Author Archive: James Richardson

Sony Ericsson Naite Review

Sony Ericsson is all set to hop aboard the green bandwagon and the Naite seems to be one of their first steps in that direction. Boasting ‘green credentials’ Sony Ericsson hope the Naite otherwise known as the Naite Green Heart will secure their place in the green good book.

 

The Ten Second Review:

Device: Sony Ericsson Naite

Summary: A low priced, low spec straight forward phone. Its environmentally friendly though!

Best of: Good battery life, Cheap, Green.

Worst of: Low Spec, No flash.

Buy it now from: Sony Ericsson

Price: TBC

General:

On the surface the Naite looks no different from many of Sony Ericsson’s low priced handsets however it is under the metaphoric bonnet that this phone flexes its green muscles.
The front of the Naite is a very clean and stereotypical Sony Ericsson device. The numeric keys are generously sized and the navigational buttons match this clean finish with their perfect symmetry.

Sony Ericsson Naite

 

The sides of the Naite house little creativity and excitement with just the single Sony Ericsson style connecter input on the left of the device. The black back cover wraps nicely round the side of the device creating smooth styling throughout the device.

Sony Ericsson Naite Left Side

 

The right of the device is equally as exciting with just a single volume rocker located to the top of the device.

Sony Ericsson Naite Right Side

 

The back of the device houses the two-megapixel camera, which unfortunately lacks a flash of any description. The back cover is textured allowing for better grip and underneath this cover lies the microSD slot.

Sony Ericsson Naite Back

 

Highlights:

• Great Battery Life
• Green Packaging

Lowlights:

• MicroSD Slot Hidden
• No Flash

 

Review:

With very little in the way of improvement in design and styling of their lower priced handsets it seems Sony Ericsson are on a constant search for the latest craze to latch on to in order to ship devices. The Naite is no exception to this rule and from its press release it would appear Sony Ericsson’s latest buzzword is ‘green’.
The Naite is a decent looking phone and although no great improvements have been made regarding the styling over previous Sony Ericsson models I suppose the expression if it aint’ broke don’t fix it comes to mind.
The green credentials of the Naite may be difficult to spot on first inspection however it is clear from the packaging that Sony Ericsson mean business with their Green Heart series. Expertly packed in the a tiny box the Naite along with its energy efficient battery and charge can potentially cut its carbon footprint by up to 15%, not bad for around £100.
Unfortunately the green credentials are all the Naite has to offer in the way of enhancing features. The device operates in the same way as any other Sony Ericsson device on the market; navigation is achieved through the same scrolling menu as with other devices and the 2-megapixel cameras although a nice addition is a bit of a disappointment with image quality being sacrificed by the omission of a flash.
I would love to say the Naite does not suffer at the extent of its green presentation however it does feel like it lacks a certain something there is no defining feature in terms of features that stands out the walkman phones have their music the cybershots have their cameras however the Naite seems to be trapped somewhere in the middle with a lack of identity or character.
That said the Naite is not a complete write off. Its green credentials are certainly going to leave you with a warm feeling when you use it knowing you are saving the planet as well as sending the vital text or making that urgent call. The phone does take elements from both the walk man and the cyber shot devices however although it does not do either of them perfectly it does do a decent enough job for the average user.

 

 

Storage is via microSD and with the possibility of expanding the memory up to 8GB there is plenty of opportunity to store all your favourite mp3s and a perfectly adequate number of photos. The memory cars slot is something, which confused me rather. It is not uncommon these days for the card slot to be stashed away underneath the battery however on the Naite the SD card slot is not under the battery but is hidden away under the back cover which to me seems like a pointless move and makes things unessarcerily difficult for the user.

 

The phone has the usual set of organizer style features, which are easy to navigate using the Naite’s large keypad, which should see even the largest thumbed being managing to use the phone with little trouble. The Naite is a lightweight device at just 84g and this is evident with the device is your hand. The battery life on the Naite is something which Sony Ericsson are extremely proud of and rightly so, with an approximate stand by time of 600 hours and a staggering 13 hours talk time you the Naite is designed to keep you away from the plug saving you money on your energy bills and with this battery life it is sure to achieve just that. Connectivity wise a personal bugbear of mine returns in the form of the Sony Ericsson proprietary connector however that aside the usual suspects are present, Bluetooth, 3G etc.

Conclusion:

The Naite is comes from Sony Ericsson with good intentions. It would however appear that we are not yet at the stage when a mobile can be green in character without having to sacrifice performance or functionality. The Naite offers mediocre features in the form of its camera and music playback capabilities however they just feel lacking when compared to specialist devices. A phone perfect for those carbon conscious phone users who would be happy to take a slight sacrifice in features in order to help save the planet.

