Reviews

NDrive SatNav for iPhone review

The iPhone now has a slew of true navigation products, all offering 3d turn-by-turn directions to compliment the built in maps tool. The big names have all launched iPhone version of their products, but these have been joined by products from lesser known companies.

In many way the lesser know apps have actually been the most surprising, because in some cases they far surpass the bigger boy’s efforts.

NDRIVE helpfully supplied us with a promo copy of their efforts, which I installed on a 16gb iPhone 3GS, which has plenty of other apps on it already. It should be a fairly average device in that respect.

On first launch, NDRIVE completes an initial setup of its database – and restart kicks you into the app itself.

In terms of immediate look and feel, it’s the closest Tomtom ‘clone’ I’ve used. I realise that may not go down well with NDrive, but for me personally that’s a very good thing – Tomtom style, with a lower prices and many more features.

The main navigation screen is split into 2 distinct areas. The bottom quarter shows speed and route information, while the remainder shows a 2d/3d map view. The map area contains 5 translucent buttons, allowing the user to zoom in and out, as well as adjusting the view from a top-down 2d setup through to a more standard 3d view. The fifth button accesses the GPS data page with long/lat information and signal quality.

Usability is very good – touching bottom left acts as a quick link to the settings area – which includes route settings as well as more global app settings. The bottom right ‘Menu’ button launches the main menu, and touching anywhere on the map drops a pin, which can then be added as a destination or waypoint. You can also use multi-touch to rotate the map, or dragging to roam around the entire map.

The main menu system is simple and straightforward, with big chunky buttons which make it easy to press on the move. The bottom bar houses 2 buttons – on the left a back button to move up the menu structure, and on the right the map button closes the menu completely.

The menu itself is split into 2 pages, with sub menus for additional navigational options. A neat feature with NDrive is the Record GPS option – to allow GPS tracking and recording for display, for example, in Google Earth. ‘Find’ allows the user to search the map data without navigating to the chosen location. The map is then centred at this point. Navigate is your standard affair, with sub-options to navigate to address, home, recent location, favourite, POI, nearby POI, Coordinates or Postcode. As you can see – plenty of options. There’s also the option to create an itinerary.

Navigation is fast, though before a mid-review update was issued, it did lock up a couple of times here. Routing seems capable enough, although lacks nice extras such as Tomtom’s IQ routes. I was never unhappy with any routes it selected though, as IQ routes is as good as it is bad sometimes anyway.

During navigation the screen is extremely clear and easy to follow. If I’m being picky, I’d say I’d have liked a little more screen space dedicated to the map area, rather than the route information bar at the bottom. Landscape mode also suffers from overcrowding – but the map itself, and the highlighted route is clear and easy to follow. All the map commands for zooming in and out and changing the angle (2d/3d) are all available while in navigation. A neat touch is the ability to ‘tap’ any POI’s that appear on the map in order to get more information about them. You can then double tap a phone number if available, and have your iPhone go away and call it.

The menu has additional options while navigation is active – with a forced alternative route button with then splits into the usual options such as avoiding a roadblock, or avoiding a particular area of the route.

Finally the ‘My nDrive’ connects your NDrive SatNav system with the rest of the world, allowing you to check out reviews of nearby POIs and upload your own.

 

Conclusion

I’ve played around with many iPhone sat nav systems, and despite lacking features Tomtom was my personal favourite. However nDrive have managed to go with a similar look and feel, but add an array of additional features. That, coupled with the fact its less than half the price means nDrive is an exceptionally good SatNav application.

You may wish to also take a look at NDrive London. I was unable to test this application – since I’m around 250 miles from the capital(!) – but I’m lead to believe its SatNav with aerial mapping. That alone makes it rather exciting!

 

Review by: Mark

HTC HD2 Review

When rumours of the HTC HD2 surfaced a few months ago, as the HTC Leo, it immediately drew attention. We knew it would be a big handset and would most likely be the successor to the popular HTC Touch HD but it was initially unclear if it would be a Windows Mobile or an Android powered handset. This was cleared up fairly quickly and the device we knew as the HTC Leo launched with Windows Mobile 6.5 professional as the HTC HD2 and went on sale just last week.

The HTC HD2

 

Matt has been testing the HD2 our for a while and chances are you will have seen my early HD2 preview video and Matt’s HTC HD2 unboxing video and HD2 demonstration video here on site.

A few days ago we both managed to get our hands on the final retail version of the handset so naturally we are basing our review upon that but very little has changed between the pre-release and the final version that we have now and the one that you’d be able to buy today.

There’s no denying that the HTC HD2 is a big handset, you only have to compare compare the HTC HD2 to the iPhone  or to the Touch HD, both large handsets in their own right, to see how much bigger the HD2 is. So the question that Matt and I have been asked countless times already; “Do you think that the HTC HD2 is too big?” to find the answer you’ll have to read on!

 

 

HTC HD2 compared with iPhone and HTC Touch HD

HTC HD2 compared with iPhone and HTC Touch HD

 

The ten second review:

Device: HTC HD2

Cost: £499.99

Summary: A huge Windows phone sporting pretty much everything you could want!

Best of: 3G, Wi-Fi, Capacitive Screen, Sense UI, 1Ghz processor

Worst of: A little large, Battery Weak

Buy it now from: Devicewire

 

What’s in the box?

• The HTC HD2 handset
• Battery
• USB to MicroUSB sync/charge cable
• USB wall charger
• Leather effect slip-pouch/case
• Wired headset
• Manuals and Warranty info
• 2GB MicroSD memory card

 

HTC HD2 Unboxing Video – Click Here

HTC HD2 Demo Video – Click Here

HTC HD2 Preview Video – Click Here

HTC HD2 Forum thread – Click Here

 

HTC HD2 Specification:

• 3G Network    HSDPA 900 / 2100 
• Size    Dimensions    120.5 x 67 x 11 mm
• Weight    157 g
• Display    Type    TFT capacitive touchscreen, 65K colours
• Size    480 x 800 pixels, 4.3 inches
• Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate
• Proximity sensor for auto turn-off
• Ambient light sensor
• 3.5 mm audio jack
• Internal    448 MB RAM, 512 MB ROM
• Card slot    microSD (TransFlash)
• 3G    HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 2 Mbps
• WLAN    Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, Wi-Fi router
• Bluetooth    Yes, v2.1 with A2DP
• USB microUSB
• Camera    Primary    5 MP, 2592 x 1944 pixels, autofocus, dual LED flash
• Features    OS    Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional
• CPU    Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8250 1 GHz processor
• Browser    WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML
• GPS    Yes, with A-GPS support
• Digital compass
• MP3/WAV/WMA/eAAC+ player
• AVI(DiVX/XviD)/MP4/WMV/H.264/H.263 player
• Facebook and Twitter integration
• YouTube client
• Pocket Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, PDF viewer)
• Battery: Standard battery, Li-Ion 1230 mAh

GENERAL

So lets take a look around the HTC HD2 and talk about the basic hardware controls.

Starting at the front you simply cant fail to be wowed by the excellent 4.3″ Capacitive touch-screen display. At 480 x 800 pixels it’s large enough for a decent web and video experience. Above the screen you’ll find a large speaker and below a series of 5 buttons; The Send/Answer key,  a home button, Windows key, ‘back’ button and the end/hang up button. It’s good to see that these are physical buttons on the HD2 rather than a touch sensitive are that was on the Touch HD.

HTC HD2 Front

 

Turning the HD2 round and looking at the left-hand side you’ll discover the up/down volume control rocker and nothing else.

HTC HD2 Left Side

 

Turn 180 degrees to the right side and you’ll see even less. There is, in fact, nothing at all on the right.

HTC HD2 Right Side

 

Looking to the bottom of the HD2 we have the 3.5mm headphone socket, so good that handset manufacturers have listened to customers demands there, and a MicroUSB socket to plug in the sync/charge cable.

HTC HD2 Bottom

 

The top of the handset has no buttons or controls. HTC devices generally have the power button on the top of the unit but the power button as been moved to be shared with the end/hang-up button.

HTC HD2 Top

 

Looking to the back of the HD2 there’s a 5 megapixel autofocus camera, to one side there’s a dual LED flash (hoorah!) and on the other a grille for the loudspeaker/ringer. Just below the camera area is a metal cover over the battery compartment. You’ll have to remove this to access the battery (obviously) and the SIM card and MicroSD memory card socket.

HTC HD2 back

 

 

Random Thoughts

Matt commented a few times, in the videos he recorded, about his dislike of the MircoUSB connector. The reason for this is that relatively few products use the Micro connector at the moment but also because the MicroUSB socket is more fragile than MiniUSB. It’s actually possible to plug the connector in round the wrong way if you push it a little too hard and doing so invariably damages the socket rather than the plug. Granted you have to be a bit careless to do that but we’ve seen it happen on more than one occasion!

It’s nice that HTC have kept the lines of the HD2 fairly ‘clean’ and haven’t overloaded it with buttons and controls which keeps things looking neat but it would have been nice, in my opinion to have included a physical camera button especially having upgraded the camera to 5MP and adding the flash.

 

Highlights:

• Beautiful 4.3″ Capacitive screen
• GPS and Digital Compass
• Camera and Flash

 

Lowlights:

• Battery life
• Size may be too big for some

 

Review

Well, where to start? The HTC HD2 has generated so much interest that there is rather a lot to talk about. I will try to cover as much as possible in this review without waffling on too much as its going to be rather a long one. Anyway, here goes:

 

HTC HD2

 

As I mentioned in the HTC HD2 video preview, if you saw it, the device is pretty massive. Although sporting a 4.3 inch screen the device actually doesn’t feel as big as I thought it was going to. Its rounded edges and thinness give it a comfortable feel in the hand and although it is certainly the largest device I have used it doesn’t feel out of place and can still be operated one handed which is a bonus, although this clearly depends on the size of your hands!

