of other Samsung’s latest and greatest WM-based phones – AMOLED 3.5” with a resolution of 480x800 pixels. By the way, in my opinion, as far as brightness and color reproduction goes, it’s a lot softer than that found in the Samsung GT-i8000, which is great news. Plus the Armani 2’s screen boasts decent viewing angles.

Keyboard

The phone’s slider action is identical to the HTC TyTN II and Touch Pro2, – first you flick it open and then you can tilt it up.

Samsung Armani 2 vs Nokia N97:

A few words about the thumbboard – I liked the keys and their shape, how they are spaced out, but what I didn’t like were the markings on the keys. The fact of the matter is that both Latin and Cyrillic alphabets are placed in the same row, and font-wise they are nearly identical, so you’ll definitely spend some time getting used to this feature of the Armani 2, rather than the physical aspects of the thumbboard itself. I suppose we should blame GA for that, as when it comes to design, fonts and layout, they were the ones calling the shots. So the bottom line is that while offering decently sized keys, the Armani 2 thumbboard’s ergonomics suffer from this unfortunate misstep, which is a pity.

Platform

The phone runs on the same platform as the Samsung GT-i8000 - Samsung S3C6410 with a 800 Mhz CPU. We’ll run a couple of video playback tests in our final review. As far as other things are concerned, it packs in 256 Mb of RAM and 512 Mb of internal storage, plus there is an 8 Gb module should you require even more space.

Software

The Armani 2 boasts the latest version of TouchWIZ, with the only differences from the Samsung GT-i8000 concerning its looks, while the UI layout hasn’t changed a bit. The phone’s menu has been revamped to blend with its design and GA styling – thankfully, they it’s not overkill, as the new UI is tidy and not flamboyant at all.
The Armani 2’s home screen has no bells and whistles either – you still get the same work space in the middle and a widget panel, parked on the left, from where you can drag various items onto one of the phone’s three desktops.

Conclusion

Spec-wise, the Samsung Armani 2 is one of the most advanced designer phones out there – after all, it’s a Windows Mobile-communicator based on Samsung’s top-of-the-range solution, hence all the bells and whistles under its hood: WVGA display, Wi-Fi, FM-radio, GPS, TV-Out and much more. Honestly speaking, there is absolutely nothing to fault it on, expect for its exorbitant price tag of 700 Euro. However it’s worth keeping in mind that the Samsung Armani 2 is a designer phone, rather than your bog-standard WM-based QWERTY-enabled phone.
( Source : mobile-review.com )

Nexus One Review

2010-02-02T00:01:00.001+07:00

What's hot: Attractive, fast, large AMOLED display, latest Android OS straight from the source.

What's not: Sorry AT&T users, no 3G version for you.

Reviewed January 9, 2010 by Lisa Gade, Editor in Chief

When Google formally announced their first Google-branded phone, the Nexus One, a day before the CES trade show in Las Vegas, they managed to distract technology buffs from the US' largest trade show. Google making and selling their own phone? What's up with that? Unlocked phones with no subsidy haven't sold like hotcakes here in the US where we want it cheap and forego features and freedom to get it cheap. But the Nexus One looked like one heck of a high end Android smartphone with a design that could make the ugly duckling G1 hide in the closet. Finally, an Android phone that still looks good when placed next to an iPhone. In fact, it's marginally thinner and lighter than the iPhone 3GS while finding room for a user replaceable battery.

As it turns out, the Nexus One is what Google calls a "super-phone", and they wanted to show the world what Android could do with really high end specs and a design to match. The hardware is made by HTC, who made the G1, which was the first Android phone. They also make the lovely HTC Hero, the Droid Eris, the lower end MyTouch 3G (aka HTC Magic) and plenty of high end Windows Mobile phones. While HTC's value added has been their Sense UI enhancements for recent Android models, this phone is stock 100% pure Android (Google's completely in charge of the software on this phone, after all). The Nexus One runs Android OS 2.1, and it's the first phone on the market to sport that new OS. It's incrementally better than 2.0 and 2.01 on the Motorola Droid (previously the phone with the latest, greatest OS).

