News on all the latest Mobile devices
Nicr
This user hasn't shared any biographical information
Posts by Nicr
T-Mobile myTouch 4G Slide finally on sale
Jul 27th
Across the pond at least
After weeks of leaks and rumour, and then going official almost a month ago, the T-Mobile myTouch 4G Slide has finally gone on sale in the good ol’ US of A.
The HTC manufactured handset (it’s a bit like the Sensation but with a slider QWERTY keyboard) is available to pre-order now, with general availability coming on 27 July.
The Slide features a 1.2GHz Qualcomm dual core Snapdragon chip, a 3.7-inch WVGA super LCD and is running Android 2.3 Honeycomb.
Its camera, an 8-megapixel one, is said to be “the most advanced camera of any smartphone” thanks to its zero shutter lag, backside illuminated sensor and a bevy of additional settings and modes such as SweepShot, ClearShot?HDR and BurstShot.
T-Mobile is offering the handset in two colours – black or khaki – for $199.99 on a two-year contract after a $50 mail-in rebate.
There’s no indication yet as to whether we’ll be seeing a HTC branded variant of this handset on this side of the pond but, as ever, we’ll keep you posted.
Read
Tags:
Phones T-Mobile T-Mobile myTouch 4G Slide HTC
T-Mobile myTouch 4G Slide finally on sale originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Tue, 19 Jul 2011 10:28:55 +0100
Motorola Droid 3
Jul 27th
The Droid you’re looking for?
Few companies get a second bite at the mobile cherry. Motorola took its initially awesome RAZR phone and flogged it until it wasn’t just a dead horse but little more than neatly canned dog food. With the company’s handset business on the brink of failure, Motorola then bet everything on the Droid – a testosterone-packed Android handset that was everything the iPhone wasn’t. It paid off. Motorola now has a stable of Droid handsets in a variety of sizes, shapes and configurations that share a common clunkiness, geekiness, feature overload and the best ringtone in the Android universe.
The Droid 3 is the ultimate expression of Droid DNA. Motorola has crammed every feature it possibly can into this dual-core Gingerbread device, from an 8 megapixels camera to a five-row slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Like previous Droid devices, the Droid 3 is debuting on Verizon in America network – although without being able to take advantage of the network’s stunning 4G LTE speeds. Does the powerful Droid 3 take Motorola to another level? Or is the company making the same mistakes again, putting all of its mobile eggs into one Droid-shaped basket?
Slide stats
Motorola is right when it says the Droid 3 “makes a big Android smartphone statement”. The operative word here is big. Weighing 50g more than an iPhone and measuring nearly 5-inches top to toe, the Droid 3 lands on a pub table like Optimus Prime on atmospheric re-entry. Motorola notes that the Droid 3 is the thinnest full QWERTY smartphone ever but that’s not saying much: you still have a pocket-stretching 13mm of girth to contend with.
Build quality is excellent, as it must be for any slider (they are inherently un-skinnable). The front face is a slab of ultra-tough Gorilla Glass encased in a band of rounded metal. The body has high-traction rubberised back and sides, let down slightly by a shiny plastic front. QWERTY keys are also rubberised, with good separation and a firm, distinct action. The full row of over-sized number keys is an excellent addition and typing is generally fast and efficient. Having said that, with the ever-excellent Swype pre-installed, you might question the need for real keypad at all.
The slide movement itself is solid, with just enough resistance not to happen by accident. The touchscreen unlock lines up in the same direction, allowing you to fire up the Droid 3 in one smooth motion. In the closed position, there’s a small lip left that doesn’t quite line up with the screen – the first sign of Droid’s middle-aged spread?
The power button and standard 3.5mm headphone jack are on top of the phone. The sides are home to Micro-USB and HDMI ports (neither with a cover), as well as slightly undersized volume controls. In standby mode, a front-mounted green LED blinks handily when you have new notifications.