There is however one part of the handset that does feel a little odd. For some unknown reason HTC have left the camera lens protruding from the rear of the device. This causes me great concern for several reasons. Firstly, as it sticks out a few millimetres it feels a little odd and the outside of the lens is fairly rough. Not good. In addition, as it sticks out this means that when you lay the device down on a flat surface the phone is a little wobbly and rocks from side to side if you press the screen. Last but not least I am thinking that the lens cover will be susceptible to scratches if it is being laid down. The simple solution will be not to place the phone on a flat surface but clearly this is ridiculous as everyone does this and always will. Time will be the test on this one so we will have to wait and see if customers start complaining about the camera lens.

The device certainly feels rock solid. This is helped by the battery cover being metal. The device is reasonably heavy but it feels good.

The HTC HD2 has HTCs new style buttons on the front of the device.

 

HTC HD2 Keys

 

They are made from plastic and are raised from the main shell of the phone allowing for a proper click when pressed. They work well and I am pleased with there feel. There is just one thing that has taken getting a little used to. Normally with HTC devices you get a power/standby button on the top of the device. Not any more. HTC have incorporated this into the call end key so pressing this sends the phone to sleep. It was a bit frustrating at first as normally if I wanted to exit an application I may just press the call end button and be taken back to my home screen but if you do it on the HD2 the screen goes to sleep. Its just a case of getting used to something new and I’m sure that in the future this will be the norm for HTC devices.

The main feature with the HD2 has to be that big screen. Its sooooooo nice! Being Windows Mobiles first capacitive screen is a nice welcome and I’m sure it will tempt quite a few iPhone users to give it a go. Using the screen is real nice. It was a bit odd for me at first as I am used to using resistive but I am getting there. The screen is beautifully smooth to use and movements are fast due to the 1 GHz processor HTC have included. Good job! The quality of the screen picture is fantastic also. Not as good as the new Samsung OLED screens but real nice anyway.

The HTC HD2 runs Windows Mobile 6.5 if you were not aware. Is this better than 6.1? Again this will come down to personal choice but in this review I will focus on the main features on the device and the ones that are new with version 6.5.

 

First thing I had to contend with, as I pressed the call end key, is the new lock screen.

HTC HD2 Lock Screen

 

As you will see above you are presented with a padlock symbol at the top of the screen. To unlock the screen you can slide the padlock to the left or right which is easy to do and smooth. People with small hands may struggle to do this one handed though. The background image on the lock screen can be changed. I just chose the black one as I’m boring!

A nice feature now on WinMo 6.5 is that if you receive an email, SMS, or voicemail you can access them without unlocking the screen:

 

HTC HD2 Lock Screen Notifications

 

As you will see above, I sent myself an email and this now shows up as a number 1 next to the padlock as I have 1 notification. To access the email you just drag the padlock down and it will show you what the notification is, whether it me mail or voicemail etc. Now you can swipe the new symbol left or right and it will take you straight into that application. Sounds a bit long winded me trying to explain but it works and its a great idea.

 

Onto the home screen. HTC have used there Sense user interface on the HD2. This was initially used on the HTC Hero and then the Tattoo which are both Android devices so the Windows version is different but similar.

 

HTC HD2 Home Screen

 

You will notice the weather application has been incorporated into the clock. You can change how frequently this updates and it will not only show you the current weather conditions (full screen initially) but will also show you where you are just in case you forget! Its a nice feature especially when its raining as you get a windscreen wiper on screen removing the rain drops. Lets hope its snows this winter!

Below the clock HTC have added some easy access tabs. There are three on screen but you can swipe down to reveal another six and these can be customised to give you quick access to your most used features and apps. You can also add contacts to these tabs, although I don’t think this is as wonderful as it sounds bearing in mind that there is a contacts tab on the home screen in TouchFlo 3D. While we are on the subject here is the contacts tab:

 

 

HTC HD2 Contacts Tab

 

Here you can store 15 of your very best friends. You can not only have the contacts ready to call at a single touch but you can also select it to go straight into an email to the contact. A nice option as these days more and more people are using email rather than voice calls.

 

The other main feature that can be accessed instantly from the home screen is the calendar.

 

HTC HD2 Calendar Options

 

As you can see there are several different options when it comes to viewing the calendar. Entering information is simple and it has been re skinned since Windows Mobile 6.1. Its essentially the same but just looks different. Better for sure.

 

You still get Touchflo 3D on the HD2, now with coloured icons and due to the phones hard wear it flows quicker and smoother than ever before.

You can customise TouchFlo by removing certain tabs or changing the order they are in but as standard you get the following from left to right:

Home, Contacts, Messages, Mail, Internet, Calendar, Peep, Photos & Video, Music, Weather, Footprints and settings.  A nice combination. I have been using TouchFlo 3D for a couple of years now and I don’t think I could live without it! It just makes life easier when it comes to wanting to do something quickly on the device.

 

TouchFlo Options

 

Finally on the home screen you have Notifications.

 

HTC HD2 Notifications

 

These can be accessed by pressing the top right hand of the screen. In particular you can quickly see how much of the battery is left. This I will cover later in the review though as I don’t want to spoil things now!

So, like all Windows phones you need to press the Windows logo, top left, to get into the main menu. On the HD2 you also get a second option, the Windows key under the screen. I found myself using this new key more often than the screen as its a long way to stretch your thumb to the top!

 

HTC HD2 Menu

 

The new 6.5 menu screen is pleasant but far from perfect. The length of the list of icons is ongoing depending on how many apps you keep adding to the device. It scrolls well but jumps in sections so I could not scroll from the top to the bottom in one swift swipe. The other thing that really sucks is the way that you arrange the applications here. You can change their order but the only option given is to more an icon to the top. This is pants!

The background on the menu will be the same as your lock screen so it is customisable.

 

So, onto the main feature on the device.

Messaging on the HTC HD2 is more or less painless. If you have used other HTC devices then messaging will appear pretty much the same apart from it looks very slightly different.

 

HTC HD2 emails

 

One small change is incorporated into TouchFlo 3D. When you click the mail tab on TouchFlo you will see the most recent message.  On previous HTC devices you would only see the first few lines of the email. Now with 6.5 you can see a lot more of the email and in some of cases it can be read without having to press the screen and actually open the whole message. Nice.

I did have one little issue with my emails though. When I received a new email I could see the notification on screen but in some instances it took a few minutes for the phone to make a sound to let me know I had new mail. If I get new mail I want to know straight away so this downfall is a bit of a fail if you ask me. Maybe its a problem with the ROM which will be fixed in time? If any other HD2 users have the same issue I would love to know?

 

The one thing on the HTC HD2 that made using messaging simple was the onscreen key board.

 

HTC HD2 Key Board Options

 

As with all Windows Phones you have the choice of several styles of keyboards but the full QWERTY is the one I use. In portrait mode it was great to use as the keys are bigger than on any other device and this made a real difference. One handed use was also no problem.

In landscape mode it was even easier. This was the one thing on the device I was really looking forward to testing out. I currently use a HTC Touch Pro2 and was eager to see if I could survive without my physical keyboard. I am pleased to say the HD2 didn’t disappoint. I could still type quickly and fairly mistake free. Bonus!

 

Web browsing on the HTC HD2 was super wicked cool! The device comes with two browsers pre installed and both have benefits over each other.

Opera Mobile is my preferred browser and HTC have incorporated it into TouchFlo for ages now. For the first time ever on a Windows Mobile device Opera now supports multi touch. This will allow you to use pinch & zoom like on the Apple iPhone and it works like a dream. I have never owned an iPhone so I have been a bit in the dark when it comes to multi touch but now I have used it on the HD2 I love it.

 

HTC HD2 running Opera Mobile

 

Another great feature with Opera is when you select it from TouchFlo 3D.

 

Opera Mobile on HTC HD2

 

As you can see above, rather than clicking on the “world” icon and going straight in there are panels on screen. There are actually 10 of these and these can be accessed by scrolling down. Each panel is a bookmark to allow you to enter the browser on the page you want. The bookmark tabs are actual thumbnails of the chosen website, a fantastic idea!

The second browser is Internet Explorer which comes with all Windows Phones. Although its not the best browser, this latest addition has a little feature that Opera does not support – Flash. This will allow you to view videos on websites without being redirected to another client such as YouTube. For example – If viewing tracyandmatt.co.uk and an unboxing video is on there, you can just click start and the video plays. Its not the best quality but its great that the feature exists.

 

HTC now have their own Twitter client and this is included on the TouchFlo bar. Its called Peep and is also on the HTC Tattoo & Hero and its pretty hot.

 

HTC Peep

 

There are loads of Windows Mobile Twitter applications, some good, some not so. I would honestly say that Peep in up there with the best of the bunch. Its nice and easy to use and looks great. You can Tweet instantly from the home screen and by selecting an on screen tweet you are then given further options such as retweet, send direct message, show profile etc. Its not the most in depth Twitter application but for what you get its great and best of all its free!

 

Also on TouchFlo is the Stocks application.

 

HTC Stocks

 

Now, what I know about Stocks you could write on a postage stamp so all I am going to say is that I love the green and black colours! I’m sure the app works great though.

 

Of course a Windows phone would not be complete without Office Mobile. As always this includes Word, Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint. All of these accept PowerPoint can be created from scratch. One question we had on the forum was regarding the amount of cells you can fit onto the screen using excel.

Excel Mobile

 

As you can see, the screen shot on the left is the standard view and comprises of 15 rows deep. The screen shot on the right was taken after I had changed the zoom settings and this doubles the amount of cells on the screen. Unfortunately Excel would not rotate so I could not carry out a test in landscape mode. Shame.

