Archive for April, 2009

Nokia 8800 Carbon Arte Review

The Nokia 8800 Carbon Arte certainly looks the part, it certainly feels the part, and a quick glance at the phones spec list it certainly seems to tick a number of boxes however as soon as the price tag is discovered the 8800 suddenly has a lot more to live up to and certainly some extra weight on its 150g shoulders.

The Nokia 8800 Carbon Arte

What’s in the box?

Nokia 8800 Carbon Arte Specification:

General

As I mentioned the 8800 certainly looks every inch a well built, high quality device with some real weight behind it. However, as I also mentioned £1000 is a huge price to pay for a mobile phone so lets have a look around the 8800 and see if the device can match the price tag.

The front of the device has a fairly small screen certainly smaller than recent phones Nokia have put out such as the 5800 however as this is not a touch screen device this can be expected.

Nokia 8800 Carbon Arte – Front view

Seen below on the front of the device is the multi directional navigation D pad with a selection push button in the centre and either side of this are four soft keys for call control and menu quick start.

Nokia 8800 Carbon Arte – Keypad view

The 8800 is of course a slider with a difference, whereas many sliders have the screen sitting on-top of the keypad the 8800’s keypad is housed in the bottom of the device meaning the phone can remain clean and portable when closed while keeping the thickness of the device down when open.

Nokia 8800 Carbon Arte – Opened view

The 8800 Carbon Arte is a very clean device with very little to no buttons cluttering either side apart from the two battery cover release push buttons meaning it looks as well built as it feels.

Nokia 8800 Carbon Arte – left side view

With no buttons to speak of it makes the sides of the device very difficult to talk about so rather than doing so I will allow you to admire the 8800’s beauty for yourself.

Nokia 8800 Carbon Arte – right side view

 
The standby button Is the only real key on any of the four sides of the Carbon Arte and it I wont patronise you in telling you what its function is.

Nokia 8800 Carbon Arte – Top view

The back of the 8800 continues the clean theme of the phone with the camera lens housed in centralised square housing and below this is a silver Nokia logo sitting perfectly against that carbon battery cover.

Nokia 8800 Carbon Arte – back view

Highlights

• Superb Build Quality

• Design

Lowlights

• Price

• Lack of features

Review

The 8800 Carbon Arte from Nokia is certainly the most expensive I have and probably ever will have the privilege of using, however when you are told the price your initial reaction is likely to be one of great anticipation for a device which is feature filled to the brim with built in lasers and a switch will will instantly launch a nuclear attack on the nearest unsuspecting nation, OK maybe I am exaggerating a little buy you would certainly expect some pretty decent features from a device of this price.

The explanation and justification of the 8800 Carbon Arte price is its build quality and exceptional feat of technological engineering and this I cannot knock the device looks fantastic, extremely stylish in its design and is incredibly well built, these are all things that are reflected in the weight of the device, as Matt said in his un-boxing of the phone when you hear of things such as carbon etc. used in the construction of a product you instantly assume it will be not only sleek but also lightweight however at just over 150g this is not really the case for the 8800, its weight though is not something that should be held against it as it further enhances the feeling of quality.
One thing that impressed me when I reviewed the 5800 was not just the device but also the things included in the box it felt like Nokia had thought of everything, and the same applies for the 8800, the contents of the box you can find at the start of this review but one thing that is slightly different to be included with a device is the blue tooth headset. The headset doesn’t feel like a last minute addition and a case of chuck the last few budget headsets we have left in the box it is a quality headset, sound quality is great and fits comfortably in the ear.

Bluetooth Headset BH-803

As I mentioned earlier the phone features a 3 Mega pixel camera the quality of which I felt was actually fairly poor, and certainly worse than some other mobiles I have used with similar spec devices. Another disappointment of the 8800’s camera is that no flash is included in any form which does make photography in different levels of light that much more difficult.

As for the storing of your photos as well as multimedia such as video and music the 8800 has an in-built memory of 4GB with no room for additional storage via storage card. Watching videos and listening to music is not something you are likely to use the 8800 for seeing as there is no headphone jack and the only connection is via a mini USB.

