Author Archive: Matt

O2 XDA Zest review

New on the scene and the latest in the XDA range, we find the XDA O2 Zest. Can it live up to O2 claim that ‘The Xda Zest is a sleek, slim and stylish phone bursting with friendly features.’?

Firstly this is not one of the much followed and much awaited new devices, if fact I had never heard of it until that regular contact where Matt is looking for a review to be done. This is one of the only XDA type devices not to be made by HTC, being a derivative of the Asus Galaxy 7.

The O2 XDA Zest

 

I have been playing with the Zest for a week or so now, and these are my thoughts so far…

 

First looking inside the neat looking and unusually tidy box you’ll find:

• the O2 XDA Zest
• A spare stylus
• A three part AC adaptor
• USB to mini USB cable to sync and charge, also used with the above adaptor
• A stereo headset with mini use connector
• An unusual ‘Y- cable’
• A quick start guide and CD, warranty card
• Included in this test unit, the optional Co-pilot micro card and SD adaptor 14 day trial.

The AC adaptor and ‘Y – cable I will cover shortly.

 

O2 XDA Zest specification:

• Windows Mobile 6.1
• Marvell TavorP 624MHz processor
• Quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE
• UMTS/HSDPA
• 2.8” 65K TFT VGA 480X640
• 3 Megapixel camera
• 256 MB Flash Memory ROM
• 128 MB SDRAM
• MicroSD slot (up to 32GB support)
• Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g
• GPS
• 1300 mAh Battery
• 102×60.5×16.5mm

 

GENERAL

Taking a wander around the Zest on the top there is the power button and the housing for the non telescopic stylus.

XDA Zest top view

 

The left hand side is the home to a covered external GPS connector, and a single button, up and down volume rocker

XDA Zest left side

 

On the right hand side is a dedicated camera button and also a screen and manual key lock switch.

XDA Zest right side

 

The bottom of the Zest there is only the miniUSB connector, reset hole and strap holder,

XDA Zest bottom view

 

Around the back the simplicity continues with only the 3 Megapixel camera and speaker slot,

XDA Zest back view

 

And finally on the business end of the phone is, from top to bottom, an LED indicator light next to the front facing VGA camera for video calling etc., the earpiece and the 2.8” flush screen.

XDA Zest front view

 

Below which is 4 illuminated, when touched buttons, one for the Start menu, one ‘OK’ and the normal green send and red end keys. In the middle of which is housed the up/down/left/right directional, navigation key and enter key.

The device itself is unusual, in that it is very shiny, very black and very plastic. At first it feels quite nice to the touch and the metal accents set it off quite nicely, however after a very short amount of time you realise that it is slightly too wide, as well as slightly too thick and therefore makes it uncomfortable to hold. When set against my Diamond it is slightly shorter, nearly 10mm wider, and 5mm thicker. To me it does look dumpy and squat, yet thick and chunky, not the best start.

Highlights

• Sharp clear screen
• Very quick and responsive
• Very stable
• Good camera
• Loaded with user features

Lowlights

• Uncomfortable to hold and use
• Poor sound quality
• Over complicated

Software

I will try and explain my highlights and lowlights here, they do contradict themselves, for the reason that, if you are used to Window Mobile and SpB Mobile shell, this device has the lot, well at least O2’s customised versions. The highlight is that it gives you loads of choice in the way of ‘Today’ and other screens, the downside or lowlight is that for me it completely overcomplicates the issue. I may have been missing something but deciding to rotate the screen to use the Sat Nav turned into a 5 minute ordeal flicking through menus to find out how to do this and when I did finally get the hang of it, you can only turn 90 degrees clockwise and then back again not left hand/right hand. I use my phones with the buttons on the right when in landscape, as I am right handed, not on this phone not an option without adaptations.

That said there are is plethora of menus, sub-menus to keep you entertained, if you are new to windows mobile, I think this phone could well put you off in terms of its complexity.

Software wise it is pretty standard 6.1 with the addition of O2’s menus.

Pick a screen any screen…..

The included 14 day trial of CoPilot 7 worked well and showed off the capability of the sharp clear screen and the very capable processor.