 

Two new features with Windows Mobile 6.5 are My Phone and Marketplace.

My Phone is a fantastic application that will allow you to back up the data on your phone to the cloud.

 

Microsoft My Phone

 

My Phone not only syncs your contacts though. You also have the option to sync SMS, Photos, Video, Calendar, Tasks, Music, Documents and Browser Favourites. Not bad eh?  You don’t have to sync all of these. You can just do the ones you want. Only downside is that you get 200mb of storage which is not a great deal if you want to store a lot of photos and videos.

In addition, for a small premium My Phone can locate your phone if its lost or stolen. My Phone can also disable it, ring it and lock your device remotely.

I have been using My Phone for a few months and I love it. I use the calendar in particular and once I have input appointments into my phone while I am out I can come home, sync and then work with the calendar on my computer.

The other great benefit is that when you either upgrade or change your device you can download My Phone and all your contacts, photos etc come straight to your new device. How cool is that?

 

Windows Marketplace is a much welcomed feature in Windows 6.5

 

Windows Marketplace

 

Its still early days and I think that from last week there is only about 300 apps. There are some really good ones and some not so good ones. Microsoft have a very long way to go to catch up with Apple! The Marketplace is however very easy to use. The strange thing is though is that it is split into regions. For example: The USA marketplace has a lot more apps. These can be accessed here in the UK but only if you know the secret way to do it!

 

Using the HD2 as a phone is nice, in particular with the contacts shortcuts to make life easier.

 

HTC HD2 Phone Dialler

 

As you would imagine the dialling keys are a nice size although I did encounter a slight problem. Using the dialler was a little buggy! When launching the dialler it would think about it for a few seconds before allowing you to enter any details. Then once I entered a few numbers or letters it would again hang for up to six seconds before finding the contact. I’m sure this will be fixed with a rom update but it was a bit of a pain in the butt.

 

The HTC HD2 has some nice clock features in particular the world clock.

 

HTC HD2 World Clock

 

If you click the main clock on the home screen you are taken to the world clock. Here you can view eight different cities which are totally customisable. If you deal in worldwide business or travel a lot this will come in handy but for most of us this will not apply. At the bottom of the screen you will see an alarm clock tab. Here you can set up to three alarms and even have them go of on different days of the week.  Why can I still never get up on time!

 

As a music player the HTC HD2 performs well like most HTC devices.

 

HTC HD2 Music Player

 

You have two options when it comes to listening to music. The first is the HTC music player, pictured above. This can be found in TouchFlo 3D. As you will see its straight forward to use with nice big on screen buttons and the album cover work is displayed. The second option you have is to use the Windows Media Player. Both work well but I prefer the HTC one.

The speaker on the HTC HD2 is pretty loud and music sounds good. We are fortunate that HTC have included a 3.5mm headset jack so you can use your own headphones if required. I tested the music player using the supplied HTC headphones and also some Samsung ones. I performed my “Metallica test” and the music quality was outstanding. I would not have expected anything less though as all the HTC devices I have had in the last couple of years have sounded great. Good job HTC.

 

On to the camera. The interface is typical HTC, who do not produce the best cameras, but its simple to use. All the controls are done onscreen as there is no dedicated camera button on the side of the device. Within the camera menu you have the options to alter the white balance, brightness and ISO. Advanced options lets you do more tweaking. You can change the size of the image, alter the quality, change shutter sound, use effects and a few other features which are nothing special. HTC have also included a nice flash for the first time and you have the options of having it on, off or in auto mode.

So how did the camera perform?

Rather well. The HD2 camera produced nice deep colours and the auto focus was spot on. I could not find a macro mode but I presume this is because it doesn’t need it. As you will see below I went in close to the JD bottle and the auto focus focussed straight away. With a lot of camera phones this would be a problem and would require the settings being changed to macro mode.

 

 

HTC HD2 Camera Test Up Close

 

HTC HD2 Camera Test With Flash

 

The second of the above images was taken using the flash. It was fantastic. Quality-wise it’s best HTC camera so far I say. However, if you look closely at the images above there is a purple-pink halo in the middle, particularly noticable where there is a lot of light in the centre of the picture of the JD bottle. Not sure if this is just down to a problem with the review unit or a more general quality issue.

Please note we are not alcoholics in my house!

As a video recorder the HTC HD2 does a good job too. Its not the best but its better than previous HTC devices. 

 

The HTC HD2 comes with a built in Wi-Fi router which is something new for HTC.

 

HTC HD2 Wi-Fi Router

 

This will allow you to connect other devices such as phones and laptops to the HD2 wirelessly and these devices can then use the HD2s 3G data. What a good idea! Did it work – sure did and perfectly. The range was good as well. After switching it on I moved three rooms away and still had a perfect connection. Nice. Its a great feature but the only thing to bare in mind if using with laptops on a regular basis is that it will be using more data than a phone so make sure you have an unlimited data plan.

 

 

Another thing that is new to a HTC WinMo device is the digital compass.

 

HTC HD2 Digital Compass

 

Now, I have never owned an iphone so I have not used a digital compass before. I’m not really all that sure that I would ever use it anyway but it worked absolutely fine on the HD2. A clever bit of kit.

 

The HTC HD2 comes with many normal applications you would find on a HTC device. One I use every breakfast time is YouTube.

 

HTC YouTube client

 

The HTC YouTube client provides a simple way of viewing not only the most recent and most popular videos but also has a search option. The videos play beautifully on the HD2 and it was a real dream to use.

 

There are however a few things I did not like about the HTC HD2.

The first is where they have now put the task manager. Normally with a HTC handset you simply press the upper right hand corner and you are presented with a list of running apps. Here you can either close the one you want or all of them. Nice and easy. But on the HD2 the task manager is hidden away in the settings and finding it requires three screen taps and a scroll which I hated. The task manager should be to hand and the fact that it is not on the HD2 got on my nerves.

 

The other thing I was not impressed with was the battery. At only 1230 mAp many people have said that it would not be good enough for a 4.3 inch screen and I agree. For example – Last night after the HD2 had had a full charge (second in the day!) I turned it on at 17.30 and had it connected to my Wi-Fi router. Now in this time I used it for a little bit of web browsing and also talking to Matt via MSN Messenger and by about nine o’clock that was it, dead, and I had to put it on charge again. Now I know that batteries can take a few charges to get them to there maximum performance but since I collected the HD2 from Matt I have charged it a total of seven times. Surely by now this would give an indication of its battery life? Yes, giving the HD2 a bigger battery would have made it a little thicker but I think it would have been worth it. It should have had a minimum of a 1500 mAp battery.

 

Conclusion:

 

Matt’s Summary:

Almost every touch screen device gets compared to the iPhone and the HD2 is no different. Is the HD2 better than the iPhone? Well in some ways perhaps yes. I certainly has a faster CPU and more RAM and the storage memory can be upgraded or swapped at will. The touch screen is just as sensitive as the iPhone and the HD2 has more pixels. HD2 has a better camera and a flash. For me the biggest benefit the HD2 has over the iPhone is the ability to run multiple applications at the same time so you don’t have to end a conversation on Skype to simple check your email for example.

So am I jumping from the iPhone to the HD2? It’s a tough call. The HD2 has a lot to offer and it is a lovely handset. The size doesn’t bother me. But where the iPhone has the advantage is in the App Store, and the iTunes synchronisation. Sure there’s the Marketplace for Windows Mobile but that’s not mature enough yet in my opinion. And yes you can sync your Windows Phone with Windows Media Player but it’s no where near as seamless. In terms of how I use a mobile I’ll probably stick with the iPhone for now, at least until the HD2 comes down in price a little!

If however, you do not have an iPhone and are trying to choose between the HD2 and the iPhone then the descision is even more difficult. If you are familar with Windows Mobile then stick with the HD2 – I would!

 

My Summary:

My word that review took a long time!

If you currently use a touch screen device and are thinking about getting the HTC HD2 I think its defiantly worth getting but I would advise trying one out in store first just because of the size issue. Its a beast!

I feel that the HD2 is just a little too big. Although the screen is fantastic I think it would suit more people being 3.8 inches like the original Touch HD.

Do I think it is better than the iPhone – Yes, but that is because I am a Windows Mobile fan and love the way it multi tasks. Like Matt said, there are pros and cons for both devices and making your choice really comes down to what you will use it for. As a business tool the HTC HD2 is better than the iPhone, in my opinion, but for games and music the iPhone is untouchable at the moment.

Am I going to get one – No. Although I really liked it I cannot be without my Touch Pro2 keyboard. A lot of the applications on the HTC HD2 will not auto rotate to landscape mode and as I prefer typing like this its another factor that put me off. The other thing that I found infuriating was the battery. It needs to be bigger. I know that most people will not use their device as heavily as I use mine but it does not suit my needs.

Overall the HD2 is an amazing bit of kit, not perfect but its up there with the market leaders. If you get one I am sure you will be very happy. HTC just need to make a version now with a slide out keyboard – for me!

Please feel free to use our forum to ask any further questions you have regarding the HTC HD2. We will shortly be writing a follow up to this review where we will do our best to answer any questions or queries you have on the device.

 

Posted by: James

 

Acer neoTouch S200 review

Acer neoTouch S200 (Acer F1) review:

Acer are back with a few new devices, this one being the flagship and one of the first out of the blocks with the all new, recently announced windows mobile 6.5, this is my first play with 6.5 and also with the new breed of ‘large’ screened phones, not to mention the first device with no less than 3 names, is it worth all of the hype?

The Acer neoTouch S200 (Acer F1)

What’s in the Box?