Screen and skin
It seems as if Android screen inflation has finally, thankfully, ground to a halt. The Droid 3’s 4-inch 960 x 540 display is plenty large enough for games and video, without feeling like a stretch to hold. Touch sensitivity is good and it’s fairly easy to clean off fingerprints and smears.
The Droid 3 uses the same controversial PenTile screen that was blamed for pixelly text and wonky colours on the Droid X2. Things don’t seem to be as bad here, with colour reproduction (especially those tricky greens) looking mostly fine. At full brightness, plain black text on a white background is crisp and clear, but scrolling is painfully juddery. Luckily, games and films remain watchable but it’s still a significant drawback.
The Motoblur skin is very industrial chic, all bold designs, fancy transitions and gruff announcements. On the Droid 3, you get five home screens with an easy way of adding and moving icons, widgets and shortcuts. Four docked icons, which you can swap in and out, hover on the screen next to the four Android keys, and the notification bar is pretty standard. Motoblur also comes with a decent (if sluggish) image gallery and editor, and a bare bones wireless printing app.
Regardless of the phone’s orientation, the home screens stay in landscape mode when the keyboard is slid out and in portrait mode when closed. This can be disconcerting if, say, you’re happily working or gaming in landscape and want to flip into the home screen to check a widget.
The biggest drawback to any manufacturer’s skin, however, is that it can delay the roll out of Android OS updates. Without rooting the Droid 3, there’s no way of returning to the stock Android interface.
Performance
With a 1GHZ Texas Instruments dual-core chip under the hood, the Droid 3 is admirably swift, playing games like NOVA HD and rendering HD videos smoothly. Despite only a modest 512MB of RAM to feed it, multi-tasking did not seem to suffer – although this might be a concern with future firmware.
Where things do slow down are in the gallery – especially when manipulating high megapixel images – and in the camera. Motorola should have left imaging well alone but instead managed to make a camera app that is both underpowered and overcomplicated, and looks a bit rubbish to boot. The shaky, laggy digital zoom is particularly obnoxious to use. Shutter lag is about a second.
When you can finally get your finger on the tiny still/video icon, flipping into movie mode (up to 1080p) takes about 3 seconds. Exposure is spot on and the Droid 3 is pretty good about keeping videos in focus.
Photos have just what you would expect from capturing 8 megapixels through such a tiny lens: gargantuan noise reduction that robs images of any fine detail. Still, pictures are colourful and good-looking, and don’t suffer too badly from distortion. Movies are a similar story – well exposed, good colours and just enough detail to look fine on a flatscreen. Overall, well above average results.
You can save media to either the 16GB of internal memory or a microSD card, whose slot is hidden under the back cover (luckily not under the battery itself).
Sound decisions
The Droid 3 has a hefty pair of lungs, belting out tunes with plenty of volume and good dynamic range. It sounds fine for a minute or two but high notes break down into a tinny clatter and bass notes are sloppy, making for tiring long-term listening. It’s good for talk radio, though. Things are much better though decent headphones, even if still not quite up to the iPhone’s exemplary standards. For voice calls, the Droid 3’s microphone is not terribly sensitive so make sure to speak up (that goes for voice search, too). Incoming calls sound fine, and the front VGA webcam is less blurry than average.
Surfing over Wi-Fi and 3G is speedy without blowing your socks off, and that motion blur rears its ugly head again when zooming or scrolling. It’s difficult to criticise the Droid 3 for lacking LTE when 4G service is still so hard to come by, but that will certainly affect its prospects on the Verizon network. To make up for it, the Droid 3 works over a healthy variety of global networks, including CDMA, HSDPA, GSM and EDGE. Flash is pre-loaded and works with its usual rate of success on Android – about 90% of the time, we’d guess. Google Maps and Navigation keep getting better and the Droid’s GPS and compass work well.
