Mobile News and Phone Reviews

Nokia 6600i Slidephone Review
The new Nokia 6600i slide which is small but remarkable phone that has really something hard to resist. It is an updated version of Nokia 6600 slide phone.The Nokia 6600i comes with powerful and long lasting battery whose output on talktime is 4 hours and 348 hours on Stand by. It supports both 2G and 3G networks. Nokia 6600i slidephone acts as a tetra-band phone on 2G mode while dual-band on 3G mode. The most important feature of this phone is “Tapping phone calls” with the help of which you can tap all phone calls made by your phone.
The display size is 240 x 320 pixels and 2.4 inches in diagonal.Its 5 Megapixel camera with autofocus and 3x Optical Zoom enables you to take clear and crispy distant images. Internal memory of this phone is 20 MB, the Memory slot is Micro SD and expandable up to 16GB while 1GB card comes with in pack.It is a light weight phone weighing 110 grams. It is overall a dashing phone with awsome features.

LG GD 900 is a smart touch screen phone. The weight of this phone is 127g. It has a special feature of 3G. It is a triband phone. It was announced in April 2009 and will be launched very soon. Its special features are TV-out, MP3/AAC/AAC+/WMA player, DivX/XviD/MPEG4 player, Organizer, Document viewer (DOC, XLS, PDF), Voice memo,T9. WIFI, Hand writing recognition. The internal memory is 1.5 Gb and it supports the memory of 16 GB. It is a complete office phone.
It has bluetooth version 2 which supports upto 100 kb/s of data transfer. The battery timing is really amazing on standby which is upto 300 hours and has a great talk time of upto 6hours on 2G and 4hours, 30 min on 3g. The camera is 8 megapixels which captures world class images with a LED flash. Its phonebook can save upto 1000 entries and supports video call. The LG GD900 is initially available in silver colour.

The Motorolla W7 Active Edition is a smart and executive phone. The weight of this phone is 105 g. It is a tri band phone with a special feature of 3G. It was announced in May 2009 and will be available for sale very soon. Its smart features are MP3/AAC+ player, Organizer, Voice memo,Fitness applications, Pedometer , Stopwatch, MotoID music recognition. The internal memory is 30 MB with expansion upto 8GB.
It has bluetooth version 2 which supports upto 100 kb/s of data transfer. The battery timing is yreall amazing on standby which is upto 300 hours and has a great talk time of upto 8hours on 2G and 3hours, 30 min on 3g. The camera is 2 megapixels. Its phonebook can save upto 500 entries. The Motorolla w7 Active Edition is initially available in black, Licorice and Alpine White clours.

Nokia N97 Mobile Phone Review
The New Nokia N97 is one of the most complete smart phones ever created. It is being hoped that it will recover all losses caused by Nokia N96 as Nokia N96 was unable to get a good space in market due to its un-unique features. In the creation of the new Nokia N 97, Nokia has hardly introduced any new feature but it has given a hard try to gather all best features under a roof. This phone has slide and tilt display having 16 Million colors into it and the dimensions of its LCD are 117.2 x 55.3 x 15.9 mille meters. The size of the phone is quite larger but its large LCD is a good excuse for it large size.
The main advantage of this phone is that it has 32 GB memory onboard which creates huge world for data. The phone is equipped with all latest features like Wi-Fi for wireless connectivity to internet, browser having compatibility with flash and php, class32 GPRS and the most important, it is having 434 megahertz processor which rockets the phone processing. The camera is 5 mega pixels with video capturing option.
The disadvantages of this phone are that it is not having office documents editor and neither have upgrade to edit option , the camera has older features and it video player do not have XVID or DIVX codec’s for playing videos. The phone has more advantages and fewer disadvantages that is why it is thought to be a complete and perfect smart phone by Nokia.

Cameraphones are slowly reaching comparable quality to point and shoot cameras, offering more ‘megapixels’ each year. A big player in the cameraphone market is Sony Ericsson, branding their image-focused handsets with the Sony ‘Cyber-shot’ brand. The latest handset to bear the Cyber-shot banner is the new flagship C905. Boasting an 8.1 megapixel camera, WiFi, and GPS, the Sony Ericsson C905 certainly has a great feature-set. We take a closer look to get the whole picture.

Physical Design

The Sony Ericsson C905 comes in a sliding form factor that features a very smooth action. The sliding mechanism is sprung, and flicks into place with reassuring precision. The whole device feels very well screwed together and features an intelligent selection of materials. While most devices are clad in shiny plastics these days, the C905 is instead given a matte coating and some soft touch plastic. Not only does this look great, but feels expensive and resists fingerprints and scratches very well, too.

The C905 weighs-in at a fairly substantial 136g, which, combined with the high quality materials, gives the device a really nice in-hand feel. Actual dimensions are 104mm x 49mm x 18mm (4.1″ x 1.9″ x 0.7″), and the C905 slides into a pocket with no trouble. The phone can be had in several colors, including ‘Night Black’, ‘Ice Silver’, and ‘Copper Gold’. Ours was the Night Black version, which looked very classy and understated.

The front of the device is home to the 2.4″ QVGA(INFO) display that is capable of showing up to 262,144 colors. It’s also covered with a piece of scratch-resistant mineral glass that seemed to resist fingerprints and grime well. Below the display is the d-pad and two strips of keys. The strip to the left consists of the left softkey, Send key, and ‘Toolbar’ key. The strip to the right consists of the right softkey, End key, and ‘C’ (cancel) key. The square 4-way d-pad is made from shiny black plastic, with a chrome outline. In the centre is a silver select button with a spun metal effect engraved on its surface.