• Acer S200 Smartphone
• Stylus
• Battery
• Quick Start Guide
• Companion CD
• USB cable
• AC adapter
• Headset
• Screen protective film

Chec out Matt’s Acer neoTouch S200 unboxing video for a tour of the handset.

 

Acer neoTouch S200 (Acer F1) specification:

• Windows Mobile 6.5
• Qualcomm 8250 1 GHz CPU
• RAM – 256MB
• ROM – 512MB
• 3.8 inch WVGA 480×800 touchscreen display
• Quad-band GSM/EDGE 850, 900, 1800, 1900
• HSPA 900, 1900, 2100 (download 7.2 Mbps / upload 5.76 Mbps)
• WiFi 802.11 b/g
• Bluetooth 2.1 EDR
• miniUSB
• A-GPS
• 3.5mm audio jack
• MicroSD card (support up to 32GB)
• 5 megapixel Autofocus camera with LED Flash
• Talk Time – 5 Hours (manufactures approximation)  
• Standby Time – 400 Hours (manufactures approximation)  
• Rechargeable Lithium-ion 1350 mAh battery
• Dimensions – 118.6 x 63 x 12mm
• Weight – 130 grams with battery
• Ambient Light Sensor
• Motion Accelerometer
• Proximity Sensor

General

On the top of the F1 is the 3.5mm jack for the headset and you can just make out the stylus on the left.

Acer neoTouch top view

 

On the left hand side there is only the power button.

Acer neoTouch left side

 

The bottom houses the miniUSB slot and microphone and slot for removing the cover

Acer neoTouch bottom view

 

The right side of the device is a dedicated camera button, a small reset hole and the volume up/down rocker

Acer neoTouch right side

 

On the very shiny and plastic back of the F1 is the 5 megapixel autofocus camera, and very small LED flash, no mirror but the case is shiny enough to see a reflection. There is also a speaker grill and a tiny LED flash.

Acer neoTouch back view

 

The business end of the device from top to bottom is a tiny LED indication light, next is the phone speaker, proximity/light sensor and an IR LED. Below these is the large 3.8 inch WVGA 480×800 touchscreen display, underneath that is the minimal, touch sensitive Call, Home, Back and End buttons.

Acer neoTouch front view

 

 

Highlights

• Screen
• Speedy processor

Lowlights

• Size
• Flaky software and hardware
• Battery

Review

First off this is definitely one of the biggest devices that I have played with coming in at 118.6 x 63 x 12mm, the device itself looks very sleek and professional, the minimal looks and shiny black with chrome accents works well for me, but rest assured you will be polishing this forever as it is a proper fingerprint magnet. You do have to be fairly brutal with the back cover to prise it off, and being plastic that doesn’t inspire confidence and it is yet to be seen if this will prove easy to mark and scratch.

On booting up the Acer for the first time screen really does stand out as being bright and very vibrant. Windows mobile 6.5 fires up and the speed of the device is evident with the on board Qualcomm 8250 1GHz processor working very well and ensuring that the processes work with ease. The main cost to this is that when running at full pelt the battery on Day 1 lasted a total of 4 hours, but that was GPS, video, web browsing, calls etc. With lesser use a day is what I came to expect from the 1350 mAh battery, which I suppose could have benefitted from a beefier model.

The WM 6.5 is completely new to me but it soon became familiar as there is a lot of the usual programs and toys to play with along with a few new additions, it appears that Acer have pretty much left the OS to its own devices and their only addition is an Acer home screen shown below. There are various screens to choose from that I can see, the old familiar Home, WM6.5 home and a similar looking Acer version amongst them.

The first screen is the Acer variant, which gives 6 icons seen on the 2 middle rows that you can customise to your most used, I found that pressing the back button always seemed to land you back here so make sure they are your favourite icons that are included. Clicking on the grid in the middle at the bottom brings up the WM6.5 icon home as shown. It is really great how quickly you can zip around these options.

That cannot be said for all the software, I found that whether by design or fault wifi would repeatedly switch itself off for no reason, I don’t know if this is done on purpose to save battery life, but annoying all the same. On top of this trying to connect to my Parrot handsfree car kit proved to be a challenge and once connected the headset icon appeared and then stayed on whether I was connected or not.

The screen resolution was great for viewing You Tube and the like, when coupled with the supplied headphones made the overall experience a pleasure, although there where times when this worked against it, such as when viewing the phone book which wasn’t the best as they appear far too big and unusable, especially when compared to the standard contacts version.

Phones calls on the Acer neoTouch proved to be clear if not the loudest handset I have used. Texting on the pin sharp screen was also easy, with the standard windows mobile keyboards available, both portrait and landscape versions are large and easy to use, I found that although there is a small telescopic stylus included the only time I resorted to using it was to reset the device.

The next issue with the Acer is the camera, which despite being 5 megapixel unfortunately is not the best, I am not sure if it was this device or a problem overall, but I could not get it to zoom, this should be achievable by pressing the volume up/down button, on this device nothing happened, time will tell if this is an isolated problem or not. Another thing I noticed is that when holding the phone camera styley the power button on the now bottom left hand corner is right where my thumb goes and therefore on more than one occasion the device powered off, very helpful for catching that one off moment in picture!

With a quick GPS and processor Google maps worked really well and the screen comes into its own in this area as well as with web browsing etc. I did manage to get N Drive to work on this device as well but unfortunately the resolution didn’t suit.

I have to say that I really don’t like the minimal keys shown in the picture, these proved to be difficult to use, and although they do light up, a dot and a dash for identification are not ideal, I would have preferred a more conventional button layout and style.

 

Conclusion

Overall the neoTouch, F1, S200 has a lot of impressive features, the processor and the screen are brilliant, as I have not played with the HTC competitors in this area I think Matt will need to stack them all together and give an overall comparison, but I am confident this will be up there with the best available.

Sitting at around the £320 to £350 mark, this is an awful lot of kit for your money and definitely worth a look if you are in the market for this type of device.

For me, I am not convinced with these oversized devices, small, sleek and pocketable units are more preferable to me. That said for those gamers and video watchers of you I am sure you will love it.

 

Review by: Steve

Motorola Dext review

Motorola (Cliq) Dext Review

I keep hearing that Motorola are on their uppers and that they are desperate to find a replacement for the oh so popular Razr. It has been a long time in coming but one of the devices that Motorola is hanging their hats on is the Motorola Dext, as named in the UK, but more widely known as the Cliq elsewhere in the world.

When asked if I would review the Dext, I was more interested in how Motorola had played with Android than the device itself. Having now used the device in anger will it prove to be the Motorola saviour?

The Motorola Dext (Cliq)

 

What’s in the Dext box?

• The device sits on the top as seen in Matt’s unboxing
• USB to microUSB cable
• USB connecting AC plug
• Stereo headphones with 3.5mm jack
• Slim and small getting started guide, called ‘Focus on what matters’

Have a look at Matt’s Motorola Dext unboxing video for more on what’s in the box and a tour of the handset.

 

Motorola Dext (Cliq) Specification:

• Processor: Qualcomm MSM7201A Processor, 528 MHz
• Dimensions (mm): 114 x 58 x 15.6
• Weight (g): 163
• Screen Size: 3.1 inch , HVGA 320 x 480 pixels (Touchscreen)
• QWERTY-Keyboard
• MotoBLUR UI, Custom homescreen with Live Widgets
• Proximity Sensor, Ambient Light Sensor
• 256MB RAM, 512MB ROM
• Micro SD, up to 32 GB (2GB card included)
• Li – ion 1420 mAh
• Stand-by (hrs): 324
• TalkTime(min): 360
• FM Radio
• Video Support: H.264, H.263, MPEG 4, YouTube
• 3.5 mm headphone jack
• HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps
• WiFi: 802.11 b/g
• Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP
• Micro USB
• Android 1.5
• Android HTML Webkit browser
• CMOS, 5.0 Megapixel Camera
• Digital zoom

Around the Motorola Dext

On the top just the 3.5mm jack for the supplied headset or one of your own.

Motorola Dext top view

 

The left hand side has a silencer switch, volume up/down rocker and the microUSB port for charge cable.

Motorola Dext left side

 

There is nothing to mention on the bottom of the unit.

The right hand side is home to the dedicated camera button and the on/off button.

Motorola Dext right side

 

On the back there is a dimpled casing, Orange logo and the 5 megapixel camera, but no flash or mirror.

Motorola Dext back view

 

The front of the device as the 3.1” HVGA 320 x 480 touchscreen and three button configuration which from , left to right, are the menu key, home key and the back key. Below the home key is the microphone. Obvious omissions here are a forward facing camera, and phone dial and end keys which are all included in the touchscreen.

Motorola Dext front view

 

Slide the Dext open and there is a 4 row QWERTY keyboard which on the 4^th row includes an ‘ALT’ key, zoom key, space bar, symbol key and finally a back key. Along side of this is a D-Pad and enter key.

Motorola Dext front view showing the keyboard

 

Dext Highlights

• MotoBlur
• Keyboard

Dext Lowlights

• The screen if I’m being picky
• Audio quality
• Heavy/chunky device, taken on other peoples impression

 

Review

Straight out of the box, this phone is going to be compared to the likes of the Touch Pro and Pro 2, Nokia N97 etc with regards to a slider phone, and on that front I found that it appears solid and its curved edges it sits well in the hand. The slider is also solid and provides a satisfying click at the end of its travel. There is no getting away from the fact that it is a heavy phone however it is lighter than the TP2, weighing in at 168g. I don’t mind the overall weight and size as for me it makes a better feel of quality and build, unfortunately I have to bow to popular opinion of my friends and colleagues that it is heavy and chunky.

Nice to see that they have adopted the 3.5mm jack for headset, meaning you can use what you like, but why can’t these manufacturers decide on a charge connector and stick with a universal solution? Either chose a miniUSB or a microUSB; we aren’t bother which just chose ONE! (For me miniUSB as micro can be a bit fiddly.)