Review

This device for me has been one of the hardest one to review, not knowing a lot about it in the first place and not having chance to get used to it beforehand, it has proved to be very good in some areas and not that good in others.

As already mentioned the screen is a major plus point the 480×640 is a gem, I did find though, that despite being calibrated, I quite often missed the lines I was trying to tap and ended up hitting the line above. At first I thought it was me, but as it happened regularly and despite recalibrating more than once, I conclude it could be down to the appearance of a decent gap between the actual screen and the screen covering. The camera is pretty good and has to be considered better than average in its sector, and I must admit it got better when I realised that it has a small plastic lens protector in place, underneath the cover, when sent, so don’t forget to take it off!

I really like the screen lock switch that shuts the phone down, having been used to this on my Asus P526; I really don’t know why more devices don’t include this as standard, so no accidental button presses or call answering here, as the phone is locked down completely. One really small point here is that, for me, although I do like this feature it is slightly too close to the stylus housing and quite often while trying to remove the stylus, without looking, found I was trying to pull out the switch instead, but a nice inclusion anyway.

The charger is a slightly strange affair, I think it might have been a slow day in the design office when they dreamt this up, it is made up of a block into which you insert the miniUSB cable, and then attach one of the 2 regional plug adaptors which have fold out terminals, very strange, I can’t help think they have been over designed and if done to save space, have failed. What’s wrong with a standard wall charger?

The next anomaly for the Zest is the inclusion of the ‘Y – cable’ this connects to the miniUSB port on the bottom of the unit and acts as a splitter to allow connection of both charge/sync cable as well as the headset. I have not seen this before and although I get the idea and can see why it have been included, I remain unconvinced, it is a good idea, but surely a simpler solution would be to include a 3.5mm socket instead, the Zest is certainly thick enough to house one!

The processor is great, it is an unheard of Marvell TavorP 624MHz, which works very well and definitely one of the better ones about, it certainly pack a punch in delivering speed. The phone I also found to be software stable, it is only while writing this that I realised I have not reset the Zest, at all, since I have been playing with it.

The gripes I have with the XDA is that the battery is not fantastic, it tends to drain quite freely, lasting about a day with moderate use, less with heavy use. It reminds me of the diamond, and this is neither devices’ best feature.

The calls quality, I found also, was not great, the speakers either internal or loud sounded crackly and not at all pleasant, it does get better with a good and clear reception, but in bad conditions it did not fare well at all, one of the worst I have heard for a long time, maybe particular to this test device though?

Conclusion

I have to admit and you can probably tell this is not one of my favourite devices that I have tested over the last few years, it has the potential to be very good and hopefully I have highlighted some really strong plus points. Overall, for me, the strange, uncomfortable size and the negatives, mentioned already, outweigh the positives, and for that reason this is not on my Xmas list.

Don’t get me wrong, it is quick, stable, and full featured, and hopefully the faults that I found are test device specific. The overall spec and screen coupled with that processor do make it very good value for money. Just not for me.

 

Review by: Steve

Nokia N85 review

At first glance the Nokia N85 looks like a smaller brother to the N96. In most of the important areas it is, so should you choose the N85 over the N96?

The Nokia N85

 

The N85 is a superbly made dual slider phone. From the phones packaging Nokia’s main sales pitch is a serious games device – with a phone built in. And it is – with games specially adapted from leading game publisher EA Games. Coupled with a bright OLED screen and dedicated game controls. However it also sports voice assisted A-GPS Satellite Navigation, a state of the art 5Mpix Still camera with Carl Zeiss optics. Video capture at DVD quality 30 frames per second. Supplied in the box are Audio/Video cables to allow game play or picture and video playback through your TV or projector. Email and WWW support via WLAN or 3.5G HSDPA through your mobile phone provider. And if that wasn’t enough a simple to use MP3 / MP4 player. The main difference between the N96 and N85 is simply less onboard memory, but with 8Gb MicroSD as standard, the more pocket-able size of the N85 is certainly going to draw converts.

 

What’s in the box?

The phone, a generous 8gb MicroSD card. Mains charger, USB data / charging cable. Ear phones, wired remote controller for the MP3 player. A 3.5mm to Phono cable for TV out. Manuals, software DVD, and an Activation code to enable one Trial game to the full game. Check out Matt’s Nokia N85 unboxing video for more information.