Above the display is the device’s earpiece, which is hidden beneath a small slit in a mirrored panel. This panel also houses the forward-facing camera lens. On either side of the panel is a small key, used for quickly accessing the photo gallery and changing the camera’s shoot and scene modes. Each end of the device is neatly rounded, contributing to its overall pleasant appearance. The top end is completely bare, and the bottom houses only the lanyard eyelet and slits for the loudspeaker.

The front of the device is made from matte black plastic, which changes to soft touch plastic on the rear. The soft touch plastic has been placed where it’s needed, providing a grippy surface on the back. The lower half of the rear is dominated by the battery cover, which fits snugly and, like the rest of the device, emits no creaks or squeaks.

Above the battery cover is the camera’s active lens cover, which sports a brushed metal finish. With the device in landscape mode, the upper section can be slid downwards, causing the lower section to recess into the phone. With the lens cover retracted, the camera necessities are revealed, and the camera is activated.

The shutter key, camera mode key, and zoom/volume keys are all located on the right side of the C905. This becomes the top of the device when in landscape mode, positioning the camera controls where you’d expect to find them. The left side houses the M2(INFO) memory card slot and proprietary power/data/audio multi-port. The memory card slot is covered by a little plastic door to keep grime out.

Sliding the front of the device upwards reveals a simple keypad, split into four rows by three chrome strips. The keys are slightly convex, but the keypad is still very flat and is covered by a single layer of plastic that feels quite thin. There are no grooves between the keys, which keeps them free of muck and dust.

Core Functions

The Sony Ericsson C905’s call audio quality was pretty good, and offered plenty of volume, too. There were no fuzz or echoes during our testing, and callers reported that I sounded loud and clear also. During our tests the device always showed good reception, and dropped no calls. Performance was certainly no worse than other devices I’ve tested recently.

Sony Ericsson claim that the C905 can offer up to 9 hours talk time/380 hours standby time on GSM networks, or 4 hours talk time/360 hours standby time on 3G networks. During our tests the C905 consistently lasted around 3 days or so, which was good for our usage. On average we sent and received around 20 SMS per day, plus made a few short calls and did some light web browsing. I also had the C905 automatically checking for new email every 2 hours.

The contacts system on the C905 was a standard Sony Ericsson affair, and offered a huge assortment of fields to enter information in. It also allows you to set a contact specific picture, ringtone, and message tone. Adding new contacts was easy, and multiple numbers and email addresses can be stored, plus birthdays and notes. Further to this is Sony Ericsson’s ‘Smart search’ feature that automatically searches for contacts, just by tapping two or more keys from the standby screen.

The Sony Ericsson C905 also features a speakerphone, voice dialing, and speed dialing. The speakerphone was loud and easy to activate, but callers reported being able to hear an echo of their own voice. Voice dialing features a ‘Magic word’ function that allows you to activate it by saying a preset phrase. However, it is not speaker independent, which means that voice tags have to be created by the user for each contact. Speed dial on the C905 is as you’d expect, except that the ‘1′ key can also be used as a speed dial, whereas on most devices it cannot.

Profile support is good on the Sony Ericsson C905, though there didn’t appear to be a quick way to change the device’s profile. Still, there is plenty of customization to be had, including various ring and vibrate settings, plus the ability to divert calls and select which calls are accepted. There is a decent selection of preloaded ringtones, but if none take your fancy then you can use MP3s instead. All profiles can be renamed (except the ‘Normal’ profile), and long-pressing the # key puts the C905 into silent mode.

On the Sony Ericsson C905, email and SMS/MMS have their own separate icons in the main menu. Within the Messaging menu there are less items than usual, too. That’s because Drafts, Sent Messages, Saved Messages, Templates, and Settings have all been moved to another submenu called ‘Messages’. Although this made the menus look tidier, it also made things more complicated and was an unnecessary change, in my opinion.

Writing messages was easy with the usual Sony Ericsson T9 dictionary on board. It threw up the odd silly word, but was generally quite good. MMS messages are easily created by adding media to an SMS message at any point, via on-screen options. Typing messages was quick and easy, though the keypad isn’t the best I’ve used, despite its decent tactile feedback.

The C905 supports both POP3(INFO) and IMAP4(INFO) email accounts, and I had my email account up and running in no time. Message retrieval was quick thanks to the HSDPA connection, and it was possible to use a push email service or set the phone to check at preset intervals. The C905 also supports email synchronization via Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync.

My only gripe with the email system is that replying to messages was very slow, as the C905 couldn’t keep up as I typed. It was possible to write several sentences without the phone displaying more than a few words. Racing on ahead would also cause the C905 to miss out parts of what I’d just typed, meaning I’d have to go back and start again.

When it comes to connectivity, the Sony Ericsson C905 has all bases covered. It features a whole host of acronyms, including HSDPA(INFO), WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth A2DP, and USB. The HSDPA connectivity allows high speed access to internet and email whilst on-the-go, using the device’s cellular connection. If you’re in WiFi(INFO) range though, the device’s WiFi connection can be used, potentially offering even faster data speeds. The C905 is also DLNA certified, meaning that it can wirelessly connect to, for example, a DLNA compatible television set.