Where the Droid 3 does stand out from the crowd, in a good way, is battery life. You should get well over a full day of real-life usage from one charge, even with some surfing and snapping in the mix. The lower half of the phone gets warm during use but nothing like some handsets we’ve tested (yes, we’re looking at you HTC Thunderbolt).
Verdict:
The Droid 3 is a perfectly respectable handset. It’s fast, solid and well made, with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard that’s one of the very best out there, and a good (if slow) camera. The 4-inch screen is large and colourful but do sample it alongside the Nexus S, say, before committing yourself to emailing and surfing on it for a full 2-year contract.
The bulky design also smacks of complacency. Where HTC and Samsung are trying to broaden Android’s appeal, the macho Droid 3 is aimed directly at its core constituency of IT professionals and iPhone haters. The risk is that many of those will be happy to wait for the Droid Bionic, unveiled at CES and due to arrive imminently with a larger 4.3-inch screen and that all-important 4G LTE link.
It’s far too early yet to write off the Droid range, and the Droid 3 would certainly make a safe choice for anyone who absolutely demands a physical keyboard. But Motorola should take care. One good idea and reliable build quality will only get you so far – today’s handsets need to be genuine all-rounders. Unless keyboards are your thing, this probably isn’t the Droid you’re looking for.
Tags:
Phones Mobile phones Android Motorola Motorola Droid 3 Verizon
Motorola Droid 3 originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Tue, 19 Jul 2011 10:31:00 +0100
Nokia loses ?424 million, and first place to Apple
Jul 27th
Troubled times at Nokia towers
Nokia’s latests financial results are in, and they don’t make for very pleasant reading. An operating loss of ?424 million has been declared, with a net loss of ?323 million.
This time last year Nokia posted a ?257 million profit and was the number one smartphone producer in the word – a title it has now lost to Apple.
Total shipments of Nokia smartphones declined to 16.7 million units, a drop of 34 per cent. Apple meanwhile, shifted 20.3m iPhones in its second quarter.
Nokia CEO Stephen Elop hinted that Windows Phone 7 could be Nokia’s great saviour but admitted that the issues the Finnish company now faces have “manifested in a greater than expected way”.
“We are making better-than-expected progress towards our strategic goals,” he said. “Those who already have viewed our early Windows Phone work are very optimistic about the devices Nokia will bring to market.”
Earlier this year Pocket-lint reported how Nokia had slashed 4,000 people from its payroll, and offloaded a further 3,000.
We’ve seen the first Nokia WP7 device leaked a couple of times now. But whether the Sea Ray and its buddies have the power to save the ailing company remains to be seen.
Read
Tags:
Phones Nokia Apple Stephen Elop
Nokia loses £424 million, and first place to Apple originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Thu, 21 Jul 2011 14:06:00 +0100
Fujitsu F-07C: The Windows 7 PC disguised as a smartphone
Jul 27th
Wacky device goes live
Fujitsu has detailed its latest handset – the Windows 7 powered F-07C.
Now, we bet that you think that we made a typo in that opening sentence, missing out the word “Phone” between “Windows” and “7″. But not so, for the Fujitsu F-07C is a PC dressed in smartphone clothing.
Described as “the world’s smallest PC” the F-07C is powered by an Intel Atom Z600 1.2GHz processor, has 1GB of RAM, a 32GB SSD for all your storage needs and comes pre-installed with the 32-bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium.
The display is a 4-inch SVGA touchscreen with a 1024×600 resolution, and there’s a 5.1-megapixel camera on the back and a 0.32-megapixel one on the front for video calling.
It packs a full slider QWERTY, but you can always use the USB port to plug in a bigger keyboard and a mouse – this is Windows 7 after all.
It’s not the first Windows 7 phone that we’ve seen, the AdvanceTC Magic W3 broke cover in February – but it’s the first mainstream electronics company effort that we’ve come across.
Sadly, it’s scheduled for a Japan-only release at present. We’ll just have to stick to iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7, Bada, Brew, BlackBerry, Symbian…..