Another unfortunate piece of timing for the Dext is that I am also in the midst of a Samsung Galaxy and Acer F1, which both manage to put the screen on the Dext to shame, don’t get me wrong the screen is Ok but when compared to the other new kids on the block they definitely win that war in the sharpness and colour stakes. That said it is very quick and responsive, and the transition from portrait to landscape works well.

Again out of the box, I struggled to set up the Dext; I subsequently found out that as Matt had set up his Blur account, it effectively locks the device to his account. I had to do a hard reset to get it to work for me. Which to be fair is exactly what Blur is there for. Remember that if you sell your Dext, hard reset to wipe all your details.

MotoBlur review

Switching on the phone for the first involves putting on the kettle and making a brew while Motorola configures and then Orange configures……meanwhile…..4 mins later….registration required

In depth, MotoBlur, from start to finish works as so.

On setting up the device you have to create a Blur account, this involves agreeing to the T&C’s, Name, email, password, confirm, a point to note here is make sure you have wifi on or a sim inserted. The screen shows ‘Creating account’….now set up your account…this offers options to log on to your existing accounts in MySpace, Facebook. Google, LastFM, Twitter, email, corporate sync, Picasa and Photobucket. Once you have logged on to each that you use including multiple email accounts, there’s it a tick on each box you have logged into and your done.

These accounts now appear on the main screen and are constantly monitored for updates or in Motorola talk ‘happenings’. The great thing about this is that all of your ‘happenings’ are in one place, no more logging into Facebook and then Twitter and then your email…it’s all available and easily notified. Click on the message button and the Dext lists all your accounts and notifies if there are any new contacts. Likewise you can post an update and have it appear on all of your accounts in one hit.

The beauty is that once read they disappear for the main screen, meaning that you can see at a glance if there are any new unread messages. I thought this was great and very time saving, and it proved to be very reliable as well. Furthermore logging on to your Blur account on the internet gives you the extra control of importing and exporting Contacts, (which I couldn’t get to work) if not already done by logging into Googlemail account and autosyncing. Locate your phone, if lost or stolen and the added ability to delete your Data from a lost phone that you can’t locate. This wipes all of your texts and accounts that you have set up.

Back to the Review

The Android is fairly standard on the Dext being 1.5, there are 5 start screens loaded from the outset with Ministry of Sound, Tricks and Tips, Getting started, Messages, Google search, Reuters, T3 News, Browser, Market, Orange Maps and finally Discovery. These at first glance appear a little busy, but of course all are customisable or deleteable.

The silence button for me was a waste of space; I am sure if I had remembered it was there I would have used it but never once did.

For those of you who seem to want to use these devices for texting and phoning, for some reason, there is good news and bad news. The texting side is a doddle with the choice of onscreen keyboard or hardware keyboard, both of which are easy to use, the standard android keyboard in portrait and the hardware in landscape. I am not a huge fan of hardware keyboards and at first didn’t like the look of the layout, I would still prefer an extra row dedicated to numbers but I found this present layout very easy and quick to use, with a decent spacing and nice click on each key press. Alongside the included D-Pad it all combined to make life very easy.

Motorola Dext keyboard close-up

 

The bad news is the sound quality, which unfortunately isn’t the best; it is tinny on the earpiece and on the loudspeaker, as well and not being fantastic on the earphones. Maybe this is repairable with product updates?

GPS worked exactly as expected and coupled with Google maps worked well, unfortunately as seen in Matt’s unboxing, Matt could not get Orange world to start, and likewise I could not get Orange maps to fire up either, strange.

Secondly I would have liked to have shown a few screen shots, but having played with the SDK’s etc. I never got that far and didn’t get the Dext to play nicely..sorry, if anyone has screen shots of the MotoBlur in action it might be worth sending them in to be added?

The camera, always a talking point, is also not brilliant, the lack of extras like flash, mirror etc. Add to make the overall quality of either photo or video not that good, photos are quite poor in low light and bright light. Video is not too bad but still not comparable to the other machines that have been review recently. This appears to be a common trait with the new devices, putting the camera side of life low on the list of priorities, but when added to the fact that the audio isn’t that good either what is there left?

 

Conclusion

I really liked my time with the Dext, that was I thought I did, but on reflection I discovered that the fact is I really like Android, and I really like the MotoBlur feature and usability and is was coincidence that it happened to appear on the Dext that gave it the initial thumbs up, but the Dext is far from perfect, it is very capable and nice and easy to use, it has a lot of good points in build and keyboard etc. but if it will prove to be the saviour for Motorola….I don’t think so.

I have decided that I now want to see an Android device with touchscreen and a keypad rather than a keyboard…any takers?

 

Review by: Steve

HTC Tattoo Review

The HTC Tattoo is the second Android device I have reviewed. I didn’t get on all that well with the Samsung Galaxy, so was the Tattoo up my street?

HTC Tattoo

What’s in the box:

• Phone
• Battery
• Charger
• USB Cable
• Headphones
• 2GB MicroSD
• Quick Start Guide and Warranty

Please also take a look at Matt’s HTC Tattoo unboxing video.

 

The ten second review:

• Device: HTC Tattoo
• Price: £270.25
• Summary: A compact Android device sporting all the good bits you would expect.
• Best of: Sense UI, Wi-Fi, GPS.
• Worst of: Size, no Bluetooth file transfer
• Buy it now from: Clove Technology

 

HTC Tattoo Specification:

• Operating System – Android
• Processor – Qualcomm MSM7225, 528 MHz
• Memory – RAM – 256 MB / ROM – 512 MB
• Display – 2.8-inch TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen with 240×320 QVGA resolution
• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• (Band frequency and data speed are operator dependent.)
  Bluetooth 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate and A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
• Wi-Fi: IEEE 802.11 b/g
• HTC ExtUSB (11-pin mini-USB 2.0)
• GPS – Internal GPS antenna
• Expansion – microSD memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
• G-sensor
• Digital Compass
• FM Radio
• 3.2 megapixel colour camera
• 4-Way navigation control with Enter button
• Talk Time – Up to 390 minutes for GSM
• Standby Time – Up to 340 hours for GSM
• Dimensions – 106 x 55.2 x 14 mm (4.17 x 2.17 x 0.55 inches)
• Weight – 113 grams (3.99 ounces) with battery
• Warranty – 2 Years

 

General:

On the top of the device is the headset jack and also a lanyard attachment.

 

HTC Tattoo Top

Situated on the bottom is the USB slot and also the microphone.

HTC Tattoo Bottom

The left side houses only the up/down volume rocker.

HTC Tattoo Left Side

The right side of the handset is flush with no buttons or ports.

HTC Tattoo Right Side

On the back can be found the camera lens and also the speaker grill.

HTC Tattoo Back

The front is where the action happens. At the top is another speaker grill and at the bottom are the action keys and the D-Pad thingy!

HTC Tattoo Front

 

Highlights:

• Wi-Fi
• GPS
• Build Quality

Lowlights:

• Size
• No Bluetooth file transfer.

 

 

Review:

Here we go – There is no doubt about it, the HTC Tattoo is a nice looking device with a build quality to match. For a small phone it actually feels fairly heavy but fits nicely into the hand and its rounded edges make for a comfortable feel. The handset is made from plastic but has a nice satin finish to it. It feels extremely well made and even the battery cover feels as good as the rest of the devices where as on some phones the back cover feels flimsy.

The device has a total of six buttons and a trackpad on its front.

HTC Tattoo Buttons

As you can see above, these consist of home, menu, back, search and call end/send. The four upper buttons are actually two – e.g – the home and menu buttons are just one button with a dip in the centre. The whole button dips to the right or left depending if you are pressing the home side or the menu side. Although each button is pretty small they work well and feel good to press. They even give a little click. The trackpad in the centre allows you to scroll up/down/left and right and the centre can be pressed to select an on screen item. I actually didn’t use this much as I was happy swiping on screen.

The Tattoo is the second HTC device to come with the Sense user interface.

HTC Sense

Like on the HTC Hero, Sense consists of seven home screens. Each of these can be totally customized with a variety of both Android and HTC widgets as well as shortcuts. I was not that impressed on having so many home screens. Although I can see the advantages I was not so keen on the fact that if I wanted to access an application that was on the 3rd homescreen to the left it would take me three screen swipes just to get to it. Some people will love it though.

A few of the widgets I used and liked were:

• Peep, which is HTCs Twitter app. It works really well and is easy to use.
• The browser bookmarks widget. This filled most of the screen and consisted of four favorite web pages in a block format. This allows for instant access to your most popular websites. Each thumbnail is an actual view of the webpage itself.
• Email – This also fills most of the page and gives you a view of your most recent email. Its only a brief view and shows the first few lines. You can then either click the email to view it full screen or swipe up or down to view other emails.
• Weather – As you would expect this shows the current weather conditions and below that a further four day forecast. You can also scroll up/down to view other locations that you have chosen.

So that is HTCs Sense and I like it. It looks great and I am looking forward to seeing it on HTCs HD2 soon. Its a slightly different version but HTC must have had great feedback from the Android version as they have ported it to Windows Mobile.

 

Like all Android devices the main menu can be accessed buy pressing the on screen button. This pops up a list of icons set on a black background that looks nice. There are four icons horizontally and by scrolling down you can access more. Vertically the list goes on indefinite, I think, depending how may apps you have on the device.

 

So onto the main features on the device. The web browser is quite good but slightly let down by the 2.8 inch screen. Don’t get me wrong, it works very well but its just a little small. It has an accelerometer built in so you can flip the device into landscape mode if you desire. There is no multi touch on the HTC Tattoo as it has a resistive screen. Zooming is done using  plus and minus keys on screen. Not perfect but it will have to do.