Bluetooth A2DP(INFO) adds connectivity for Bluetooth headsets and allows files to be sent between the C905 and a Bluetooth-enabled computer. It is also possible to synchronize contacts, appointments, bookmarks, and such, with Microsoft Outlook via Bluetooth, or you can use the provided USB cable.

Multimedia / Apps

As you might guess from the Cyber-shot branding, the Sony Ericsson C905’s main feature is its 8.1 megapixel camera. Packing auto-focus, face detection, and a Xenon flash, the camera on the C905 certainly has plenty to boast about.

To allow easy operation of the camera, the front of the C905 has a handful of hidden keys that illuminate in a vivid blue color when it is activated. Hidden in the shiny black part of the d-pad are keys for exposure, flash, focus mode, and self timer. The scene and shoot mode keys also illuminate when the camera is activated, as does the camera shutter button.

The Xenon flash has an accompanying white LED for focusing in the dark, which means that it’s able to take good photos even in pitch black environments. The autofocus could be a bit temperamental at times, choosing not to focus at all in some instances. However, this was easily overcome by simply taking my finger off of the shutter button and trying again.

The Sony Ericsson C905 also has some additional features usually reserved for ‘proper’ cameras. Face detection, BestPic, Smart Contrast, and image stabilization are all included. Face detection worked well in our tests, picking up on multiple faces without too much trouble. The Smart Contrast feature also worked surprisingly well, making photos look more attractive and helping to brighten darker images. I suspect that this could be done more accurately on a computer, but for a quick fix the Smart Contrast feature certainly delivers.

Should you forget to turn on the Smart Contrast feature, don’t worry, because Sony Ericsson have included their ‘Photo fix’ option to smarten up your shots, which appears to do much the same as the Smart Contrast feature. Sony Ericsson’s PhotoDJ application has also been included, should you want more control over the editing of your photos.

Unfortunately, the display on our review unit would sometimes flick in and out of bright colors whilst the camera was activated. This would also affect the resulting photos, which would come up as a mess of bright colors when viewed. However, this appears to be a fault with our unit and at time of writing I couldn’t find any other reports of this online. Unfortunately, geo-tagging also didn’t work properly, with our Vodafone-branded handset missing the option to display geo-tagged photos in Google Maps. Geo-tagged photos would also not show their location when uploaded to Flickr, making the function pretty pointless.

Once photos were captured though, they looked pretty nice, even on my 15″ laptop display. The images could be a little soft, due to the noise reduction algorithms, but this was only really noticeable on a large display. Compared to the recently reviewed Motorola ZINE ZN5, the C905 has better resolution and produces fine photos, but loses out on detail and noise levels in spite of the ZN5’s lower resolution sensor. Overall, the Sony Ericsson C905 showed impressive photographic abilities and could easily be used as an alternative to a normal point and shoot camera.

To add to its still photo skills, the Sony Ericsson C905 also includes a video camera. Videos are recorded as MP4s in 320 x 240 resolution and look better than anything I’ve seen from previous Sony Ericsson devices. However, they still don’t rival the video quality produced by my Nokia N95, so there is room for improvement.

The Sony Ericsson C905’s web browser is a Netfront WAP 2.0 XHTML browser, which gave a pretty decent browsing experience overall. Most sites were displayed clearly, although the C905 froze completely every time I tried to login to my Hotmail account. Thanks to the WiFi and HSDPA connectivity, pages were downloaded quite quickly, though the C905 seemed to take a while to load images and navigate pages.

The music player on the Sony Ericsson C905 offers a fairly good experience, with a simple interface and a warm sound. The sound quality wasn’t the best I’ve heard, but that could be partly thanks to the plasticky headphones included in the sales package. Unfortunately, the C905 doesn’t have a 3.5mm headphone port, so the only way to use standard headphones is via an adaptor (not included). However, the Bluetooth A2DP allows a set of stereo Bluetooth headphones to be used instead. Album art is also supported and an equalizer is included to allow some customization of the sound. A built-in FM radio is present as well, but requires the headset to be connected to act as an antenna.

To top off its multitude of functions, the Sony Ericsson C905 includes a built-in GPS(INFO) receiver. Our review unit came pre-loaded with Google Maps and Vodafone’s ‘Find & Go’ navigation software from Telemap, which requires a paid subscription for voice navigation. We were unable to test Vodafone’s Find & Go navigation service, but we tested the C905’s assisted-GPS (A-GPS) function and found that it took quite a while to find satellites. Not ideal if you need to navigate somewhere quickly.

The Sony Ericsson C905 rounds off its functionality with a handful of extra features, including some games and organization applications. Our handset came loaded with lots of game demos, including Tetris, Sims 2, and a brain training game called ‘Brain Challenge vol.2′. Unfortunately, these were all demo versions. Thankfully, there were plenty of good organization apps, including a calculator, calendar, alarms function, tasks, notes, and the very handy code memo for storing PIN numbers and passwords.

There are also some fun little applications to enhance the C905’s media credentials. Firstly, there is the TrackID service that records a short clip of music from the built-in FM radio or via the microphone, and provides track details such as track and artist names. There is also the aforementioned PhotoDJ photo editor, plus VideoDJ and MusicDJ editors, too. A 2GB M2 memory card ships with the Sony Ericsson C905, but up to 8GB M2 cards are supported. The handset itself has only 160MB of storage built-in.