Read
Tags:
Phones Fujitsu Fujitsu F-07C
Fujitsu F-07C: The Windows 7 PC disguised as a smartphone originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Thu, 21 Jul 2011 14:57:06 +0100
HTC EVO 3D
Jul 27th
Seeing double
Now that you can pick up touchscreen smartphones for pocket money prices, premium mobiles have to find other ways to differentiate themselves. 3D is the perfect solution, adding a gloss of techno-cool to imaging and gaming, and promising yet more to come (3D navigation anyone?).
The latest device intent on dragging us kicking and screaming into a new dimension is the HTC EVO 3D, a feature-packed Android phone available on the Sprint network in the US. With twin 5-megapixel cameras to capture 3D photos and videos, and a glasses-free 3D screen for playback, the EVO 3D promises nothing short of a multi-dimensional revolution.
It comes with a deafening array of bells and whistles, including the latest Android Gingerbread OS, a huge 4.3-inch screen, 1.2GHz dual core processor and 4G(ish) connectivity. Like its Korean rival LG, whose Optimus 3D handset is already available, HTC is clearly positioning 3D at the upper end of its range, a luxury feature that sets it apart from duller, flatter phones.
What is less obvious yet is whether there is any demand for mobile 3D, especially when it comes with weight and size handicaps, and uses first-generation technology that can still be annoying and even unpleasant to use.
Three’s a crowd
Some smartphones aspire to exist in only two dimensions, stripping away weight, features and ports in a quest for the ultimately slim profile. Not the EVO 3D. Unapologetically three dimensional, the HTC is nearly 12mm thick, 126mm long and weighs 1.25 iPhones. The 4.3-inch display occupies most of the face, covered by a sheer slab of glass that extends down over the four touch-sensitive Android keys.
The surround is solidly built from plastic and the plastic rear cover is slightly rubberised and heavily textured for grip. The design itself is rather anonymous, enlivened only by red detailing around the twin rear cameras (on the Sprint version, gold on others) and a shiny silver-ish shutter button. A physical switch nearby changes the camera between 2D and 3D modes.
Otherwise, the volume rocker and power buttons are a bit plasticky, and the 3.5mm headphone jack and Micro-USB power/data port are uncovered. Rounded corners help the EVO 3D to sit naturally in one hand, although it is a little too easy to knock the camera controls by mistake.
Flat out
Fire up the HTC EVO 3D and the first thing you’ll realise is that it’s a first class 2D phone. The 4.3-inch screen is qHD resolution (960 x 540 pixels) and looks sharp and very detailed. Colours are good and there are no issues with motion blur. However, contrast is a little lower than on some rivals and the viewing angle is limited, perhaps due to the parallax barrier needed for 3D playback.
The HTC Sense skin is, as always, a joy to use. The lock screen can be set to various useful themes (weather, stocks, social etc.) and the unlock circle jumps you straight into one of four favourite apps. There are seven home screens, some of which come pre-populated with HTC’s Friend Stream, bookmarks, calendar and other widgets. The screens are fast and responsive – perhaps a little too much so if you really get them spinning. Swype is pre-installed for speedy text input.
Throughout our tests, the 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon chip kept thing zipping along. We didn’t experience any slow-downs, even when multi-tasking several intensive apps. Having said that, the phone did regularly crash out of apps and return to the home screen, and even hung completely once while loading a game.
3D or not 3D
It’s still early days for 3D, with several different technologies out there and each manufacturer taking a different approach. Let’s start with photography. Clearly, you’ll get a more pronounced stereoscopic effect with a wider separation of lenses and the EVO 3D’s 5-megapixel snappers are a good 35mm apart (each with its own LED flash). That’s pretty good but it’s still only around half the average interpupillary distance in adults.