Pressing the hard menu key will give you the option to add bookmarks, access bookmarks and all the usual setting. One thing I did really like was that when you select bookmarks you get a “visual bookmarks” screen. This consists of thumbnails of your bookmarked websites but they are actual miniature web pages. You can scroll right and left to view all the pages you have saved and then click the one you want for it to open, nice.

 

If you use your phone to schedule events/appointments then the HTC Tattoo will please you. Its got a great calendar. Initially it gives you a month view and you can scroll up and down to view next month etc. Selecting a day will allow you to enter an appointment. Not only can you enter loads of information but it will also sync with Google if you use Google mail.

 

Speaking of Google mail, the HTC tattoo comes with a Google mail app already installed. You don’t have to use this though. You can still set up email using the standard POP3/IMAP and its dead easy to do. The downside with messaging is once again the screen size. Now I like to use a QWERTY keypad when messaging but doing so on the Tattoo was a bit of a nightmare in portrait mode. I have not got big hands but I still struggled. Switching to landscape was better but still not great. Luckily there are two other input options. You can use the phone keypad which has three letters on each key or there is also a compact QWERTY which has two letters on each key. I didn’t like either but that’s personal choice.

 

The HTC Tattoo comes with the Android Marketplace. This is the Android app store. I was looking forward to this as it was missing from the Samsung Galaxy when I reviewed it! However there is a slight problem at the moment! The Tattoo does not have as many apps available for it compared to other Android devices. This is due to the screen resolution. The HTC Tattoo seems to be the odd one out and I believe that when an app is submitted to the marketplace the developer must state for which screen resolution the app is designed for. If the developer does not choose 240 x 320 as well as the standard 320 x 480 the app will not be available to download for the HTC Tattoo. Yes this sucks! I’m sure it will be resolved over time but the Tattoo seems to be missing out at the moment. I downloaded a few free apps but I was not very impressed. There were plenty in the Marketplace but none that I really wanted. Maybe all the good ones are not for this screen resolution?

 

I was expecting the music player on the HTC Tattoo to be of really good quality, like on other HTC devices and I wasn’t let down. Although the supplied headphones are not the most comfortable to wear they produce good clear sounds. The “Metallica” test was a big success. Of course if you don’t want to use the supplied headphones you can always use your own as the Tattoo has a 3.5mm headset jack. The only downside in terms of music on the HTC Tattoo is the lack of Bluetooth file transfer. This is an Android thing, not HTC and hopefully it will be sorted soon.

I tested out the radio as well while the headphones were out. It worked and sounded pretty good although I could only just pick up my favorite radio station and I had to stand still in order not to lose it!

 

The HTC tattoo only has a 3.2MP camera and as usual with HTC devices its not great. Why oh why can they not sort this out. It works okay and the interface is nice but its very basic. No auto focus and don’t bother taking a macro shot as it will just come out a blur. The video recorder was ok but again not great quality. Shame.

One unique feature with the HTC Tattoo is that you can tattoo it! If you have not seen our previous post on this please click here but to sum it up the whole casing of the phone can be replaced with a design of your choice. A nice idea.

 

Conclusion:

The HTC Tattoo is overall a nice little phone. It does every thing you would expect  but was too small for me.

One thing the the network providers can do to make this handset even more popular is to sell it as a PAYG device, but the price needs to be right. T-Mobile recently released the Pulse which was there first PAYG Android device and its only £176.16. Its bigger and a lot cheaper than buying a sim free Tattoo at the moment but I have not used one so its hard to compare.

What I would compare the HTC Tattoo to at the moment is the Samsung Jet and HTC Touch2 as all are similar in size. Which is best is a hard one as it always comes down to personal preference. However if I did have to pick I would probably go with The HTC Touch2 purely as I prefer the Windows OS over the Android one. Most people tend not to agree with me on this one though!

 

Review by: James

Samsung Pixon12 Review

The Samsung M8910 Pixon12 is deemed to be one of the best camera phones around at the moment. Taking great photos with a mobile phone is a huge bonus but can the Pixon12 deliver in other areas or is the camera all its good for?

Samsung M8910 Pixon12

What’s in the box:

• Samsung Pixon12 Handset
• Battery
• Charger
• USB Cable
• Plastic Case
• Manuals/Software
• Headphones
• 2GB MicroSD Card and adapter

See also Matt’s Samsung Pixon 12 unboxing video on site.

 

The ten second review:

Device: Samsung M8910 Pixon12

Price: £454.25

Summary: A fantastic camera phone with lots of other features too.
Best of: Camera, Wi-Fi, 3G

Worst of: No 3.5mm headset jack

 

Samsung Pixon12 specification:

• Display – AMOLED, 16M colours, 3.1"
• GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 (Quad-Band)
• 3G: 900/2100 HSDPA (Dual-Band)
• Connectivity – microUSB
• TV Out
• Bluetooth (2.1)
• WiFi
• MicroSD
• Camera – 12 Megapixel resolution
• Xenon Flash
• 5 x Digital Zoom
• Auto Focus
• Brightness Adjust
• Video- Hi-Resolution DVD Video Recording 30fps Video Recording (720 x 480)
• Supported formats: MP4, 3GP, H.264, H.263, DivX & XviD
• FM Stereo Radio (RDS)
• Windows Media Player Sync
• DNSe (Digital Natural Sound engine)
• Battery – Capacity: 1000 mAh
• Dimensions – 107.9 x 53 x 13.8 mm
• Weight – 119g with battery

 

General:

On the top of the device is the USB slot and a small clip for removing the battery.

Samsung M8910 Pixon12 Top

The left hand side houses the microSD card and also the lock button.

Samsung M8910 Pixon12 Left Side

Situated on the right side of the handset is the camera activation button, the camera function button and also a rocker which serves as the camera zoom and also the volume up/down.

Samsung M8910 Pixon12 Right Side

The front of the Pixon12 looks fairly typical Samsung with send/end keys, a menu button and on the top a second camera lens.

Samsung M8910 Pixon12 Front

A huge camera lens and the Xenon and LED flash are located on the rear. (Sticker can be removed).

Samsung M8910 Pixon12 Rear

 

Highlights:

• Camera
• Wi-Fi/3G
• Music Player

 

Lowlights:

No 3.5 mm headset jack

 

Review:

Taking the Samsung M8910 Pixon12 out of the box for the first time I was amazed how much it looked like a digital camera. I suppose that’s the idea though! The device feels okay in the hand but not great as it has that blooming great camera lens on the back which protrudes. The phone feels fairly weighty and sturdy. Its mainly made from plastic but has a nice chrome strip around its outside which adds to its looks.

Now, I would imagine that most people who are reading this are probably interested in the camera so I am going to cover this first.

It was terrible. Only joking, sorry!  It was actually pretty amazing. It took pictures very quickly and was easy to use. The camera interface is the same as on other Samsung devices and you have a big selection of settings options. Within the “shooting mode” you have the choice of Single, beauty, smile, continuous, panorama and vintage. In the “scene” settings you have even more. These include portrait, landscape, night, sports, party/indoor, beach/snow, sunset, dawn, fall (autumn), firework, text, candlelight and against light. Samsung clearly want you to produce really great photographs and I’m sure all the options will help but I tend to just stick with the auto mode and get reasonable results.

The flash works in two parts and works really well. Initially when you press the camera button half way down to focus, the LED flash illuminates the target. When you press the button all the way down to take the shot the Xenon flash then kicks in and gives fantastic results. Its without doubt the best flash I have used on a phone.

Like most cameras on phones you don’t have to use the highest mega pixel setting and there are plenty of lower options. The higher the mega pixel the more space the photo takes up on your storage card. This also means that emailing a 12MP photo will use more data than emailing a smaller sized photo.

Below is a couple of sample shots taken at the full 12MP. Click on the thumbnail to see full size.

Photos taken with Samsung M8910 Pixon12

The macro setting was also impressive. Samples below.

 

Macro

The video camera option was not as good as the actual camera but still one of the best I have used on a phone. My favorite bit was that it had a slow motion setting.

For a sample video please click here.

 

On to the rest of the device as it does quite a lot.

The Samsung M8919 Pixon12 uses Samsungs Touchwiz interface which is nice. I’m not going to go into too much detail as its been around for sometime and if you are a regular reader of the site you would have seen it included in my Samsung Jet, Omnia HD and  Omnia II review. But like these devices the Pixon12 has three home screens that are all customizable.

Like on the other TouchWiz devices the menu on the Pixon12 is made up of three screens and the icons look bright and colourful set on a black background. Its a fantastic menu.

The device as a phone is good. The onscreen dialer takes up about three quarters of the screen so dialing is easy. The screen is super responsive and makes light work of typing really quick.

The phonebook is pretty nice too. There are two ways of searching for contacts. The first is by part typing the contacts name and the second is to use the scroll bar on the right hand side of the screen. This lets you zoom down your contact list from A-Z. If you haven’t got a million contacts this second way is really nice.

Each contact can have a good amount of information stored and also a photo.

The Pixon12 comes with a plastic case supplied. It smells of fish! It feels really cheap but the strange thing about it is that it has a cut out for the camera lens so you can take pictures with it in the case. Now this sounds great but while its in its case the screen is hidden. Why would you want to point the camera at something and not be able to see what you are taking a picture of. Well I thought its was odd anyway!

Messaging on the Samsung Pixon12 is fairly pleasant. Setting up email is easy and the email client does its job. You can only download a maximum of 5mb per email so big files are out of the window but 5mb is big enough for most things emailed.