Nokia 8800 Carbon Arte – bottom view

If you do manage to retreat to your safe haven from background noise and distractions you will find that the 8800 offers great sound quality and clarity. One downside to watching videos and or using the phone itself is it becomes useless in direct sunlight, something I experienced several times during the past week of surprisingly pleasant spring sunshine.
Connectivity of the 8800 is unsurprisingly agreeable with Bluetooth 2.0, 3G, Edge, GPRS to name a few, I have no complaints about using them however I have to mention that the phone keypad is not altogether the most efficient I have used and this did affect things such as browsing. The phones connectivity is at an acceptable level as I mentioned however for a device of this price I suppose I was expecting something a little more groundbreaking or earth shattering but I’m afraid the 8800 doesn’t deliver this but it does keep you connected which is most important.

A phone is an item you are going to be using every day you own it so it has to be easy and enjoyable to do so, that is why in my reviews I always try to let you know what the phone is like when using it for simple or more complicated daily tasks. One problem I found throughout my time with the device was that they keys do at times feel a little small and I often found myself accidently pushing two keys at once a problem I feel is largely due to the keys sloping design. Provided you are not standing in direct sun light and manage to get over the awkwardness of the keys navigation through menus is simple it uses the standard Nokia menus which I am sure may of you are familiar with, however, if not it certainly doesn’t take long to get use to. It seems amazing that I have managed to get this far into a review of a mobile phone without actually mentioning what the phone is like to use as well just that a phone, it is so often taken for granted now but I have used devices in the past with poor sound quality when in a call. However, I am pleased to report that the 8800 has great sound clarity I experienced no problems with muffling and the same goes for when using speaker phone. Battery life is stated to be around 300 hours standby by a mere 3 ½ talk time which I think is pretty poor and I did have problems with the battery life in terms of several charges in just a few days.

Conclusion

Overall I feel that my conclusion would be very different if at this point I could tell you that the Nokia 8800 Carbon Arte comes with all the features and functions listed in the review and cost only £250 however I can’t and for that reason you may be understandably disappointed with the 8800, but as I kept reminding myself the 8800 is not about having a great camera or music player it is a masterpiece of design and technological engineering it feels every bit as good as it looks, it is the ultimate status symbol in the world of Mobile phones and is a true object of beauty which you could say would be more suited to the Tate modern than the shelf of your local carphone warehouse.

Reviewed by: Nick

INQ INQ1 review

The INQ1 is excusive to 3 and was released in the UK in November of last year. A much more affordable phone, aimed at the younger generation, the INQ1 is being sold as “The Social Mobile” with fast access to Facebook, Windows Live Messenger and free Skype-to-Skype calls.

The INQ INQ1 – exclusive to 3

What’s in the box?

• INQ1 handset
• Battery
• Instruction cards
• Software CD
• Warranty and safety booklets
• USB – mini USB sync cable
• UK Wall charger (mini USB connection)
• Stereo Headphones/handsfree (mini USB connection)

Check out Tracy’s unboxing video for more information

Specification

• UMTS 2100
• Bluetooth
• microSDHC card support (up to 16GB)
• 3G, HSDPA
• USB 2.0
• 3.0 Megapixel camera
• 2.2" 240 x 320 pixel LCD screen
• 47.6 x 14.4 x 97 mm
• 100 grams
• SMS, MMS, E-mail, Instant Messaging, IM
• Integrated Facebook, Skype, Windows Live Messenger and email applications

General

Front – 2.2″ display, right and left soft keys, D Pad, Menu button, clear button, ‘call’ and ‘hang up’ buttons (the phone is powered on/off using the red ‘hang up’ button)

INQ1 front view

Keypad – A good size standard phone keypad (T9 input for text)

INQ1 keypad view

Left side – Mini USB socket for pc connection and charging the phone. The speaker is also located on the left side.

INQ1 left side view

Right side – Right convenience key which is set as default as the camera soft key, Switcher menu selector button, Up/down rocker volume control buttons (also used as zoom with the camera function)

INQ right side view

Bottom – Not much here. just the microphone.

INQ bottom view

Back – The back cover encloses the battery, micro SD card, sim card and 3MP camera.