Enter the camera or camcorder, flick the switch to 3D and you can preview the effect. The first thing you’ll notice is a massive drop-off in both brightness and sharpness. The loss in brightness comes from the parallax barrier allowing only the correct direction of light from the screen to your left and right eyes. The loss in sharpness is because each full frame of your screen now has to provide a separate, half-resolution image for each eye, see the images below.
These losses aren’t too serious indoors but they make it very difficult to frame images outside on a bright day, and virtually impossible to read small menu text in 3D. The best thing to do is get your settings right – and even roughly frame shots – in 2D, before switching into 3D at the last moment. Switching modes takes 2 seconds, and there is about a second shutter lag in either mode.
Parallax barrier is one of the older 3D technologies now, and comes with some issues. As you move your head (or the phone), the 3D effect flickers in and out in a way that it as best disconcerting and at worst nauseating. The 3D-ness of an image also depends on how it was captured, and on the person viewing it. The Nintendo 3DS deals with all this by having a hardware slider to manually adjust the 3D effect, and such a control is sorely missed here.
In fact, there is no way of adjusting the 3D effect at the point of capture. When you review images in gallery, you can at least tweak the parallax effect in the editor for each individual image (though not videos). But there also needs to be a global way of doing the same thing.
Multi-dimensional movies
When the stars (and lenses) align, the HTC EVO 3D is capable of some pretty decent 3D photos at a fixed perceived resolution of 2 megapixels and smooth, flicker-free videos at 720p. You’ll always get the best results by having a variety of subjects in both foreground and background. The camera throws in more than a little distortion and chromatic aberration (purple fringes on bright subjects) but the thrill of shooting real 3D images and viewing them in seconds stays fresh.
Back in two dimensions, 5 megapixel stills are light on detail and heavy on colour. Videos max out at 720p but look best at the screen’s native qHD resolution, sparkling with life. Around the front, there is a respectable 0.9 megapixel webcam.
The HTC EVO 3D is also a dab hand at consuming 3D content. YouTube is the best place to dive into 3D at the moment, with a bunch of 3D clips, trailers and ads to enjoy. The EVO 3D comes with the Ultimate Spiderman Total Mayhem game pre-loaded. The 3D effects here not only look good but can be dialled up or down as you like. 3D doesn’t make a huge difference to the gameplay but it does help mask some graphical rough edges.
That’s about it for 3D content for now. 3D navigation will have to wait until brighter glasses-free technologies arrives and 3D websites are a pipedream awaiting widespread roll-out of HTML5. Talking of which, the EVO 3D is a dab hand at web surfing. Sprint’s WiMAX service may not be genuine 4G but we saw download speeds of over 10Mbps in suburban Seattle. 3G reception and handover is a little dodgier but this is one fast phone ready for the brave new world of cloud services.
Music and memories
On the audio side of things, the supplied player is fair enough for listening to the odd track or two. Which is just as well, as the odd track or two is about all you’ll be able to squeeze in the miserly 4GB of on-board memory. The phone ships with an 8GB microSD card, under the battery cover, to bring storage up to the level of barely acceptable.
In the absence of an HDMI port, you’ll need a mysterious little cable called an MHL adapter (not tested) to watch 3D media on your fancy new 3D telly. And while YouTube accepts 3D videos for upload, good luck finding somewhere to share your 3D photos. One retro solution is to upload them to Fujifilm at www.fujifilmreal3d.com for printing out as scratchy 3D prints (from ?4.29 each plus ?5 delivery).
Battery life is painfully predictable and predictably painful. With modest usage, you might get two days from a charge, but use the 3D camera or hammer the 4G web regularly and you’d better be carrying the charger with you. (Like Cinderella at midnight, the 3D camera turns back into a 2D pumpkin when the battery falls to 15% capacity.)
Verdict:
Some innovations are push and are others are pull. When DVD first arrived, people couldn’t upgrade from VHS fast enough. But when Blu-ray rolled around, the day-to-day advantages were not so clear. 3D definitely falls into the latter camp. It’s great for making first impressions, adds a little something to gaming, and kids just love it. But it’s not yet fully prepared for real life. Shooting in 3D is almost impossible in daylight and the dull, flickery display can generate as many headaches as smiles.