What's really interesting is the hardware, which makes the otherwise mighty Moto Droid look like a mid-tier Android phone. It has a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 512 megs of RAM, 512 megs of flash storage and an AMOLED display. That CPU is currently the fastest on the market, and it makes appearances only in HTC's HD2 Windows Mobile Pro phone and in the LG eXPO. Android is a more lightweight OS than Windows Mobile, so this thing really flies. No waiting, no delays and no trouble playing fairly high resolution video. Sweet. 512 megs of RAM is unusually high and beats the HD2's 488 megs. No problem running concurrent applications, there's plenty of memory for that.

The Nexus One has a 5 megapixel autofocus camera, a GPS that works with Google Maps, an SDHC microSD card (a 4 gig card is included), WiFi and Bluetooth with A2DP stereo. Even more juicy is the 3.7" capacitive AMOLED display running at the now standard high end smartphone resolution of 480 x 800 pixels. The display and OS support multi-touch but Google hasn't enabled it in their built-in apps for the US version (the Euro version does have multi-touch). Third party applications can and do support multi-touch: we tested the Dolphin web browser which supports pinch zoom and Simply Draw which supports drawing with two fingers (both are free and are available for download on the Android Market).

How You Buy it, How You get Support

The Nexus One is an unlocked GSM phone with quad band EDGE and 3G HSDPA/HSPA 7.2Mbps on the 900/1700/2100MHz bands. It will work with any GSM carrier, but there are no AT&T 3G bands, so that means EDGE only on AT&T. Google sells this phone directly via their website and there will be a version for Verizon this spring and there's a Euro/Asian model that's currently being sold in the UK and some Asian countries (sales will eventually expand to more European countries). Other than language differences and convenient localizations, we don't see a reason why the currently available Nexus One wouldn't work in all European countries. Google does not plan a phone with AT&T 3G at this time.

Google handles selling you the phone, using Google checkout (surprise). HTC handles device support and your carrier (T-Mobile in the case of US customers) handles network and connectivity issues. While phone carriers and manufacturers are well set up to handle support for phones marketed for a particular carrier, this one is a bit more complex. We'll have to see how well the three companies handle it. In the first week, things have been a little rocky according to forums on the Net, but we expect support routing should improve. The phone has a 1 year warranty and Google gives a 14 day trial period. Google applies a restocking fee only if you had it engraved, and if your state requires a longer return period you get longer.

You can buy the phone for full retail ($529) or you can get it with a T-Mobile contract for $179. If you're not out of contract on T-Mobile, there are higher subsidized prices depending on how long you have left on your contract. In Europe, the subsidy is with Vodafone.

The N1 is a well made, solid phone that's neither overly large (it's about the same size as the HTC Hero) nor too heavy at 4.5 ounces. It feels solid and has a pleasing weight in the hand, and the curves make it feel great. It is quite thin and rounded, so we found it easier to drop than some other phones. The bezel is metal as is the back strip where you can order custom engraving.

The front buttons are touch sensitive and they require a firmer press than does the display (as they should or you'd be accidentally pressing them with annoying frequency). We always love HTC's trackball and find it useful on the N1 for working our way through text. The trackball pulses slowly in white when you have a missed call, voicemail or reminder. It could pulse a bit more quickly because it's quite possible to glance at the phone and miss the pulse.

Is it a Superphone?

Well, we'd say it is, if you define a super-phone as a really high end smartphone that offers the best currently available in display technology, horsepower, wireless, modern OS and features. The iPhone 3GS, Moto Droid and Nokia N900 are also super-phones by that definition. Is it the best phone on the market? It's certainly one of the best, but we won't call it the very best since no phone can meet everyone's needs. For example, if you're one of those folks who can't live without a hardware QWERTY keyboard, it's not for you. If you want to spend serious time doing 3D gaming, the iPhone is currently the best. If you want a closed ecosystem that enables one simple and consistent UI and ease of use, the iPhone is for you. If you want the best web browser with real Flash support, the Nokia N900 is better (though Flash should be coming to the Nexus One before the spring of 2010). If you want a very attractive, well-made slate smartphone, one that's very fast, has a stunning capacitive display and full support for Google's myriad services including fast OS updates, then the Nexus One is your superphone. Aside from high end gaming, there are plenty of good apps on the Android Market to keep most folks happy and entertained, and 3D gaming should be forthcoming since Android 2.0 and higher has 3D APIs. Phones like the Nexus One and Moto Droid have the horsepower to handle those 3D games. While Android phones like the Nexus One aren't as super-duper easy to use as the iPhone, they're plenty easy to understand and use. But Android's greater openness and customizability are well suited to power users. For example, I want my calendar, weather and twitter feed on my home screen. I don't want to launch apps and do several finger-taps to see the info most important to me, I want them at a glance. Android wins here, as does the Nokia N900 while the iPhone fails.