User Interface

The Sony Ericsson C905’s user interface is a standard Sony Ericsson affair, and therefore was very consistent and easy to navigate. The main menu defaults to a 3 x 4 grid layout, but can be changed to a rotating carousel view, or a single icon view. Each submenu is in list format, and all icons are simple and well-suited to their associated function. Within each menu and submenu you can jump to any item by pressing the associated number on the keypad. For example, you can select the sixth item in a list by pressing the number 6.

The C905 also includes a handful of dedicated interface keys, such as the C key that is universally used to delete items such as text, photos, messages, and such. Plus there’s the Toolbar key that gives access to a shortcut list, running apps, and new events. The End key also functions as a back key that quits applications and returns you to the standby screen. It serves double duty as the C905’s power key, too.

Our Vodafone branded Sony Ericsson C905 came pre-loaded with five themes. One of these was the default Vodafone theme, which I’m not keen on. The other themes were pretty nice though, with a mixture of light and dark color schemes to appeal to most tastes. Some themes offered moving background images, and some activated a weird vibration feedback when nvigating through menus. For some reason these vibrations only seemed to occur in the main menu of certain themes, and appeared to be quite pointless.

Conclusion

The Sony Ericsson C905 is a great cameraphone, and would be a great device for anyone who wants to have a decent camera with them at all times. There were a few bugs on our handset, but they didn’t get in the way too much and could be due to our handset being faulty. Overall, the handset felt very well made indeed, and the materials used have been very intelligently selected.

The design is classy and cohesive, and plenty of functionality has been crammed in to ensure it has some punch to go with its handsome exterior. However, I feel that the C905 could’ve been a bit more powerful, as the email and web browsing experience can be rather slow at times.

Overall, we at MobileBurn are happy to give this handset our “Highly Recommended” rating, as the Sony Ericsson C905 is a great phone to live with. It excels at its primary task - delivering good quality photographs, whilst offering high-end toys like GPS and WiFi as icing on the cake.

Possible alternatives to consider: Motorola Zine ZN5, Samsung i8510 Innov8, and the Nokia N96.

The Gravity, currently on sale with a new contract at T-Mobile for $49.99, is a new Samsung quad-band GSM candybar phone. With a full slide-out QWERTY keypad on the 122g (4.3oz) device, it feels truly weightless in your pocket - especially for a device packing features that rival a Sidekick, but at a fraction of the cost. Further, at 115mm x 53mm x 18mm (4.5″ x 2.1″ x .7″), the phone is similar in size and appearance to the LG Rumor.

The Gravity’s slide mechanism is sturdy and easy to use, and the phone won’t slide open accidentally. I found that it feels great in the hand, however the finish is a little too smooth for my liking. The materials and buttons are of excellent quality, and the three row QWERTY keypad is simple to use since the phone automatically starts an SMS when typed upon. A standard four-way directional pad allows you to navigate the phone’s menu and core functions. Samsung also included two dedicated soft keys on the QWERTY keypad for controlling the phone when the display switches to landscape mode.

The Gravity has a dedicated camera button and charger/headphone port on one side of the device and two volume controls with a microSD slot on the other. The numerical keypad uses four horizontal strips of buttons rather than 12 individual keys. While they work accurately, the domed areas that correspond to the specific keypad digits are a bit difficult to discern visually.

As with any candybar shaped phone, you want a keypad lock that is easy to use, and Samsung kept it pretty simple here. The power function is shared with the end call button and there is a programmable messaging button that can be instantly linked to SMS or IM.

The 176 x 220 pixel screen, at 2.1-inches, looks great in daylight and night with decent color depth for an entry level QWERTY device. As noted earlier, the display easily switches between portrait and landscape mode depending on whether the QWERTY keypad is hidden or exposed.

Call audio quality is solid on the device, producing loud and clear sound on both ends with nothing that interfered with our test conversations. While not subjected to rigorous testing, the phone successfully held its charge after standard use and on standby for several days before reporting a low battery level. The 800mAh Li-Ion battery is rated for 6 hours (360 minutes) of talk time and 300 hours (13 days) for standby. For the average user that will use the phone for messaging friends and family, I am confident the battery will do more than hold its own. I also tested reception in urban and suburban areas where it maintained a full EDGE signal for most of the time.

Adding contacts is pretty simple and follows a menu format that is similar to many other Samsung devices. The phone book supports groups as well as assignable ringtones and picture IDs for individual callers. The Gravity also stores contacts’ email addresses for use with the integrated e-mail client, however there are no street addresses stored in the contact records. It is especially easy to quickly dial contacts by typing in their name on either the numerical keypad or the QWERTY keypad.

The Gravity contains several preloaded ringtones and allows easy access to a variety of tones offered through T-Mobile. There is also support for just about every type of ringing profile, including vibe then ring, ring then vibe, and vibe with ring. You can easily change the ring profile by using the dedicated volume buttons on the side of the phone.

The speakerphone sounds good and there is support for voice dialing. Surprisingly, there are only 8 empty speed dial slots, all accessed through the numeric keypad. This leaves all those buttons on the QWERTY keypad incapable of assigning themselves to other contacts. That just seems wasteful as holding down these buttons doesn’t seem to accomplish any function whatsoever.

Messaging is really the core of this phone, and I must say that I think Samsung really delivered in this respect. SMS is a breeze to use, and although there is no support for threaded messaging, a hot feature these days, we shouldn’t get too greedy. It is also great to see support for several common e-mail providers, including AOL, Yahoo!, Gmail and several others. This allows basic users to finally get some of the features usually reserved for top of the line devices. The IM client supports AIM, ICQ, Windows Live, and Yahoo!, although I only tested AIM - which I can report worked perfectly.