Text messaging is as expected. The big bonus when messaging is the Pixon onscreen keyboard. Not only can you use it in portrait mode but also in landscape and when you switch to landscape the keyboard turns from the standard phone pad into a full qwerty. The keys are slightly smaller in this mode but still a decent size and I was able to type with few mistakes. The screen also gives you some haptic feedback which feels great.

The web browser on the Samsung M8910 Pixon12 is not the best but its not bad. It can be used in portrait or landscape mode and the screen scrolls smoothly. The browser does not support flash so some moving images will not appear on the screen which is a shame but this is not a smartphone. One thing I was impressed with though was that you can have five different pages open at the same time and tab between them. I cant do this on my smartphone!

As the Pixon12 supports 3G and also Wi-Fi this ensures you will be getting the best browsing speeds possible.

Listening to music on the M8910 Pixon12 was just as good as I thought it would be. Using the external speaker the quality was not great but using the supplied headphones was fantastic. I have mentioned this before but I think Samsung make amazing in-ear headphones. The only downside on the Pixon12 is there is no 3.5mm headset jack. Samsung have kindly supplied an adaptor so at least you can use your own headphones if you want to, but again the Samsung ones are cool. It also comes Bluetooth A2DP which means if you have a pair of wireless headphones you can use there to listen to your music.

The music player interface is fairly standard. The on screen buttons are a decent size and its really easy to use.

Watching videos on the Pixon12 is pleasant. The interface is the same as on other Samsung devices and is dead simple to use. The picture quality is reasonable but not amazing. The bonus here is that it does support DivX. I didn’t have any videos in this format but I’m sure this will improve the quality immensely.

The device comes with all the normal features you would expect to find such as a converter, calculator, Memos, a time etc.

 

Conclusion

Overall the Samsung M8910 Pixon is a decent handset. If you take a lot of photos with your phone and want the best quality then this device is well worth a look. Its not as good as a digital camera but its by far the best camera phone I have used.

I personally feel that this device is most suited to someone who wants the camera features more than the phone. As a phone its no way as nice as the Samsung Jet or Omnia II but it does have a great camera. If Samsung put this camera on other devices they would be kicking butt!

Review by: James

Acer Aspire Revo Review

As Matt said in his unboxing, the Acer Aspire Revo is an ultra small form factor PC. It’s a combination of the Intel N230 CPU and the NVidia 9400M GPU, offering high video performance in this small package.

 

You can see Matt’s unboxing here.

So let’s see what happen when we put this little box through it’s paces.

What’s in the box

The box that we received was an engineering sample so it’s not actually what is in the final product, but what we are told is in the box is…

Aspire Revo PC
Power cable
Keyboard
Mouse
Stand

No confirmation on cables yet, but I suspect a VGA cable would be included.

Acer Aspire Revo Specification:

• Acer Aspire Revo Ultra Small Form Factor PC
• Processor : Intel® AtomT 230 processor 1.66gHz
• Hard Drive : 160GB Serial ATA ( Serial ATA-300 ) or 8GB SSD
• Operating System : Linux or Windows Vista Home Premium
• Chipset : NVIDIA® IONT chipset
• Graphics : nVidia GeForce 9400 up to 896MB
• System Memory : 1GB or 2GB / 4GB (Max)
• 6 USB 2.0 ports
• Four-in-one card reader
• High definition headphone and microphone jacks
• DC-in jack
• Ethernet port
• D-Sub VGA port
• HDMI port
• eSATA port
• Network adapter – Ethernet, Fast Ethernet; Gigabit Ethernet
• Wireless LAN 802.11 b/g/Draft-N
• Dimensions (WxDxH) 18.0 x 3.0 x 18.0 cm

General

I’m not sure that there is strictly a ‘front’ on the Revo, so I’ll just go around the sides starting with what I think of as the front.

Connections left to right – eSATA, Mic, Stereo out, Memory card reader. On the ‘right’ corner you can see the power button and a USB socket below it.

and on the next side around there is another USB socket and some ventilation holes.

Around the ‘back’ is where most of the connections are.

Left to right -  4 USB sockets, RJ45 network, HDMI, VGA, Power and finally the Kensington lock.

There’s nothing much to see on the bottom – just the slot for the base.

Review

Once you get your hands on it, the first thing that you notice about the Acer Aspire Revo is the fact that it’s not square – it’s tilted slightly. If you use the included stand then the case leans forwards, which is an odd choice as it makes the connections on the front slightly less comfortable to access. It’s not a huge lean, but it’s enough that you notice it – especially if you are wanting to frequently use the sockets on the front.

Another orientation, and one of the more common images that you’ll see on the web when you search for Acer Aspire Revo, is where the Revo is mounted on the back of a monitor. I’ve not actually seen the mounting kit, but it certainly offers an interesting location for the PC – depending how you then use the PC.

If you are going to be using it with a separate wireless keyboard and mouse and never need access to the connections or power button then mounting on the back of the monitor would be fine. If you actually want to use the enclosed wired keyboard and mouse, want regular use to the USB sockets or to attach an external drive, and want to be able to use the power button then it’s less desirable to mount on the back where you’d be forever ‘groping’ around the back of the screen. So I guess it depends on your planned use.

The last orientation is to place the Acer Aspire Revo flat on the surface – but then the labels next to the sockets are all upside down.

This suggests that the labels have been designed with the attachment to the back of a screen as the primary usage of the Revo.

Though this arrangement would seem to make the power less easily accessible.

So all in all I’m not entirely sure which way the box is designed to be used, nothing seems quite right for everything.

Anyway, after the inital look around the case I hooked the unit up to an HDTV using a standard HDMI cable.

The system we had to test had 2GB memory and the 160GB SATA drive and 32-bit Windows Vista Home Premium. Of this 2GB of memory it appears that 256MB is shared to the graphics card as the OS only shows 1.75GB of memory installed.

Booting the system from cold you are booted by a loud whirring, which I can only guess to be a fan – this stops after a couple of seconds, and whilst I never had it actually turn on whilst using the system, it does occur every start up for a few seconds.

So, first boot takes you into the Windows Vista setup screens where you enter your country, time and user information etc. All straight forward stuff, then it asked me if I wanted McAfee Internet Security. Happy to be offered the choice I said No – but it later turned out that it had installed it anyway :S

Then Windows went into a performance check, which took quite a while – the first warning sign of things to come. Then the system rebooted and despite detecting the HDTV as being 1920×1080 it set the desktop to 1024×768 – frustrating and odd, but no big thing to change later.

On getting to the desktop the system then did some additional installs of Acer applications, then does a clean up of the installation tools. All this takes about half an hour. Then the system reboots itself again.

So from out of the box to actually being able to use the PC is about an hour all told. Not exactly out of the box usable.

After all this I could finally change the screen resolution to the correct one and start to look at the system.

The 160GB hard drive is split into two 80GB partitions for reason, the first now has 36.3GB free after the OS and all the other applications, the second is completely blank.

A cold boot took 1 minute 40 seconds – twice as long as my old laptop running XP. Part of the reason for this boot time is the OS, but part of it is the hard drive as I would come to discover.

A quick look around the installed apps shows the same apps as I’ve seen previously on Acer machines including a backup tool that wants to take a DVD backup of your boot system – though I’m not sure exactly how you do that when the system has no optical drive.

Like so many PC’s these days, the Microsoft Office 60 Day Trial is installed – but because I’d not yet plugged the network cable in or setup the wireless network, I discovered something I’d not realised before. You actually need an internet connection to activate the demo. I’m not sure how many people don’t have internet connections these days, but it does seem odd that trial software would require it.

A quick run of the Windows Experience Index tool returned a score of 3.0, placing it right in the middle of the ratings system. Usually 4.0 is what is recommended for HD playback, but this is where graphics chipset in this little package comes into it’s own.

The NVidia 9400M is a very capable ‘mobile’ chipset – and it’s main selling point in the Revo it’s ability to push fullscreen 1080p video, and juding by on all the video I chucked at it that’s no overstatement. Fullscreen playback of full HD video ran without problem – definitely not something all these ‘low power consumption’ PC’s can claim.

What puzzles me with this push towards promoting the Revo as being 1080p capable is that no effort appears to have been made to make the sound output capabilities as tempting for videophiles. If you want to run HD video then surely you are going to be looking for 5.1 or optical output.

This leads me to suspect that the system is mainly aimed at people wanting to watch web video, not home theatre setups.

After having a wander around the system I decided to do the ‘right thing’ and get all the Windows Updates that the system required – getting the advised ones only this weighed in at 100MB, not huge if you have a decent internet connection so I started that running.

And here is where I found the thing that was going to turn me off this system.

Downloading the 100MB took less than 10 minutes – waiting for the system to install them took another hour. This lead me to look into what might be causing the slow performance and the obvious candidate was the hard drive (Hitachi HTS543216L9A).

A quick search on Google finds that the drive is a 5400rpm laptop drive with a quoted seek time of 12ms – though some test sites claim it’s more like 19ms.

Whichever the seek time number you choose from above, for a home PC I’m used to running with drive that are 7200rpm and around 8ms seek time, and the difference certainly explains the sluggishness that I mentioned above.

So whilst the GPU is very capable of throwing lots of video at the screen, the harddrive is less capable of moving data around.

The harddrive really is the achilles heel of the system as it stands – and running Vista is certainly not helping things either. It would certainly be interested in seeing if the system is any better running Windows 7.

Unfortunately I couldn’t test the keyboard and mouse that are in the final box product as they weren’t in our engineering sample.

Highlights

• 1080p video playback
• small form factor
• low power consumption

Lowlights

• poor hard drive speed
• design quirks could be very annoying in daily use

Conclusion

I have to say that when Matt asked me to review this I was intrigued to see what the ‘new’ wave of Intel processors combined with the new graphics chip would be capable of.