The Nexus One's clearest competitor is the Moto Droid on Verizon. They have similar resolutions and screen sizes, and run Android 2 (currently the Droid is at 2.01 while the Nexus One is at 2.1). Their functionality and user experience are quite similar; I wouldn't say the Nexus One hoses the Moto Droid by any means. The Nexus One is however faster, and that's impressive since the Droid is very fast and is the second fastest Android phone on the market. Once I used the Droid, I found it hard to go back to the old technology 528MHz MyTouch 3G, a phone that hadn't seemed slow before. While the Moto Droid pauses ever so briefly when doing things here and there, the Nexus One never does. And the Nexus renders web pages faster, thanks to the 1GHz CPU (the Moto has a new technology 600MHz Cortex A8 CPU, like the also-speedy Nokia N900).

The Nexus One wins on the display front thanks to its AMOLED display which is much more colorful and vivid. Yet it's not overdone and warm tones don't bleed as they often do on mid-tier AMOLED phones. It's also a bit more sensitive than the Droid, which we like. The drawback with AMOLED displays is that they aren't as visible outdoors in bright light (there the Droid wins).

The Nexus One wins against the Droid and iPhone for camera quality, though it can't beat the excellent Nokia N900-- Nokia knows how to do a camera right. The Nexus One's photos and video are much better than the Droid's and its photos are much better than the iPhone 3GS'.

Battle of the super phones: Nexus One, Motorola Droid and the iPhone 3GS.

Phone and Internet

The quad band GSM Nexus One is best used with T-Mobile here in the US since it has 3G HSDPA 7.2 Mbps on T-Mobile's bands. It will operate on EDGE only on AT&T. We've been told that it's forward compatible with HSPA+, a 21Mbsp max data standard that T-mobile is currently trialing in Philadelphia and will deploy in more cities this year and next. Though T-Mobile claims to have upgraded their entire network to 7.2Mbps HSPA, here in Dallas in early January 2010, we're still on the 3.6Mbps standard so we couldn't test the faster speed standard (likewise our N900 and MyTouch 3G don't see 7.2Mpbs yet either, though their hardware is capable). Our data speeds averaged 600-1,000kbps, which is on par with our other T-Mobile 3G smartphones.

Voice quality is excellent thanks to Audience's new A1026 voice processor that works in conjunction with the Google phone's dual mics. It does an excellent job of reducing background noise while keeping voice clear and full. The Nexus One is at the top of the heap for outgoing voice quality. Incoming voice is clear and natural, with average volume. The mono speakerphone, though large, is unfortunately tinny.

The usual suspects are on board for all things Internet and Google: gmail, Exchange mail, POP3/IMAP mail, a very capable webkit web browser, a YouTube player, Google Maps, Google Voice and Google Talk. There is no T-Mobile @Home UMA calling-- Google seems to have avoided carrier-specific features since this is an unlocked world phone. The web browser supports YouTube via Google's YouTube player that plays mobile YouTube video rather than Flash. According to Adobe, Flash 10.1 will be coming to the Nexus One in a few months.