Luckily, the EVO 3D is more than just a one-trick pony. This smartphone stallion can juggle multiple apps at once, leap tall websites at single 4G bound, and comes with a well-developed 2D camera and camcorder. It’s fast and simple to use, makes the most of the HTC Sense interface and only rarely lets the awkwardness of Android show through. Forget the patchy 3D tech – even without it this impressive high-end Android phone is worth a second look.
Tags:
Phones Mobile phones HTC Sprint 3D Android HTC EVO 3D
HTC EVO 3D originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Thu, 21 Jul 2011 19:45:29 +0100
LG Optimus 3D lands on Three
Jul 27th
Available to buy now
After launching exclusively with the Carphone Warehouse at the beginning of the month, Three has announced that is now offering the LG Optimus 3D directly.
The LG Optimus 3D was announced to much fanfare at Mobile World Congress back in February. The 3D element is possible thanks to a glasses-free 4.3-inch screen, although if it annoys you, you can switch it off.
It’s powered by a 1GHz dual-core, dual-channel Texas Instruments OMAP4 processor and also packs 8GB of memory and 4GB LP DDR2, with a 1,500mAh battery on board too.
It boasts dual 5-megapixel cameras for 3D shooting and it is capable of 1080p video playback through its mini HDMI output.
Phones 4u had previously told Pocket-lint that it will be offering an exclusive white version of the Optimus 3D as well.
The 3D-tastic handset is available online from Three now, free with contracts costing ?35 a month, or ?40 a month on The One Plan with unlimited data, 2,000 minutes and 5,000 texts. On PAYG it’ll cost you ?449.99.
Tags:
Phones LG Optimus 3D Three Mobile three
LG Optimus 3D lands on Three originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 22 Jul 2011 10:31:20 +0100
1 billion smartphone sales a year by 2016
Jul 27th
Experts predict boom will continue
The smartphone bandwagon seems set not just to roll on, but to pick up speed as, by 2016, industry analysts predict that there will be over 1 billion devices sold per year.
In 2010 there were between 298 million and 321 million smartphones sold, depending on whose figures you go by, with a total mobile phone shipment figure of around 1.6 billion.
According to Juniper Research the smartphone figure will rise to the billion figure by tempting more featurephone (or dumbphone as we like to call them) owners into the smartphone arena by offering “economy models”.
We’re already seeing a number of these budget smartphones being announced – the likes of the Orange Monte Carlo, the LG Optimus Pro and the Motorola Fire are just three Android examples of what’s coming down the line in 2011.
Juniper’s report author Daniel Ashdown said: “In developed markets, many consumers will want to upgrade from a featurephone to a smartphone, but still pay a featurephone price.
“In emerging markets though, lower average consumer spending power and lack of operator subsidies will make a low price point essential.”
Android is currently the leader in terms of market share when it comes to smartphones (33 per cent) but Apple has recently overtaken Nokia in terms of revenue and profit when it comes to revenue and profit from the smartphone market.
Read
Tags:
Phones Smartphones
1 billion smartphone sales a year by 2016 originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 22 Jul 2011 14:27:28 +0100
Vodafone Smart
Jul 27th
Smart choice?
The Vodafone Smart is a budget Android smartphone which can be yours for the princely sum of ?75. It is a network-skinned Huawei U8160, also known as the Vodafone 858, and like many of the current run of OEM devices, is designed to be affordable above all else. But have too many corners been cut? Does opting for a smartphone on a budget limit how smart it actually is?
Design
In the pursuit of value for money it is finished in plastics, although it feels pretty sturdy in the hand, with only a minor degree of creaking when grasped. It is a compact handset, measuring 56 x 106 x 12mm, so will easily slip into any pocket or bag and nestles down nicely in the hand. Although the design isn’t especially sophisticated, we like the simplicity of the clean lines, even if there is a little too much space taken up by bezel, and not enough screen.