The Gravity runs on T-Mobile’s GSM/EDGE network, so while it will render WAP pages in reasonable time, one should not expect anything amazing in terms of speed here. The browser does not support full HTML and will not load your favorite Web pages that you are used to seeing on a PC, but it is fully functional and provides access to all WAP and other mobile formatted pages, including search engines such as Google. The phone also boasts the latest in Bluetooth 2.0 technology, including stereo support.

The Samsung Gravity has a nice 1.3 megapixel camera without a flash that takes decent pictures when used with adequate lighting. You can choose from six different resolutions, nine color effects, and five white balance settings. There is also a zoom and a few other options, but no silent shutter mode. There is also support for recording short videos for inserting in MMS messages or e-mail. The music player is straightforward and, while it isn’t feature packed, it does what it needs to do, offering playback of your MP3s from a microSD card. A limitation to the phone’s music capabilities is the lack of a 3.5mm headphone jack, but this is not a deal-breaker for a messaging device.

The Gravity has a built-in organizer and is equipped with an alarm, calendar, calculator and host of other useful tools. The phone has a built-in storage capacity of 60 MB, but can accept microSD cards as well.

The Gravity’s UI is simple and makes sense, very reminiscent of earlier Samsung devices as I indicated earlier. There was nothing too tricky to accomplish and I found the phone sufficiently customizable with theme support for different colors and backgrounds images.

Conclusion

All told, I really like Samsung’s offering in the Gravity, returning to a familiar form of cell phones and packing in new features that mobile users crave, including a full QWERTY keypad and support for e-mail.

I wish it had a 3.5mm headphone jack and threaded SMS support, though. I would also redesign the numeric keypad a bit to make the individual keys easier to distinguish.

I would highly recommend the Samsung Gravity to anyone seeking a phone in this price category and looking for solid messaging features. The size is great, it feels light, and it looks great in either the lime color that I reviewed or the other available color, aqua.

The LG KP500 Cookie is a new device boasting to be the UK’s cheapest touchscreen handset. With a large 3″ screen and a 3 megapixel camera, the KP500 should be a tempting proposition to anyone that wants a more affordable alternative to the iPhone. We take a closer look to see if the Cookie crumbles…

Physical Aspects

The LG Cookie comes in the standard tablet style that many recent touchscreen handsets have adopted. This gives the device a simplistic look, with the 3″ touch-sensitive display dominating the front. Measuring a respectable 106.5mm x 55.4mm x 11.9mm (4.2″ x 2.2″ x .5″) and weighing a mere 89g (3.1oz), the Cookie easily slides into a pocket or handbag.

The display is capable of showing 256,000 colors and has a WQVGA resolution of 240 x 400 pixels. It’s also quite bright, allowing for decent legibility in sunny conditions. Below it are three square buttons with chrome edges. The buttons comprise the ‘Call/Send’ button, favorite/running apps button, and ‘End’ button. Around the display is a glossy black surround that houses the LG logo, with the rest of the front being clad in soft-touch plastic.

The rear shares this soft touch finish, and houses the lens for the 3.0 megapixel camera. The lower half of the rear cover slides off to reveal the battery and SIM card slot, and features an embossed LG logo. The front and rear of the device are separated by a metallic silver band that loops around all four edges of the handset. The top and bottom of the device are completely bare, aside from the microphone pinhole on the bottom edge.

The sides of the Cookie house the remaining few buttons, with the volume rocker on the left and the camera shutter and screen lock buttons on the right. I found the screen lock button to be too flush with the casing to allow easy operation. It usually took a few jabs at the side of the device before I managed to unlock the screen. There’s also a covered microSD(INFO) slot on the right and the device’s proprietary headset/data/charging multi-port on the left. Hidden in the bottom right corner of the device is the extendable stylus that, unusually, slides out of the device sideways. The stylus is quite short at 76mm, but the phone can be operated with a finger for most tasks, so it’s rarely needed.

Overall, the LG Cookie is a decent-looking device, though is a little boring and lacks any real design flare. However, thanks to extensive use of soft-touch plastics, it does feel quite nice in the hand and stays fingerprint-free, aside from the screen.

Core Functions

The LG Cookie’s call quality was quite good, with callers being clearly audible and with plenty of volume. There was no fuzz or hiss, and the speakerphone worked well too, though callers could hear an echo of themselves at higher volumes. The Cookie’s reception was also good, often showing full signal and never once dropping a call.

LG claim that the Cookie’s 900mAh battery gives the device 350 hours of standby time, or 3.5 hours of talk time. During our tests we averaged around 2 days on a single charge. Our usage was quite average, with the device set to check for email every 2 hours, plus about 20 SMS per day and the odd short call or use of the camera. Unfortunately, the device’s battery gauge was useless, and stayed on full for much of its life, before quickly dropping down and running out of juice. Sometimes the device didn’t even warn me about the low battery until a minute or so before it ran out of power.

The Cookie’s contacts system was simple and easy to use. Multiple phone numbers and email addresses can be held, as well as lots of other info such as home address, birthday, and a memo. You can also assign contacts their own picture and ringtone, and group contacts together. The contacts search system works well and searches by both first and last names at once. There is also a search function in the dialing screen, though this only allows you to find contacts by entering part of their phone number, and not by searching their name.

Voice dialing is not supported on the LG Cookie, but thankfully speed dialing is. Users can customize one of the two standby screens with up to 8 contact shortcuts, allowing you to dial, send SMS, or edit each contact from a thumbnail picture on the screen.