Video Reviews

Part 1 of our video review series covers unboxing, the phone's physical design and comparisons with the Moto Droid, Nokia N900, MyTouch 3G, HTC HD2 and the iPhone 3GS:

Part 2 digs deep into Android 2.1's new features, the web browser, YouTube playback, Google Maps, MPEG4 video playback from a microSD card and 3D gaming:

Android 2.1 New Features

We've covered Android's new features in our second video review, and these include the extended 5 screen home screen, new Google widgets for weather, news and wireless control and the new program launcher. One thing I'd like to underscore is the new speech-to-text feature. Since Android OS 1.6 Donut we've been able to do a Google search using speech rather than a keyboard. In OS 2.1, you can use speech pervasively: the on-screen keyboard has a mic key and if you tap this you can speak rather than type. This works very well and I found myself typing less and less. Obviously, if you're in a quiet place like a library or a very noisy place like a ball game speech isn't the best input method, but it works well most everywhere else. You can tell Google Maps what you're looking for, you can dictate an email or SMS message and voice dial. It takes about 5 seconds for the speech-to-text engine to turn what you've said into text, and we'd like to see this get faster, but that's our only complaint.

Camera

The Nexus One has a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus lens and a single LED flash. Image quality is better than other HTC phones (which might not say much) and is even a bit better than the HTC HD2's 5MP camera. It's still not as good as Nokia's better Nseries smartphones or the N900, but that's a tall order since Nokia makes some of the best cameras on the market.

The N1 lacks a dedicated camera button, so you'll want to put a shortcut to the camera on your home screen. You can take photos by pressing the on-screen shutter button or by pressing the trackball (the trackball method makes for less camera shake). You can't manually select the point of focus by touching the viewfinder, but you can set white balance, color effects, flash mode, resolution, quality and focus mode. The camera supports geotagging. Max video resolution is 720 x 480 at 20fps or higher and there's a lesser resolution for MMS. You can set white balance, color effects and duration.

Image quality is good, with excellent color saturation and balance. There's some visible interpolation (jaggies and overly smooth areas) that put it behind the N900, but it's better than most other smartphone cameras on the US market. Video quality is likewise good with excellent color and good frame rates. This is a camera you'll likely enjoy using.

Conclusion

Google and HTC have a winner with the Nexus One, the "be all that you can" Android smartphone. Google spec-d out a top of the line phone and at the moment, it is the one to beat among Android phones. The Moto Droid comes in a close second with a similar user experience but a weaker though still capable CPU and a lesser camera. Indeed, the Nexus One is a "super phone", but it's not the phone that destroys all others. It's simply got high end everything and the standard Google Android experience. It does run a newer version of the OS, but other Android phones will catch up. That said, Google doesn't have to worry about carrier control with this phone, and so we expect they'll push new OS updates to the Nexus One before other phones. That means by the time other phones catch up with OS 2.1, the Nexus One will probably have something even newer and better. Even if other Android phones come out with similarly compelling hardware, the Nexus One will likely maintain an OS advantage.

The drawbacks? You can't take this phone to your corner T-Mobile store for support. T-Mobile will handle network-related issues but the rest is in HTC and Google's court. Google isn't a company famous for quality human contact, and we'll see if they can handle being a retailer.

Pro: Fast! Very attractive and well made. Simply large and lovely AMOLED capacitive display. Good GPS and Google Maps performance, good camera, has WiFi 802.11b/g (the 802.11n isn't enabled, at least not yet). It's unlocked so you can use it with any GSM carrier, even if you buy it with a contract.
Con: MS Exchange calendar sync over-the-air is currently not working, support isn't as clear cut since this is marketed more like an unlocked phone, no AT&T 3G.

Price: $179 with a new 2 year contract on T-Mobile US, incremental pricing for those not yet out of contract and $529 retail with no contract. Phone is sold unlocked, even if you purchase it with a plan.