Beneath the 2.8-inch display are four touch buttons for your regular Android controls of home, menu, back and search, with ample space beneath for Vodafone to place their logo. We’re guessing this is a popular choice when branding devices, but we can’t help wishing that more of this space was taken up by the display.
One unique feature of the Vodafone Smart is the ability to customise the covers, so if you feel you want to emblazon your company logo, tag or whatever on it, then you can easily and cleanly do so. Of course we have one with the Pocket-lint logo on…
Elsewhere you’ll find a 3.5mm headphone jack on the top along with the power/standby button, a volume rocker on the right-hand side and the Micro-USB connection in the bottom.
Basic is a basic does
As a starting point the Vodafone Smart doesn’t do too much wrong. It is cheap, so that restricts the expectations from a performance point of view. Running Android 2.2.1 (at the time of writing) it does at least present you with a relatively up-to-date version of Android unfettered by alterations. Vodafone have added a few apps to service their own community, such as shopping links, but these are easily avoided and don’t change the core experience.
There has been a change to the keyboard however, using TouchPal Input, which offers up a smart keyboard with decent prediction and correction, if not quite as slick as our favourite SwiftKey. There is one problem, however, which is pretty much unavoidable. With a screen size this small, the keyboard dominates it, so you never really have that much space to see what is going on. Start dialling a phone number and the contact suggestions don’t fit in the space available, so you spend more time pressing arrows and moving screens around than you would do if you had slightly more space.
But Android works well enough on a small screen and we’d rather pick Android over a proprietary operating system for the ease of synchronisation with Google’s services. You don’t just get basic services either, you can head off into Android Market and download all sorts of applications, although obviously you don’t have the compatibility here to run many of the more sophisticated applications or games – BBC iPlayer, for example, isn’t going to work for you; on a device this small, media consumption is going to be somewhat limited overall.
As a music player it copes better, the stock Android Music player supplying your tunes in a logical manner. The external speakers provides reasonable volume, but is tinny as you’d expect. You don’t get the sort of music shortcut controls you do from the likes of HTC or Samsung by default, although a third-party music player, such as DoubleTwist or AmazonMP3, will give you a better overall experience.
Performance
Navigation and operation of the device is generally fast enough, although you will find that opening apps and reacting to notifications comes with something of a delay, so don’t expect to skip around like you do on more powerful devices.
Sitting at the core of the Vodafone Smart is a 528MHz processor with 256MB RAM, the sort of specs that phones had 2 years ago, and making this one of the least powerful phones we’ve seen this year. Internal storage is limited, so if carrying music around is on your list of wants, you’ll need to insert a microSD card – up to 32GB is supported.
??
But the modest stats aren’t the biggest problem with the Vodafone Smart. The real issue we have with the Smart is the screen. The small size is one thing, but the low resolution of 240 x 320 really doesn’t bring much to the party, nor does the limited viewing angle.
The result is that things never quite look sharp enough, colours are a little flat and you’ll spend a lot of time moving around and zooming to get to see the details which can’t be resolved with any degree of fine detail. There is no multitouch support either, so no pinch zooming in the browser or Google Maps, making things just that little bit more fiddly.
Surprisingly, too, we found that battery life wasn’t great. We’ve seen some low spec devices that will see the day out, but in our testing of the Vodafone Smart we found the battery levels dropped off at quite a rate, so you’ll still be charging this phone most nights, unless you take serious moves to curtail power consumption. It out-performs many high-end devices, simply because you won’t be pushing it as hard, but at the same time, you’re not capturing HD video, or enjoying an expansive display.
Calling isn’t a problem and we found that callers came across clearly and reported that we came though loud and clear too. Messaging is a little fiddly because of the screen size on offer and as we’ve mentioned, the text never really looks sharp, it’s always a little fuzzy.