 

Review by: Nick

Nokia E72 Review

Back in June 2008 Nokia released the E71 which has been a massive success in most parts of the world. Will the new and improved version, the E72, continue that success? Read on to find out what I thought of it and more importantly if you think you will like it.

Is it a good alternative to a BlackBerry or the other front facing QWERTY devices?

Nokia E72

 

What’s in the box:

• Device
• Battery
• Charger
• USB Cable
• Plastic Case/pouch (non belt clip)
• Headphones
• Cleaning Cloth
• Wrist Strap

Please check out Matt’s unboxing video  to see the Nokia E72 in action.

 

The ten second review:

Device: Nokia E72

Price: £399.99

Summary: A hardcore messaging device with a superb QWERTY keyboard.

Best of: 3G, Wi-Fi, Keyboard, GPS< Camera.

Worst of: Symbian OS, Web Browser

 

 

Nokia E72 Specification:

• Dimensions: 114 x 59.5 x 10.1mm
• Weight: 128g
• Battery: Capacity: 1500 mAh
• Talk Time: 12.5 hrs
• Standby Time: 576 hrs
• Display: 320 x 240 pixels/2.36 inch
• 2G: 850/900/1800/1900 (Quad-Band)
• 3G: 900/1900/2100 (Tri-Band)
• Camera: 5 mega-pixels (auto-focus)
• LED Flash
• FM Stereo Radio (RDS)
• Visual Radio
• Nokia Music Store
• SMS / MMS (with video)
• E-mail (POP3, SMTP, IMAP4, MS Exchange)
• Memory: 250MB (internal)
• microSDHC (external)
• microUSB
• Nokia 3.5mm AV connector
• Bluetooth (2.0)
• Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11g)
• AGPS
• Electronic Compass
• Nokia Maps

 

 

 

General:

The top of the Nokia E72 houses the 3.5mm headset jack as well as the power button.

Nokia E72 Top

 

On the left side is the MicroUSB slot and also the MicroSD card. Both are covered with plastic doors.

Nokia E72 Left Side

 

The right contains the up/down volume rocker and also a voice command button.

 

Nokia E72 Right Side

On the back of the device you will find the camera lens and flash and also a speaker grill.

Nokia E72 Rear

The front of the Nokia E72 is how you would expect a messaging device to look. Jam packed with buttons.

Nokia E72 from the front.

 

 

Highlights:

• Connectivity
• QWERTY Keyboard
• GPS
• Design

 

Lowlights:

• Operating System
• Web Browser

 

Review:

 

Without doubt the Nokia E72 is a nice looking handset. I have always been a big fan of front facing QWERTY devices and this one is no exception. The combination of black plastic and shiny metal really give the Nokia E72 a quality look. The metal battery cover is quite unique as its silver and not black like on most phones. The Nokia E72 is a business tool and its snazzy design will be well suited to business professionals. The device feels very well built. It feels fairly heavy in the hand but sturdy and robust. It almost feels a bit odd as its so thin at only 10.1mm but that odd feeling is a good thing.

As well as the full QWERTY keyboard, the Nokia E72 has a further eight hardware keys under the screen.

Nokia E72 Keyboard

 

These comprise of two soft keys directly under the screen which select the onscreen options. Under these are four shortcut buttons. These are home, calendar, contacts and email. Finally under the shortcut keys are the call send and end. The buttons themselves are a softer plastic than the QWERTY keyboard keys and require very little pressure to press. They feel nice to use. Between all these keys is the optical track pad. I was pleasantly surprised by this as to look at it I just thought it was a D-pad which would allow for up/down/left & right with a select button in the middle. I was wrong. The centre is a proper optical track pad so you have two options for navigating the screen. You can either click up/down/left/right on the hard outer rim of the pad or use the inner optical part like a mouse so this will allow for diagonal movement. Handy in the web browser me thinks. Nice work Nokia.

Most users of the Nokia E72 will be getting the device for the QWERTY keyboard. Any what a nice keyboard it is. The keys are very similar in size to the ones found on the BlackBerry Bold 9700. The plastic keys are softer and require less pressure to make them click, however typing on the BlackBerry 9700 feels a wee bit easier and I think this is due to two features. The first of these is that the keys on the Nokia seem to be flat where as on the BlackBerry 9700 each key has a slight divit giving the feel that there is a bit more space between each key. The second difference I noticed is the materials used. As the keys on the Nokia E72 are a softer plastic they are not as shiny and for this reason I find that my thumbs seem to glide a bit better on the BlackBerry. Small differences I know but that’s what we are here for, to help highlight the small differences between devices.