INQ1 back view

Highlights

• Easy access to Facebook, Windows Live Messenger and free Skype-to-Skype calls
• Facebook integration with phonebook
• Simple to use
• Carousel quick app menu
• Widgets
• compact design
• lightweight

Lowlights

• Screen is too small
• No camera flash
• No self portrait mirror for camera
• Difficult to access the micro SD card
• Position of the speaker – muffled when holding the phone
• no 3.5mm stereo earphone plug

Review

OK, first impressions of the phone. From the pictures on 3’s website the INQ1 looked pretty cheap and nasty if I’m being honest. But, when I received the handset from Matt I was nicely surprised. Definitely a lot better looking in real life and feels pretty sturdy and well made.

The packaging of the phone definitely suggests the type of market that the INQ1 is aiming for. The bright colours of the box and instruction cards with colourful illustrations on the back of each card tell you that it’s aimed at the younger generation.

There’s nothing out of the ordinary with the INQ1 that would really convince me to buy it. The handset seems quite plain and simple. That’s not necessarily and bad thing. It’s just too plain for me. (I like my gadgets as you might have guessed!) You can probably tell I wasn’t blown away with this handset, but strangely enough, the lowlights I have to share with you aren’t that drastic. Maybe I should just get these over with now.

• The screen seems a bit to small for the applications the phone offers, such as, Facebook. It’s still readable though, and pictures can be viewed pretty clearly.
• No flash for the camera. Low light picture taking can be tricky! There is night mode however, but a flash would be of more use.
• No self portrait mirror. Tracy mentioned this in her unboxing video – and I agree. This is strange as it’s supposed to be a ‘social networking phone’.
• A 3.5mm stereo headphone plug would have been a good idea but never mind.
• It’s very fiddly when dealing with the micro SD card. Mainly when trying to take it out. You also have to the the battery out to get at it.
• and finally, the speaker. This can easily be muffled by your hand because of the location of it.

OK, lowlights over. I’m going to stop being negative about this phone now as it really does have quite a lot to offer.

Because of the simple and plain design of the phone it is very easy to use. The carousel menu on the home screen is controlled buy the dedicated switcher button on the right side of the handset. This is for quick access to your most used applications and you can add applications and websites to the carousel as well.

You can also show widgets on your home screen (up to three at a time). Some examples of the widgets on offer are, Yahoo weather, Google search and RSS feeds.

As mentioned, phone has Facebook, Windows Live Messenger and Skype integrated into the workings of the phone in a very mobile friendly format. “Integrated how exactly?” I hear you ask! Well, from the very basic and easy and instant access from the menu (their own shortcut icons) right down to the messages inbox and even the phonebook. Your contacts from these applications can be merged into your phonebook and the options menu has been tailored to include making calls, chatting and even ‘poking’ the selected contact using these applications. It also pulls the data to your phonebook so profile pictures from Facebook show against the contacts on your phone.

Windows Live Messenger is easy to use. A QWERTY keyboard may be what some would have liked on the phone, but as long as you are comfortable with typing with T9 I think that the standard phone keypad still does the trick. If it really bothers you that INQ didn’t put a QWERTY keyboard on the phone just keep your eyes and ears open. apparently INQ have said that a QWERTY keyboard version is on the cards!

You can switch between applications with out logging out which is a nice touch. Means a lot less hassle and navigation through the phone is faster.

The web browser isn’t anything special. Does the job it’s supposed to! Just hindered by the small screen but.. oh, sorry, being negative again!

There’s a dedicated ‘Feeds’ section which comes in handy for keeping up to date with the latest news from your favourite websites.

The music and video players are pretty average. Again, they do what they’re supposed to do so nothing much to say about them. The camera is a 3.2 MP one and takes pretty good pictures in well lit situations. These photos can then be easily uploaded to Facebook of course!

Call quality on the phone is clear. Had a few instances of people not being able to hear me or vice versa, but I think this is to do with 3’s coverage in my area rather than the phone’s performance.

A small addition to the other features is that you can connect it to your laptop using the USB cable and the phone becomes a plug and play USB modem (using its 3G connection).

Conclusion

The concept of the INQ1 is that it is a social networking phone that is integrated with Facebook, Windows Live Messenger and Skype. But, most of all, compared to the smartphones on the market that can access these apps too, the INQ1 is much more affordable.

It’s simple in its design and easy to use. It performs well, is well made and robust for the price.

I think the phone is worth the price that’s being offered and there’s really not too much wrong with this phone. Maybe just a bit to basic for the gadget/smartphone fans out there!

Reviewed by: Emma