Looking Smart?
Around the back of the Vodafone Smart you’ll find a 2-megapixel camera. It’s been a while since we’ve seen a 2-megapixel camera on a phone and here you don’t get any photographic luxuries – it isn’t autofocus, so the results are limited, the sort of thing common from camera phones a few years back, with soft images, lots of fringing and poor colour reproduction. The low screen resolution also means that you can’t really judge the results of your snaps on the fly.
Video too is very basic, only offering 352 x 288 resolution at 15fps at the highest settings, so not really keeping pace with current offerings and only really suitable for sharing between devices.
Verdict:
There are a number of budget Android devices appearing now, but this appears to be amongst the cheapest out there.?It isn’t as advanced as rival network’s budget Orange San Francisco, which costs a little more, but it is based on the same device as their new Orange Stockholm, so it will be interesting to see how the two compare.
At its very core you can’t criticise affordability, but for a slightly higher initial outlay on PAYG you could find yourself getting much more from your phone. If you are limited in your budget and want to experience something of the Android revolution then the Vodafone Smart is certainly a first step, but the low power and poor screen will limit that experience.
Tags:
Phones Mobile phones Vodafone Vodafone Smart Huawei Huawei U8160 Android
Vodafone Smart originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 22 Jul 2011 15:02:45 +0100
LG’s Android and Windows Phone 7 line-up for 2011 detailed?
Jul 27th
Including a stylish return?
PocketNow claims to have the low-down on what’s coming up on the LG smartphone agenda for the rest of 2011, including numerous Android models and also a Windows Phone 7 Mango one too.
Starting with the pick of the Android bunch, the report claims that the LG Prada K2 will be the next LG flagship device, running Android 2.3 and packing a dual core CPU, a 4.3-inch NOVA LCD screen and measures in at just 8.8mm thick. It’s also said to have a 8-megapixel camera on the back, a 1.3-megapixel one on the front with 16GB of onboard storage.
Next up is the supposed Optimus One follow up, codenamed the LG Univa which bumps the processor up to 800MHz, throws in Gingerbread out of the box, and is thinner than the original at 11.9mm thick. It’s reported as having a 3.5-inch HVGA display and DLNA connectivity.
Also in the Android camp is the LG Victor – a mid-level smartphone with a 1GHz processor, a 3.8-inch OLED WVGA display and a 5-megapixel camera, and the LG E2 which is said to be an entry level handset.
There’s also mention of the LG K, or P930 which has been rumoured before and is said to boast a 720p display.
Onto the Mango fun and the purported LG Fantasy, which we hope is more than just that as there’s little or no detail about its hardware specs.
Nothing official from LG yet – we’ll update you once there is.
?
Read
Tags:
Phones LG Prada K2 LG LG Univa LG Fantasy LG Victor LG E2 LG K
LG’s Android and Windows Phone 7 line-up for 2011 detailed? originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 22 Jul 2011 17:03:51 +0100
HTC Ruby pics leaked onto Flickr
Jul 27th
Rumour-time
Get ready to take a trip to Blurryville USA but not before pulling over into the rumour-garage to fill up on some speculation petrol.
An until now unknown HTC handset has leaked onto Flickr sporting dual LED flashes and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Oh yeah it has a white back as well…that is about all we know.
The photos appeared on the internet after some clearly clever covert camera action was carried out by Flickr user Raymi0402. Reflected in the screen of a HTC Flyer, the handsets image data embedded in the photo sharing site reveals it carries the name HTC Ruby.
What software and operating system the handset will be running remains to be seen. The innards and tech specs also continue to be a mystery. Expect plenty of rumours to go a-flying about the new HTC handset, but as of yet we have nothing solid to go on.
Read
Tags:
HTC HTC Ruby Phones
HTC Ruby pics leaked onto Flickr originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 22 Jul 2011 17:55:00 +0100
Comments