Comparisons aside I cant actually fault the keyboard on the Nokia and I was able to use it as easily and mistake free as on my other devices. I have not used the Nokia E71 so its hard for me to say if its better or worse but what I can say is its real sweet!

 

The Nokia E72 runs Symbian Series S60 third addition and although extremely popular I really don’t like it. Don’t get me wrong, it works but I just find it a bit dated compared to other operating systems out there at the moment. One of the reasons its so popular is that a lot of users don’t even know they are using Symbian. They just think they are using a Nokia!

The home screen on the device gives quick access to a lot of features.

Nokia E72 Home screen

 

As you will see in the picture above this home screen is not bad in terms of how easy it is to scroll and access these features but cosmetically it is really not nice. If you compare this screen to Windows Mobile, Android, iPhone and even BlackBerry it really is not as attractive to look at. Such a shame as the device itself is so snazzy to look at yet it is let down by the home screen.

So lets now have a look at the Nokia E72s main features and see if they are good as they should be?

Within the main menu of the E72 is the media tab. Entering gives you a list of a further ten tabs. These are radio, media player, music store, recorder, gallery, camera, share online, realplayer, video centre and music search.

The media player is where you can listen to music. The music interface is straight forward and nothing special. I was expecting a decent sound quality from the Nokia E72 and I was not wrong. The headphones supplied with the device are really good and the “Metallica test” was a big success. It was loud, crisp and bassy, just the way I like it. There is also an equalizer so you can tweak the sound settings to your liking. Good job Nokia!

The added bonus with the music player is that you can use your own headphones if you want. The Nokia E72 comes with a 3.5mm headset jack. Cool!

The gallery option allows you to view photos and video clips. Again this was a decent area for the E72. Although not the biggest screen the images were crisp and bright and scrolling between them was simple with the optical pad. Watching video was also pretty good. The screen is vibrant and radiant producing a respectable viewing experience. Out of the box you will be limited to the video formats you can watch but a different video player can be downloaded which will allow for DivX support.

 

Its great having the Nokia Music store at your fingertips. I had not tried it before but it looks pretty good. Its easy to use and the prices are reasonable, on par with iTunes. In addition if you do have a large music collection on the device then the music search feature will be handy. Once launched you just say the name of the artist or track and the device finds it for you. Clever.

 

Onto the web browser. Browsing on a non touch screen device is never my favourite experience but I will give the Nokia E72 a fare crack of the whip.

I found the browser on the E72 to have good bits and bad. The positive bits were that the pages seemed to load quickly and scrolling down the page was extremely fast therefore allowing you to get to the bit you want. The device comes with both 3G and Wi-Fi so you can have the best download speeds available. On the downside, i could not get the browser to display the web page so I could see the whole of the page from left to right. This meant if i was reading something I would have to keep scrolling to the right to get to the end of the sentence. I could not put up with that on a daily basis. The browser overall performed well though and people that have not used a touch screen device will most likely not be as frustrated with it as I was.  I actually prefer browsing on my BlackBerry Bold 9700 to the E72. Sorry Nokia!

 

Business users of the device will be pleased that their is an Office section within the menu. Here you can create notes, view PDFs, use a dictionary and calculator but the best bit is QuickOffice. On previous Symbian handsets I have reviewed it has required a paid upgrade to create word and excel documents and I was expecting the same on the E72. How wrong I was. I opened the app and straight away created both a word doc and excel. A worthy bonus all round. 

 

With that nice QWERTY keyboard, messaging is one of the main things I would imagine is top of the list of features that prospective buyers of the Nokia E72 will be looking at. Its easy peasy to use on the E72. SMS is obviously straight forward but so is email. When you first start the device it will prompt you to input an email account and once that’s done you are up and running.

How does messaging on the Nokia E72 compare with other platforms?

Windows: Its certainly on par with Windows Mobile although I do prefer the interface on WinMo.

Android: Android is better and not only with Gmail.

iPhone: iPhone is better again but no option here for hardware keyboard.

BlackBerry: Silly question. The BlackBerry wins hands down!

 

So overall messaging on the Nokia E72 is adequate but certainly not the best. It works flawlessly but its not as simple to use as some of the other platforms.

 

Nokia normally do a reasonable job with the cameras on there devices and the 5MP camera on the E72 was pretty good. It was dead easy to use and the settings and options were simple. It was really just a case of point and shoot. It does not have the nicest camera interface but the sample shots I took were of decent quality (please bare in mind I had no sunshine to test it out with!) For indoor and low light shots the Nokia E72 comes with a LED flash which did a respectable job.