Profile support on the LG KP500 was good, with plenty of customization on offer. There is also the option to create new profiles, should you wish. Profile options include; ringtone, message tone, vibrate mode, increasing ring, and startup/shutdown sounds. The included ringtones are all quite upbeat, and MP3s can also be used as ringtones. It’s possible to quickly switch to silent mode by long-pressing the downwards arrow on the volume rocker.

Messaging on the Cookie seemed good the first time that I used the device. The messaging system was easy to use and MMS messages can be created from the SMS composer by simply adding images, video, or sound. The keypad input method can even be exchanged for a full QWERTY(INFO) keyboard, simply by rotating the device counter-clockwise. However, just like when I reviewed LG’s Viewty, the Cookie seemed to slow down as I was composing a message. Therefore I had to drastically slow my text input to prevent the Cookie from missing characters as it caught up with my typing.

Worse still, was the Cookie’s T9 dictionary function. There was no way to quickly flick through predicted words, and users instead have to tap on a drop-down box and select the word they want from a list. As you can imagine, this made messaging pretty slow. Not only this, but the T9 system often made frustrating mistakes such as canceling a word when it was selected, and didn’t seem to include many partial-word alternatives like rival T9 systems.

Unfortunately, this problem only became worse within the email composer. Adding a new word would, strangely, return the cursor to the bottom of the email, which meant I had to scroll back to the top of the message to find where I’d entered my text. Also, the device seemed very unresponsive in the email application, so scrolling back to the top of the message wasn’t as easy as one might expect either - even when using the stylus. The Cookie does at least support both IMAP(INFO) and POP3(INFO) email accounts, although unfortunately does not feature Instant Messaging. Overall I was very dissatisfied with the LG Cookie’s messaging capabilities.

The LG Cookie is a 2G(INFO) handset, which means it isn’t the ideal candidate for services such as web browsing and email. Nor does it have WiFi(INFO), so web browsing is limited to GPRS/Edge connection speeds instead. It does, however, include Bluetooth A2DP for transferring files and connecting Bluetooth handsfree kits and stereo headsets. The KP500 can also connect to a computer via a USB cable that is included in the sales package.

Multimedia / Applications

The KP500 Cookie has a 3 megapixel camera, beating the iPhone’s lowly 2 megapixel unit. However, like the iPhone it also lacks autofocus and a flash, so low-light photography and close-ups are a no-go. On the whole though, I was actually quite impressed with the Cookie’s camera quality. With good light, the camera takes some pretty nice shots. There is a bit of noise in darker areas, but photos generally looked sharp and well colored. I do question the choice of positioning the camera lens in the top corner though, as the natural position for your fingers to sit when using the camera causes them to obscure the lens.

Unfortunately, I cannot report about the video recording abilities of the Cookie in such a positive manner. The video is recorded at QVGA resolution (320 x 240 pixels) and encoded as a 3gp file. Therefore the image quality is poor, and the videos aren’t really suitable for anything other than viewing on the device itself. To top it all off, the frame rate is very low, so video playback is very jerky.

Viewing photos and videos in the gallery was generally a better experience. Looking through your snaps was dealt with by intuitive finger swipes across the screen, and photos slid across the screen quite smoothly. The gallery viewer opens up in landscape mode, but it is possible to view the photos in portrait mode, simply by rotating the phone. It is also possible to edit photos from the gallery with a basic application that allows you to draw on your photos, add text, and stamp shapes, plus edit things like white balance, contrast, colors, and levels.

Web browsing on the LG KP500 requires a great deal of patience, as you’d expect from the GPRS/EDGE connection speeds. Once loaded, pages were displayed well, with images and animations mostly being displayed without issue. Pages are loaded to fit the screen width, which gives a good view of the page, but renders most items too small to read. To zoom in, a long press is required on the desired item, which is then sized to fit the screen. As with the photo gallery, it is possible to rotate the device to display web pages in landscape mode, courtesy of the Cookie’s built-in accelerometer.

For music fans, the Cookie includes an MP3 player with playlist creation and album art support. The player features a good library function, allowing you to browse music by track, artist, album or genre, or to simply enter shuffle mode for a random selection of songs. Sound quality from the handset seemed good, but was drastically let down by the naff ["useless" -editor] headphones included in the sales package. Unfortunately, there is no standard 3.5mm headphone jack on the Cookie, so an adapter or a set of headphones with LG’s multi-port connection are required. The included headphones lacked bass and wouldn’t stay in my ears, but did include a microphone for making/receiving calls handsfree.

Thanks to the Cookie’s Bluetooth support with A2DP(INFO), a set of Bluetooth stereo headphones can be connected. This enables use of a wider variety of headsets and gets rid of annoying wires in the process. Bluetooth can also be used to send music across to the phone from a PC or Mac, or alternatively this can be done more quickly via the USB connection. The LG Cookie can be connected in either Mass Storage mode to load up the memory card, or ‘Music Sync’ mode that allows the Cookie to synchronize with Windows Media Player 10 or 11.

It is also possible to play videos on the LG Cookie, but I found the quality to be quite poor, offering jerky playback at best. Should you be more of an FM radio fan, the Cookie has you covered, but the wired headset must be connected to function as an antenna. Both video and music playback (including the FM radio) can be listened to via headphones or the device’s built-in loudspeaker.