The graphics chip did indeed deliver on it’s promise of 1080p performance, but elsewhere things aren’t quite so impressive. Out of the box you are looking at 2 hours of setup time to get the system full installed and patched up with the latest Windows updates, and getting on for 2 minutes of boot time each time you start the PC up.

The Acer Aspire Revo is a curious thing then. It’s the lower power chipsets, drives etc designed originally for laptop usage repurposed into a small factor desktop PC – then to boost it’s video performance over the first wave of such PC’s it’s had the NVidia 9400M GPU inserted, but no efforts to improve the sound output to match this video performance.

Connector labels oriented for what seems like the least likely usage of the PC, a fussy power button (possibly because our test unit was an engineering sample, but still), the strange forward lean in vertical orientation.

So whilst its video performance is better than the previous generation of low power desktops, everything else feels the same, if not a slight step back in some regards.

As a general desktop PC for doing lots of regular work on then the Acer Aspire Revo is possibly the wrong choice – if you just want to mount it on the back of a spare monitor for browsing the web then it’s probably fine, though definitely not the cheapest way to do this.

Review by: Iain

Acer F900 review

Introduction

With the takeover of Eten by Acer, lots of new phones are hitting the market with a wide range of ‘Tempo’ branded handsets from Acer suddenly becoming available. Acer also recently launched the powerful Acer neoTouch which comes complete with Windows Mobile 6.5, so can the F900 compete?

The Acer Tempo F900

 

The 10 second review:

Device: Acer Tempo F900
Price: £189.99 – £184.99 with a £5 voucher which you can get HERE.
Summary: A good looking handset which is a value for money alternative to the HTC Touch HD.
Best of: Decent auto-focus camera with flash. Screen and built in GPS are a great Sat Nav combination.
Worst of: Battery life not the best, can become a little sluggish at times.
Buy it now from: eXpansys

 

What’s in the box?

• Acer Tempo F900
• Battery
• Spare Stylus
• Screen Protector
• UK Mains Adapter
• USB Cable
• Headset
• Quick Start Guide
• Warranty Card
• User Manual CD

Take a look at Matt’s Acer F900 unboxing video for more.

 

Acer Tempo F900 Specification:

• Processor: Samsung 6410, 533 Mhz
• Operating System: Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 Pro
• Memory: ROM: 256 MB / RAM: 128 MB
• Display: 3.8-inch TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen with 800 X 480 WVGA resolution
• Network: HSDPA 1900/2100 MHz 
  Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• GPS: Internal GPS antenna
• Bluetooth® 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate and A2DP for wireless stereo headsets
• Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g
• Camera: 3.2 megapixel colour camera with LED flash
• Audio supported formats: WMA, WAV, MP3, AAC, AMR, SP-MIDI, MIDI, MMF, AWB, RMI
• Video supported formats: 3GP, MPEG4, WMV, H.263, H.264
• Battery: Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery
  -Capacity: 1530 mAh
  -Talk time: Up to 7 hours
  – Standby time: Up to 300 hours
• Expansion Slot: microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
• Dimensions: 117.5 X 63.5 X 12.8 mm
• Weight: 155 grams

General

The front of the F900 is dominated by a 3.8” touch sensitive screen below that you’ll find 4 touch sensitive buttons.

Acer F900 front view

 

On the back  a 3.2MP auto-focus camera, LED flash, speaker and battery compartment.

Acer F900 back view

 

To the right we have a couple of scroll buttons (also for volume control) with selector in the middle, MicroSD socket and a dedicated camera button.

Acer F900 right side

 

Left side we find the MiniUSB connector and power switch.

Acer F900 left side

 

Both the top and the bottom of the handset are clear of clutter with just a space for the stylus on the bottom.

Acer F900 top view

 

Highlights:

• Nice looking device
• Comes with good features for the price
• Good price
• Camera with flash and autofocus
• Nice GUI
• 3.8” Screen
• Wi-Fi, GPS and HSDPA

Lowlights:

• Battery life seems worse than advertised.
• Screen a little too shiny
• 128MB memory should be more.
• Sluggish at times

Review

When I first looked at this phone, I thought it was the Glofiish X500 with a couple of changes to the buttons under the screen. It is quite a sleek, if not slightly heavy, device with a rather large screen.

The Acer shell is visually pleasing and user friendly. The shell works with two modes, either that mimicking your office desk, with calendar, memo, phone, CD player, etc on a desk with the ability to scroll left and right a frame for more of the desk, or if you scroll the screen down, an interface not dissimilar to that of the iPhone appears. It does come with the option to unload the shell if you want, but personally I quite like it. I thought the gravity sensor was slightly on the sluggish side but a nice addition to the unit.

In terms of the GPS the F900 performs quite well. I tried the F900 with google maps and it doesn’t take long to get a GPS fix from cold and probably around 10 seconds from a warm start, quite acceptable. Accuracy is pretty standard, sitting at home there is a certain amount of ‘drift’ when you are not moving but when using the handset in the car this really isn’t a problem. When you consider the cost of this handset and how much it would cost to add on CoPilot Live, for example, then it does make for a good value SatNav device with a generous size screen for in-car use.

One area that the F900 does disappoint is the headphones/headset. The F900 does not have a 3.5mm headphone socket which is now becoming standard on more and more devices. Instead the supplied wired headset connects to the handset with a miniUSB style connector forcing you to either use the supplied headset, which is quite poor, or else purchase some kind of headphone adapter in order to use your own. What a shame that the adapter is not supplied.

Where the F900 trumps the Touch HD is in the camera department. The 3.2 MP camera on the F900 comes with autofocus, flash, and lots of settings and effects. It takes about 5 seconds from pressing the camera button to being able to actually take a picture, which I thought was slow. Quality was good, flash was average, but no one is expecting to take a photo on a phone that would make it onto the cover of Vogue magazine, that said the quality is better than its competitor that has no flash. Now before you all start screaming at your computer screen I know that the Touch HD has a 5MP camera but it’s not just about the number of pixels, the F900’s camera seems better in my opinion and the flash is pretty important to many people.

I know that I’ve already made several comparisons between the Touch HD and the F900 but they are so similar in design and functionality that it’s hard not to. If you consider that the Acer F900 has been around for just a few months and you can get it for well under £200 which is less than half the cost of the HTC Touch HD at the moment it becomes a matter of economics, the HD has little to offer over the F900 with, perhaps the exception of TouchFlo and maybe the headphone socket.

The Acer Shell user interface is much the same as we find on other Acer handsets on the market at the moment, it’s kinda like Acer’s answer to TouchFlo from HTC and it’s kinda cool. You are presented with a simulated office desk complete with a window and a wall. Items on the desk represent various things from a telephone telling you how many voicemail messages you have to an envelope with your unread email count. The calendar/clock on the wall tells you the date and the time while the view out of the ‘window’ shows you the weather.

Acer Shell on the F900

I’ve mentioned earlier that the handset suffers from a slow down periodically. I suspect that this is down to two things. Firstly that the handset has ‘only’ 128Mb of RAM and that the user interface itself is pretty graphically intense. Once you start loading up other applications, especially SatNav apps. you might start to notice this more. It’s not a huge problem but means that you might have to manage your application usage a little more carefully than you would on a device with more RAM.

Not forgetting of course that the F900 is a mobile phone, the call quality of the handset it pretty decent. I can hear callers clearly enough and they can hear me fine. I would like to be able to make the speaker a bit louder though as I had it on the loudest setting all the time, it would be good to have so headroom for those quieter calls but that said it’s not the quietest handset that I’ve used.

General call quality is good, didn’t have any dropped calls during the review period and no break up. Reception is adequate, on par with the majority of other smartphones that I’ve been using recently but by no means spectacular and wont compete with your average Nokia handset for signal strength, but then I’ve yet to find a smartphone handset that will – why is that?!

The large 3.8" display is good, and 800 x 480 pixels gives you plenty of room for web browsing. It’s reasonably responsive to touch and you’ll get away with using your fingers or at least your fingernails for most applications. One bug bear with the screen is that it is extremely glossy, which is pretty much the norm for handsets now, but it’s performance in strong sunlight is poor, you’ll find yourself angling the screen to be able to see it properly. Probably not such a big deal as we only have about 3 days of sun each year in the UK but more important elsewhere perhaps.

On the matter of web browsing the F900 has Opera Mobile included and as you’d expect from the tried and trusted Opera browser, it does a decent job of rendering webpages, looking much like their desktop equivalent only smaller. Opera seems to be speedy enough though. However, one area that does cause a problem with Opera is the g-sensor or accelerometer. When you rotate the handset in your hands to a landscape orientation then naturally you want the screen to rotate to suit but for some reason Opera simply refuses to play ball most of the time which is quite annoying!

We’re often asked about texting and text entry on handsets. The F900, as you would expect, has all the standard Windows Mobile text-entry methods from handwriting recognition to the normal QWERTY keyboard. You probably wont want to use the normal WM QWERTY as on the 480×800 screen it’s tiny and not easy to use even with a stylus let alone with your fingers. Thankfully Acer have included their own larger QWERTY keyboard for text entry and this takes up just over a third of the lower part of the display. The ‘keys’ are well spaced and large enough to press with your fingers without having to resort to the stylus. Text entry is otherwise uneventful.

 

Conclusion

I like the feel of the phone, and the interface. It is slow at responding to some tasks but I think this is down to the the UI and the amount of memory available to run the software, but at the price and with all the features this phone comes with, I think it’s definitely good value for money!

The F900 is one of Acer’s best efforts so far, now I wonder what they can do with the neoTouch!?

In response to a Windows Mobile 6.5, it looks like people have managed to upgrade it with ‘cooked ROMs’, but not via an official update from Acer, so far.

 

Review by: Gary/Matt