Nokia E72 camera test. With flash on the right image.

 

Conclusion:

The Nokia E72 is a nice phone. It could be a lot better if it was not running Symbian but that’s just my opinion. If you are a Nokia user already you will love the E72 and be very happy. Is it as good as the other front facing QWERTY devices out there at the moment? I would probably say so, apart from the BlackBerry smart phones. I think if you want the ultimate messaging device the the BlackBerry Bold 9700 is still the best, but not everyone will agree with me!

 

Posted by: James

Samsung Omnia Pro B7610 Review

Yes, it’s another Omnia. This time though with a slide out QWERTY keyboard. There is certainly a market for this style of device but can the Samsung compete with the all ready well established HTC Touch Pro2?

Samsung OmniaPro B7610

 

What’s in the box:

• Device
• Battery
• Charger
• USB Cable
• Wired Headset
• Manuals
• Software

Take a look at Matt’s Samsung Omnia Pro B7610 unboxing video for a preview of the hardware and OS.

 

The ten second review:

Device: Samsung OmniaPro B7610

Price: £366.85

Summary: A feature packed Windows phone with the bonus of a slide out keyboard.

Best of: Keyboard, GPS, Wi-Fi, 1GB Internal Memory + MicroSD up to 32GB.

Worst of: Lock button

 

Samsung Omnia Pro B7610 Specification:

• Operating System – Windows Mobile 6.5
• Processor – 800 MHz
• Memory – 1GB Internal
• Display – AMOLED resistive touchscreen, 16M colours, 800 x 480 pixels, 3.5 inches
• GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 
• 3G Network HSDPA 900 / 2100  
• 3G HSDPA 3.6 Mbps
• WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, DLNA
• Bluetooth  v2.0 with A2DP
• MicroUSB
• GPS – Integrated with A-GPS
• MicroSD up to 32GB
• DivX/XviD/MPEG4/3gp/H.263/H.264 player
• TV Out
• Stereo FM Radio with RDS
• Camera – 5 MP, 2592 x 1944 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
• Battery – Standard battery, Li-Ion 1500 mAh
• Dimensions – 112.6 x 57.8 x 16.2 mm
• Weight – 159 g with battery

 

General:

On the top of the handset are two ports which come with plastic covers. One is the headphone jack and the other is the microUSB port.

Samsung OmniaPro B7610 Top

 

The left hand side houses the up/down volume rocker and also the “work & life” button.

Samsung OmniaPro B7610 left Side

 

The dedicated camera button and the lock key are located on the right side.

Samsung OmniaPro B7610 Right Side

 

On the rear of the device is the camera lens, flash and speaker grill.

Samsung OmniaPro B7610 Rear

 

The front is fairly typical Samsung with a menu button between the call send and end keys. In addition, at the top, are the secondary camera lens and light sensors.

Samsung OmniaPro B7610 Front

 

Highlights

• QWERTY Keyboard
• GPS
• 3G/Wi-Fi
• Multimedia

 

Lowlights

• Lock button
• Finger print magnet

 

Review:

 

Straight out of the box the Samsung OmniaPro B7610 feels quite chunky and weighty but I would expect this as it has that nice slide out QWERTY keyboard. Its rounded edges give it a comfortable feel in the hand. Like most of Samsungs devices it would appear to be very well made although very plastic. The battery cover has that nice maroon colour to it, like on the Samsung Jet and Omnia II, which appears black in some lighting conditions and maroon in others. Its quite a finger print magnet though like the 3.5 inch screen.

Any one who buys this device is obviously after the slide out keyboard, otherwise you would have bought the Omnia II.

Samsung OmniaPro B7610 Keyboard

 

As I mentioned at the top of the page this device will be up against the HTC Touch Pro2 as both are slide out Windows phones. The keyboard on the Samsung is quite different to that on the HTC. For a start the Samsung has a four row, compared to five on the HTC. This means that when entering numbers you must hold down the ALT key to allow you to access the numbers on the top row. Not a major issue but its easier on the HTC with its dedicated number keys.

The keys themselves are also very different. They are actually a bit larger on the Samsung but there is no spacing between them like on the HTC.

Samsung OmniaPro B7610 vs. HTC Touch Pro2

 

The feel of the keys is also totally unique. The Samsung keys have a kind of rubbery feel to them and require only a very light press. The HTC keys are much firmer.

Which keyboard is better? That’s a hard one. If I had to pick I would probably go with the HTC Touch Pro2 purely for the fact that the spacing between the keys makes for slightly easier typing due to the fact that you can feel your way round the keyboard better. The Samsung OmniaPro B7610 keyboard is fantastic too but I think HTC have just got the edge on this one.