To round off the Cookie’s abilities, LG have packed-in some personal information management applications and a handful of games. You get an organizer, alarms, voice recorder, drawing panel for scribbling notes and doodles, a calculator, converter, memos, to-do list, world clock, and a stopwatch. The converter was particularly handy with seven different types of conversion, including currency, weight, and temperature.

You also get a handy document and PDF viewer, although it didn’t appear to support images in the documents and my test PDF file was displayed in greyscale. The included games consisted of the ‘Tomsons & Touch’ games collection found on other touch-sensitive LG devices, plus ‘Pipe Game’, ‘Flying Dices’, and ‘Wheel Mania’. None of these games really held my interest for long, but could be handy for short moments of boredom. Unfortunately, the Cookie only has a tiny 48 MB of internal storage, so it’s pretty much essential to purchase a microSD card to expand the device’s storage for all your photos, videos, music, and documents. Up to 16GB microSD cards are supported.

User Interface

The LG Cookie’s user interface is very simple and nicely styled. There are some nice transition effects between screens that make the interface look modern and polished. The menu system is very intuitive and separated across four themed tabs: ‘Communicate’, ‘Entertainment’, ‘Utilities’, and ‘Settings’. Within these tabs everything is where you’d likely expect to find it, and even technophobes would struggle to get lost in such simple menus. As you’d expect from a touchscreen device, lists can be navigated by swiping up and down on the screen. This is lucky, as the scroll bars on the Cookie were very difficult to use, even after re-calibrating the screen twice.

There are two home screens that can be switched between by swiping across the display with a finger. One screen houses the Cookie’s widgets and the other houses the earlier-mentioned contact shortcuts. There are seven widgets in total, comprising of: an analogue clock, a pair of digital world clocks, a calendar, a memo pad, a photo frame that links to the gallery, a music player control, and an FM radio control.

The widgets can be moved into place from a menu that is brought up from a tab at the side of the screen. They can be positioned pretty much anywhere on the screen, but if you shake the device with the widget menu still open, all widgets get auto-aligned into a more tidy arrangement. This function is also present in the other home screen, to help align the contact shortcuts. I found it to be very handy, and a wonderful use of the Cookie’s in-built accelerometer.

There was no evidence of theme support on the LG Cookie, although it is at least possible to change the home screen background image. The Cookie also allows users to customize the main menu between tabbed and scrolling versions, change the menu and dialling fonts, and adjust the display brightness and backlight timeout.

Being such a screen-oriented control system, the Cookie’s UI makes use of very few dedicated buttons. However, you can always rely on the End button to take you back to the home screen, and the favorite/running apps button to bring up the favorite/running apps menu. The favorite/running apps menu is basically a customizable shortcut menu to favorite applications, with an accompanying tab to show running applications. From this menu the user’s favorite apps can be launched and any currently running apps can be closed. The camera shutter button can also be long-pressed to launch the camera application from the home screen.

The only real problem that I had with the Cookie’s software is that it wasn’t very stable. The device repeatedly turned itself off for no apparent reason, and regularly froze or blacked-out. The only remedy for this was to remove the battery and re-start the device, as it wouldn’t respond to any input - not even from the on/off button. At the time of this writing many users seem happy with the reliability of their handsets, but equally there are numerous other reports that support my findings. Therefore, it’s probably best to keep your receipt, just in case.

Conclusion

The LG KP500 Cookie is a great device for those who want the appeal of an iPhone for a fraction of the cost. The user interface has attractive effects and touch-sensitive gestures, and there is a wide variety of multimedia on-board to keep users entertained. It’s also easy to use and has a certain playful feel to it.

It’s not all good, however, and using the device could become very frustrating as the cost-cutting measures shone through the initial touchscreen luster. The Cookie could be very slow to respond at times, and seemed to lack the power of more expensive rivals. This often made messaging, email, and web browsing a bit of a chore, as the device struggled to keep up with my inputs. Then there’s the lack of 3G(INFO) and (unsurprisingly) WiFi, which leave the Cookie crawling through websites at lowly GPRS/EDGE speeds.

It’s also a shame that the Cookie doesn’t feature a 3.5mm headphone socket, as it would otherwise make a pretty good music phone. Thankfully, the camera was better than expected, and the gallery was quite nice, even if it was a little fiddly at times. So, if you’re a casual user and are looking for a more affordable alternative to the iPhone, the LG Cookie could definitely be worth a look. On the other hand, those in search of a hardcore multimedia device need not apply, and the same goes for hardcore SMS and email fans.

Overall, I give the LG Cookie a “Recommended” rating, as it provides plenty of simple functionality in a stylish and affordable touchscreen package. It misses out on our top rating due to the lack of 3G and its slow operating speed, though this shouldn’t worry the majority of people that opt to take a bite of the Cookie.

Nokia’s latest candybar cell phone, the N79, brings memories of days gone by with its simplistic design and easy to use numeric keypad. However, it hides a powerful 5 megapixel camera with autofocus, Carl Zeiss optics, and a dual-LED flash, and is powered by Nokia’s versatile S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 user interface. We put it to the test to see if Nokia still knows how to make a killer candybar smartphone.