 

Nokia N85 Specification:

• Form: Two-way slider
• Dimensions: 103x50x16.0mm
• Weight: 128 g
• Volume: 76 cc
• Display Size: 2.6"
• Resolution: 320 x 240 pixels (QVGA)
• Up to 16.7 million colors
• Active Matrix OLED technology
• Numeric keypad Cover keys (S60 keys, Multimedia key, Send/end keys) Short slide keys (media control/zoom/gaming) Navi™wheel
• Dedicated media/zoom/game keys
• Dedicated camera and volume keysCover keys
• Multimedia key
• Navi™Wheel
• Voice commands
• Intelligent key illumination
• Micro-USB connector with mass storage class support, High-Speed USB 2.0
• 3.5 mm AV connector
• BL-5K 1200 mAh Li-Ion battery
• Talk time (maximum):
  – GSM 6.9 h
  – WCDMA 4.5 h
  -VoiP 9 h
• Standby time (maximum):
  – GSM 363 h
  – WCDMA 363 h
  – WLAN 172 h
• Browsing time with packet data (maximum): 5 h 42 min
• Video playback time (maximum): 7 h
• Video recording time (maximum): 2 h 54 min
• Video call time (maximum): 2 h 42 min
• Music playback time (maximum): 30 h
• Gaming time (maximum): 7 h
• microSD memory card slot, hot swappable, max. 8 GB
• 74 MB internal dynamic memory
• 78 MB internal NAND flash memory

For the full spec see http://europe.nokia.com/support/products/n85/specifications

 

General:

On the face of the phone are 8 buttons and the Nokia NaviWheel.

Nokia N85 front view

 

On the top the power button a 3.5mm socket that doubles as a standard 3 pin headphone socket (very welcome) and the 4 pin TV out socket. Next to that the Micro USB charger / data connector. Its encouraging to see Nokia standardising on the Micro USB charging plug as this will soon mean most mobile phones chargers will be interchangeable. Eventually they would not even need to be shipped with new phones.

Nokia N85 top view

 

On the left side is a lanyard loop and the MicroSd card slot.

Nokia N85 left side

 

On the right side stereo speaker grills, volume control, a slide button to lock/unlock the keys and the camera button.

Nokia N85 right side

 

On the back the slide cover for the 5Mpixel lens and twin LED lights for flash or video lighting. The back cover unclips to access the battery and Sim card.

Nokia N85 back view

 

Review

This phone is known as a dual slider, that’s to say the top half of the phone slides up, and down to reveal various controls. Sliding either way automatically unlocks the keypads. Sliding the face up reveals a conventional 12 key phone pad, which was quite adequate and pleasant enough to use. By default sliding answers and ends voice calls. Sliding down reveals 4 keys that double as media player controls or dedicated gaming controls, depending upon the program running.

The top face and key pads are gloss black with a flush screen giving a very smart look. While the sides and back are finished in chocolate bronze.

If enabled the Orientation Sensor will auto rotate the screen to landscape mode and back simply when it senses the phone turned in ones palm. This feature works well enough to be kept turned on.

Nokia NaviWheel was disabled by default, when we turned it on we found out why, it was too temperamental to be of any use plus it has limited functionality compared to the standard 4 way control. Interestingly the NaviWheel on the N79 we are reviewing works much more responsively.

nGage gaming:

If playing games is your thing you are going to love this phone. It’s not a PlayStation or an Xbox, but it is far advanced from most mobiles phone games. Very playable with bright clear 3D graphics. FIFA 08, Asphalt3 Street Rules, and Brain Challenge are just some of the games pre-installed for you to try. More are available for download. One activation code is supplied in the box which allows you to fully licence any one of the games.

The supplied TV out cable simply plugs in to the Video and Audio sockets commonly found on many TVs or projectors and allows the play back on both the phone screen and the TV at the same time. Sound is also piped through the TV sound system.

The quality looks a bit fragmented at large resolution, especially on a 42” LCD, but it’s still quite playable. Likewise videos and photos can be shared on the large screen.

See www.ngage.com for specific games information.