Website and where to buy: www.google.com/phone

Specs:

Display: AMOLED capacitive touch screen with haptic feedback and proximity sensor. Screen size diagonally: 3.7". Resolution: 480 x 800, supports both portrait and landscape modes via accelerometer.
Battery: Lithium Ion rechargeable. Battery is user replaceable. 1400 mAh.
Performance: Qualcomm Snapdragon 1GHz CPU (QSD 8250). 512 megs RAM and 512 megs flash ROM.
Size: 4.68 x 2.35 x 0.45 inches. Weight: 4.48 ounces.
Phone: Unlocked GSM quad band world phone 850/900/1800/1900MHz with EDGE. 3G HSDPA 7.2 Mbps on the 900/1700/2100MHz bands (3G for T-Mobile US, Europe and Asia). Forward compatible with HSPA+. Verizon version will be CDMA with EV-DO Rev. A. Phone is sold direct by Google and not offered through carriers, though it can be purchased subsidized with a contract on certain carriers.
Camera: 5.0 MP with autofocus lens and LED flash. Can capture video at 720 x 480 resolution, 20fps or better. Can geotag photos.
GPS: Has GPS that works with Google Maps (pre-installed) and TeleNav (downloadable). Has digital compass.
Audio: Built in speaker, mic and 3.5mm standard stereo headphone jack. Music and video player (Gallery) included.
Networking: Integrated WiFi 802.11b/g and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR (supports A2DP Bluetooth stereo). The chipset supports WiFi 802.11n but it's not enabled.
Software: Android OS 2.1 (Eclair).
Expansion: 1 SDHC microSD card slot.
( Author : Lisa Gade, Source : mobiletechreview )

LG eXpo Review

2010-02-02T00:00:00.001+07:00

What's hot: Very fast CPU, excellent keyboard, optional projector.

What's not: UI isn't top notch, often requires stylus. Battery life isn't good.

Reviewed January 14, 2010 by Lisa Gade, Editor in Chief

The LG eXpo is the HTC Tilt 2's competitor on AT&T. While the Tilt 2 features HTC's TouchFLO 3D that makes the smartphone much more fun and modern, the eXpo opts for impressive hardware like the 1 GHz Snapdragon CPU, good 5 megapixel autofocus camera, fingerprint reader and optional pico projector. Both sport a very ample slide-out hardware QWERTY keyboard and an 800 x 480 pixel resistive touch screen. The LG is a bit slimmer and more pocketable than the beefy Tilt 2, but it's still a large phone.

Our gripe with the LG eXpo is the very stylus-centric UI that's mostly vanilla Windows Mobile 6.5 Pro and the relatively small 3.2" display that makes for smaller on-screen targets. It's just not fun and finger-friendly compared to HTC's TouchFLO 3D Windows Mobile phones, Android smartphones and other modern OS phones. This is a business phone first, and fun isn't its prime directive but even LG's S-Class UI doesn't help it out of the doldrums. But for those of you who like Windows Mobile just fine, the eXpo has great appeal since it's currently the fastest US Windows Mobile phone (until the HTC HD2 hits T-Mobile in the spring of 2010). Not to mention the fingerprint sensor for security (remember that feature from HP iPAQ PDAs way back when?) and the optional projector that's great for incredibly portable PowerPoint presentations. Unfortunately, we didn't receive a projector with our phone, so we won't be able to cover that important business feature.

For a stylus-centric phone, we were surprised that LG uses a lipstick style external stylus
that attaches via lanyard and looks a tad feminine.

The smartphone's build is solid, and the eXpo looks like a quality piece of hardware, though it's nothing to speak of on the style front. The large QWERTY keyboard is excellent, though we still prefer the offset keyboard on the Tilt 2, which is the best keyboard on the market. Key travel is a bit shallow, and the d-pad likewise lacks travel-- but at least it has one. The d-pad seems to be disappearing from WinMo touch screen phones.

Specs at a Glance

The LG eXpo (don't blame us for the bizarre capitalization) is a Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional phone with a 3.2", 800 x 480 pixel resistive touch screen. It has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and a flash, a GPS that works with AT&T Navigator, Bluetooth and WiFi. It has 256 megs of RAM, 512 megs of flash storage and an SDHC microSD card slot that's conveniently located under a door on the phone's side.

Phone and Internet

The LG has very good call quality and the earpiece is slightly louder than average. This is a quad band GSM world phone with EDGE and 3G HSDPA 7.2Mbps on AT&T's bands and 2100MHz for 3G abroad. Reception on 3G is mediocre; it's fine in strong coverage areas but it's not the best phone for those in marginal coverage areas.