Physical Aspects

The Nokia N79 candybar smartphone features the standard numeric keypad, with a small array of S60 navigational buttons. The front of the phone is white plastic (there is a grey version also available) with a clear shiny layer on top, to catch fingerprints. The outer edges are a steel grey color, and there are three different colored backplates included in the box. Each of these Xpress-On backplates features a small chip that allows the phone to automatically change the interface theme to match the installed backplate, for a fun, fashion-oriented experience.The whole phone is made of high-quality plastic, but squeaks a bit when in use, unfortunately. Though not terribly loud, the sound is noticeable. The keypad can also get rather noisy if you are a quick typist, which can be an issue if you spend a lot of time texting in the library. Aside from that, the phone is built quite solid. The back covers snap firmly into place, and the front keys are all nicely tactile, with no sign of muThe front face of the Nokia N79 is split evenly between the 2.6″ QVGA (240×320 pixel) TFT display and the keypad, which offers a balanced in-hand feel. At the top right-hand corner of the phone, above the display, you’ll notice the VGA-resolution secondary camera and ambient light sensor, along with an opening for the speaker. Below the display is where you can find the S60 navigational cluster, centered around the d-pad.

The left and right softkeys are raised slightly, as are the dedicated end and send keys, making it slightly difficult to access the S60 menu button and the back button centered between them, on either side of the d-pad. The d-pad on the N79 is slightly difficult to use, since the outer ring is flush with the front of the phone, with only the center button raised slightly. The d-pad also features Nokia’s NaviWheel technology, which allows you to move your thumb around it in a circular motion, for navigating through long lists easily. Unfortunately, this NaviWheel is overly sensitive, which forced me to disable it through the phone’s settings.

Off to the left, a nondescript silver button opens the Nseries Multimedia menu, which consists of a series of floating panels, each focused on a specific multimedia feature. These panels can be reorganized through a settings menu, and provide easy access to music, Internet, N-Gage, and other phone features.

The numeric keypad on the Nokia N79 is made up of 4 strips that run across the phone, with three numbers on each. Despite the lack of separation between each key, I was able to type quite quickly on this keypad, and was pleased to find that each button offers a very distinct click when you press it. Unfortunately, the keypad backlighting is rather weak, and does not light up every key evenly.

The bottom edge of the Nokia N79 features two small openings - one for a wrist strap, and one for the microphone. The left edge of the phone is similarly sparse, only offering the standard 2mm Nokia charging port, the micro-USB data port, and the microSD card slot. These last two are grouped together, with a single attached door to keep debris out. The top edge of the phone, however, is packed with a spring-assisted slide-lock, the standard 3.5mm audio port (which also supports the included TV-Out cable), and the power button. The right edge of the phone is also packed, with a stereo speaker on either end, and the volume rocker and dedicated two-stage camera button positioned between them.

The Nokia N79’s camera lens is located on the top half of the back of the phone, protected by a sliding lens cover. The dual-LED flash is positioned just above the lens, too. As mentioned, the entire backplate of the phone is removed to access the 1200mAh battery, and also the SIM card slot.

RIM’s BlackBerry Curve 8900 is the second generation of the company’s compact, full-QWERTY messaging smartphone. It features the same basic form factor as the original 8300 series devices, but gets some nicely upgraded features as well as a bit of the BlackBerry Storm and Bold’s styling. We reviewed a T-Mobile USA version of the 8900, which supports the company’s UMA based HotSpot @Home VoIP calling service.

Physical Aspects

At 112g (3.9oz) in weight and measuring 109.5mm x 60.5mm x 13.5mm (4.3″ x 2.4″ x .5″) in size, the new Curve is basically the same size and weight as the original, though it is appreciably thinner. The keyboard on the device is much like the original’s and offers great feel. The new trackball is a bit stiffer and slightly harder to use, though. The 8900’s display is a beautiful 480×360 pixel unit that measures 2.4 inches across the diagonal. It’s smaller than the display on the Bold 9000, but sports more pixels.

The overall build quality of the device is very good with one exception: the rear battery cover. RIM cut some corners with it, and it shows. The cover is loose fitting and rattles. The Curve 8900’s overall design is nice, the finish is attractive, and I appreciate the soft-touch rubbery surface used on the sides and bottom of the phone. It’s a solid piece of hardware.

Core Functions

Call audio quality on the BlackBerry Curve 8900 is exceptionally good, especially when on UMA based VoIP connections. Reception on GSM networks seems perhaps slightly better than on the 8320, but not much so. The speakerphone functions very well from the perspective of the remote caller, though it can sound a bit harsh to the Curve user. RIM rates the Curve 8900 for 6 hours of talk time or up to 19 days of standby time, and we can at least offer that the battery life seems better than in the 8300 series devices. For T-Mobile USA users, the Curve 8900 is compatible with the carrier’s My Faves calling service.

Contact management on the Curve 8900 is very good, and the ability to search for contacts merely by typing a first and/or last name from the home screen is handy. Ring profiles on the 8900 are hugely customizable, though still a bit complex due to all of the available settings. Speed dials and speaker independent voice dialing is also available on this newest member of the Curve family.

Messaging is still the focus of any BlackBerry, and the Curve 8900 deals with such tasks well. Multiple email accounts can be easily configured on the device, and users have options as to whether they prefer combined or separate inboxes for their email and SMS/MMS messages. RIM thoughtfully included a large number of keyboard shortcuts to make messaging even faster, such as hitting the ‘R’ key to reply to a selected message in the inbox.

The BlackBerry Curve 8900 functions on any of the four major GSM/EDGE network bands, but lacks 3G connectivity completely. WiFi access will help mitigate that omission, but even the WiFi data speeds seem sluggish at times. The Curve 8900 supports USB mass storage emulation and Bluetooth connectivity for headsets as well as stereo headphones.