The games are cheaper than major console games but seem to be locked to the phone – not a user account. So loosing or upgrading your phone means you will need to buy them all over again. This is similar to buying a DVD and only being allowed to play it on one player, ever. It seems Nokia have shot themselves in the foot with this one, as people actually like to collect things, DVDs, games etc. but if they know the game will expire along with their annual phone contract, they may think twice before buying. My guess is Nokia have realised but are unable to change the licensing at this stage. A better solution would be Apples model where music and films are licensed to a user account.

FM Transmitter – Pre set one of your radio stations to match the N85 and playing your favourite tunes in the car is a breeze.
I like this feature. Because while I know I can burn my music to CDs for the car or put them on USB sticks etc etc In reality I only ever get around to syncing music with my phone, and only because I plug it into the PC for various other reasons. So it was great, with just a few buttons clicks, to switch the Media player on the phone to transmit my sounds straight to the car stereo via the FM radio. It also means if I’m travelling in a friend’s car, (who may not have my great taste in music) in seconds I can simply tune their radio to 107.9FM (or whatever I have set the N85 to) and we can cruise in the groove. Sound quality was very good with my car setup, better than standard radio quality. But I did have to find a place on the dash where the reception was crackle free – I have found this with all FM transmitters I have used (on iPods and MP3 players), I think it’s because the transmitter is so close to the car aerial.

It also works just as well with home HiFi’s.

 

Camera:

Forget the Megapixels, Nokia cameras were notoriously poor a few years back. Any camera expert will tell you that it’s all in the lens, hence to up their reputation they invested in branded Carl Zeiss optics and Tessar™ lenses, this model performed as well as any Sony Ericson I have tried before.

I also think N85’s 5Megapixel CMOS is plenty – until larger lenses are fitted to phones there doesn’t seem much point in 8Mp other than larger files sizes.

It has 2 very bright LEDs which act as flash for the camera and light for the video. Overall it works very well. Easy to switch on/off and between still and video mode. The video is not going to give you the same results you get from a dedicated video camera but it is good enough to capture memories to treasure. As with many phone cameras it was a little slow in low light, resulting in quite a few blurred images, still you can always take more with 8Gb memory to play with.

 

aGPS

The built in A-GPS (Assisted – Global Positioning Satellite receiver) receiver works well with the supplied Nokia Maps. A 3 month trial of the voice assistance is included. There are also options to purchase traffic congestion and speed camera alerts. Many of you will also download and install Google Maps which also works well with it.

 

Email support:

As standard the N85 supports POP3 email. It will also support Microsoft Exchange Push Email by downloading the Mail for Exchange client from Nokia.com. Although personally, I feel any phone bought for serious email support should have a qwerty keyboard of some description, I also know many people who find Exchange support really useful as it gives them the ability to monitor their business emails real time, plus a live copy of their office Contact list and Calendar. So adding a new contact or appointment in their phone instantaneously updates their business Outlook and vice versa. The data is synchronised over the air (OTA) via the mobile phone network. This is very useful but requires a data charge from the mobile provider. Data charges are also incurred with A-GPS, so this type of phone really needs a prepaid data tariff of some kind.

 

OLED Screen:

The N85’s screen is 320×240 pixel resolution which is fine for a screen size of 2.6inch. It is also extremely bright and clear due to the high contrast Active Matrix OLED (Organic LED) display. OLED is the latest screen technology providing excellent picture quality with lower power consumption, in a few years all TV screens will use this technology, currently though it’s far too expensive to produce in larger sizes.

 

Highlights

• Full featured phone
• Excellent display and graphics
• Small size
• Well made

 

Lowlights

• Questionable licensing of games
• No qwerty keyboard
• Slow camera in low light

 

Conclusion

This little power packed Nokia has a lot going for it. Even though I struggle without a qwerty keyboard I have warmed to it in the last few weeks. Its small size has got me hooked. It’s a well made and satisfying to use device.

As a entertainment phone its definitely a serious contender. Coupled with the reasonable camera, Satellite Navigation and Exchange Push Email support it can easily satisfy today’s most demanding user.

If you need the features but don’t want to lug around a house brick, this could be the phone for you.

 

Review by: Daniel

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