Opera Mobile has infiltrated quite a few high end Windows Mobile phones, but unfortunately not the eXpo which ships with the stock Internet Explorer Mobile 6. It's an OK web browser, but we suggest you purchase Opera or another browser if you spend serious time browsing.

Email is handled by the capable, if dated looking, mobile Outlook client. It handles POP3/IMAP and MS Exchange with Direct Push if your company runs a relatively recent version of Exchange Server. There's an IM client on board along with support for SMS and MMS.

Video Review

Here's our 8.5 minute video review of the LG eXpo that covers physical design, UI, web browsing, video playback and more.

Battery

The LG eXpo has a power-hungry fast CPU, 3G HSDPA, WiFi and those consume battery quickly. There aren't many US 3G Snapdragon phones on the market to compare, but I will say that the 1GHz Nexus One running Android lasts significantly longer. The LG seems to wake up and make brief connections to 3G even when no applications are running (not even Exchange email), and this may reduce battery life. With moderate use, we had to charge the phone nightly. With heavy use, we had to charge it by 3pm each afternoon.

Our Take

The LG eXpo has exciting hardware that's let down by dated software. If you're a fan of Windows Mobile's user interface, the eXpo will likely suit you well, but if you're tempted by other platforms and other manufacturers' updated user interfaces for Windows Mobile, the LG will seem dreary. That said, it's fast (you've never seen the Windows Mobile file explorer list all the files in its Windows directory this fast) and has a good camera, a very functional fingerprint scanner for security and a tightly integrated optional pico projector that just might save you from lugging a laptop.

Price: $199 with a 2 year contract

Websites: www.lge.com, wireless.att.com

Specs:

Display: 3.2" resistive touch screen with haptic feedback and proximity sensor. Resolution: 480 x 800, supports both portrait and landscape modes.
Battery: Lithium Ion polymer rechargeable. Battery is user replaceable. 1500 mAh.
Performance: 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. 256 MB built-in RAM. 512 MB Flash ROM.
Size: 4.45 x 2.24 x 0.65 inches. Weight: 4.46 ounces.
Phone: Quad band GSM world phone 850/900/1800/1900MHz bands. 3G HSDPA 7.2 Mbps on AT&T's 850/1900MHz US bands and 2100MHz for use abroad.
Camera: 5.0 MP with autofocus lens and LED flash. Supports AT&T's Video Share one-way video conferencing service.
Audio: Built in speaker, mic and proprietary stereo headphone jack. Voice Recorder and Windows Mobile Media Player 10 included.
Networking: Integrated WiFi 802.11b/g and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR.
Software: Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional OS. Both standard UI and LG's S-Class UI are available on the device. Internet Explorer 6 mobile, MS Voice Command, Java VM, Windows Mobile Marketplace, Adobe Reader, Sprite Backup and Windows Media Player Mobile. Standard MS mobile software suite: Office Mobile (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote Mobile),, Email (POP3/IMAP/MS Exchange), File Explorer, PIM suite (contacts, calendar, notes and tasks), SMS/MMS client, BubbleBreaker and Solitaire. AT&T software: AT&T WiFi, AT&T App Center, AT&T Navigator, AT&T Music and trial games.
Expansion: 1 SDHC microSD card slot.
( Author : Lisa Gade, Source : mobiletechreview )

Samsung Mythic Review

2010-02-01T23:59:00.001+07:00

What's hot: Fun touchscreen phone with lower data plan cost than the iPhone.

What's not: On the slow side.

Reviewed January 13, 2010 by Lisa Gade, Editor in Chief

When the Samsung Eternity came out for AT&T in November 2008 it sold like hotcakes. Samsung's TouchWiz UI was shiny and fun, the phone was responsive and its data plan cost half the iPhone's. After all, the cost of a phone isn't just the up-front purchase price but the ongoing plan price over a 2 year contract. It was one of the first touch screen phones to have Mobile TV, which is $10/month subscription digital TV that's broadcast over the air rather than via the phone's data connection. If you were lucky enough to live in a FLO TV service area, you saw better video quality than YouTube or AT&T's streaming video could offer at the time.

Since then, we've had the lower end Samsung Solstice which couldn't dethrone the Eternity and now the Samsung Mythic which we'd say is up to the job of replacing the iconic Eternity. Like the Eternity it runs Samsung's TouchWiz user interface; it's still intuitive but after more than a year it's looking a little old. Still, it's one of the better touch interfaces on a feature phone and there's little to no learning curve if you're upgrading from an older model.

The display resolution has increased to 360 x 640 pixels and measures 3.3"; a distinct improvement over the Eternity and the Solstice. It's not a super-vivid AMOLED display like the Samsung Impression TouchWiz phone with QWERTY keyboard though. Nor is it capacitive like the iPhone 3GS. That means it's not as sensitive or responsive, but among resistive screens it's quite good. And better yet, it works with fingernails and gloves.

The iPhone 3GS and the Samsung Mythic.

New phones always cost more, and so the Mythic costs more than the older Impression which arguably beats the Mythic if you don't want Mobile TV, and it costs the same as the 16 gig iPhone 3GS. We expect the price will come down, and as always 3rd party dealers will offer the phone for less, making it more compelling. Our only niggle with the Mythic is that it's not as peppy as the Eternity, something that's hard to forgive in a feature phone.

The Mythic has very good call quality on AT&T's 3G network and the earpiece is louder than average. Likewise the rear-facing mono speaker is loud and clear. The Mythic is a quad band GSM world phone and it's a 3G world phone too, with HSDPA on AT&T's bands and 2100MHz for Europe and Asia. The phone has speed dial and Nuance voice command.

Other features include a GPS that works with AT&T Navigator, a music player (same as that on the Eternity), support for AT&T's streaming video that's included with their data plan, a video player that can handle common formats like WMV and MPEG4, a WAP browser and a more full-featured HTML browser that's developed by Samsung based on webkit (the same browser engine used in the iPhone and Palm Pre). While the browser can't compare to the iPhone's in terms of rendering speed and finger control, it's pretty good by feature phone standards and can handle full desktop sites.

Video Review

Our Take

The Samsung Mythic is a nice touch screen feature phone, and given its lack of competition on AT&T, it's among the best. If you want a touch screen phone but don't want the more expensive smartphone or iPhone data plan, the Mythic is a full-featured choice, though we might still choose the Samsung Impression for its AMOLED display and QWERTY keyboard. But if you don't want the keyboard and added bulk of the Impression or if you do want Mobile TV, the Mythic is it. We just wish it was a little peppier.

Price: $199 with a 2 year contract after rebates.

Websites: www.samsungmobileusa.com, wireless.att.com

Specs:

Display: 262K color TST color resistive touch screen. Screen size diagonally: 3.3". Resolution: 360 x 640, supports both portrait and landscape modes via accelerometer in some applications. Has haptic feedback and proximity sensor.
Battery: Lithium Ion rechargeable. Battery is user replaceable. 1150 mAh. Claimed talk time: up to 3 hours. Claimed standby: up to 10.5 days.
Performance: Undisclosed CPU, 189 megs flash storage. Phone book supports up to 2,000 entries.
Size: 4.49 x 2.06 x 0.5 inches. Weight: 3.8 ounces.
Phone: GSM quad band world phone 850/900/1800/1900MHz with EDGE. 3G HSDPA on the 850/1900/2100MHz bands for AT&T, Europe and Asia. Has Nuance voice command and speed dial.
Camera: 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus lens and LED flash.
Audio: Built in speaker, mic and 3.5mm standard stereo headphone jack. Music and video players included.
Networking: Bluetooth. Profiles: headset, hands free, serial port, DUN, A2DP stereo, FTP, Object Push and basic printing.
Software: Samsung TouchWiz UI. Java applications. Apps include Samsung's HTML web browser, WAP browser, Mobile Email, Mobile Video, Mobile TV (requires monthly subscription), music player, video player My Stuff (file manager), Music ID, XM Radio, Mobile Banking and more.
Expansion: 1 SDHC microSD card slot.
( Author : Lisa Gade, Source : mobiletechreview )