However the sliding mechanics feel a little better on the OmniaPro. It does not tilt like the HTC but its a much smoother slide and requires less force to perform the for mentioned slide movement. Unfortunately once open though the OmniaPros screen feels a little wobbly when you move the phone. On the Touch Pro2 it is real tight.

Samsung OmniaPro B7610 with keyboard open

 

The Samsung OmniaPro B7610 runs Windows Mobile 6.5 which has been around for a while now. Like all Windows phones you get the standard stuff such as Office Mobile, My Phone, Marketplace and Windows Live Messenger.

As on the Omnia II, Samsung have put a heavy skin over the top of most things in Windows Mobile. To start with with we have the homescreens.

The OmniaPro comes as standard with three different options. The first is new Windows homescreen that all 6.5 devices come with. Its not the most fancy but it does work.

Windows Mobile Homescreen

 

Next we have Samsungs Touchwiz that has been around for a while and it features on the Omnia II, Jet and Pixon among others. This is made up of three screens.  These can be accessed by a simple swipe left or right.

Samsungs TouchWiz

 

On the left hand side of the screen is the widgets bar. From here you can drag and drop widgets of your choice onto the homescreens giving you access to common features. These can be positioned anywhere on the screen you like.

 

The third option was a surprise and I didn’t know it existed until half way through the review. On the left hand side of the phone underneath the volume rocker is a button with “W&L” printed on it. This stands for Work and Life. From Touchwiz if you press this button a new homescreen will appear.

Work Homescreen

 

This new homescreen is the Work one and is obviously designed to give you fingertip access to any information you may need to keep in communication with people. The screen comes as standard as seen above but I was pleased to see it can be customised:

Work Screen Settings

 

I have never been a fan of Touchwiz and finding this option was a real treat as I really liked it. Its not as fancy as Touchwiz which is the “Life” option but its meant to make you as efficient as possible, as many people that use Windows phones have them as a business tool. Within the main menu you will find the “mode manager”. This will allow you to tweak the settings for the homescreens. The best bit here I think is that if you do toggle between “work & life” you can alter the sound settings which will be handy if you are not allowed your phone to be ringing in the office.

 

As I mentioned earlier in the review, Samsung have heavily customised the operating system. The first example of this is the menus on the phone. You have two options:

Menu Option One

 

Menu option one is the standard Windows one and this as always is accessed by pressing the start icon on the top left of the screen. Here you can scroll down the list and this list can go on and on depending how many apps you put on the device. Its a jumpy scroll though! You cannot scroll from top to bottom in one go but only in sections which is a bit annoying. This is a Windows thing though as its the same on many devices.

 

Option two is accessed by pressing the hardware button between the send and end keys.

Menus Option Two

 

This is the Samsung menu. It contains the same stuff as the windows menu but just in a different format. This time the menu is made up of four screens that can be scrolled left or right. I’m not sure why Samsung do this as its not any better or worse than the Windows menu in my opinion but that’s just the way it is.

 

The Samsung OmniaPro B7610 (God, that’s a long title!) comes with a great calendar and this can be accessed from the “Work” homescreen if you choose to have that option onscreen. Scheduling appointments in the calendar is simple and once entered you have several options of viewing the calendar, which you don’t get on some handsets.

 

Samsung OmniaPro B7610 Calendar

 

Another nice application on the OmniaPro is MSN Weather.

MSN Weather

 

Its fairly basic but gives you all the info you need and with three different views. Cor blimey govnor, its chilly today!

 

Messaging on the Samsung OmniaPro B7610 is a breeze. You can use active sync for one email account and this will push mail to you. In addition you can add numerous other email accounts but these will not be push email. You can set these to sync with the server every 5, 10, 15 mins etc.

For business users you have the added benefit of Office Mobile. Here you can create Word, Excel and OneNote docs and also view PowerPoint. It works a treat on the OmniaPro much like on similar devices.

 

Web browsing is as good as you would expect on this high end device. The device comes loaded with two different web browsers. The first is the latest version of Internet Explorer which I am not so keen on. The second, and better one,  is Opera Mobile. As the AMOLED screen is so good, web browsing looks fantastic. Scrolling is super smooth and it scrolls faster than some other smartphones. You have the option to view the web pages like you would on a PC or you can select "mobile view" which takes away a lot of the adverts on certain websites and presents the page to fit the phone screen allowing you to only scroll up or down. I prefer browsing this way and the Omnia rendered the pages beautifully.

When using in portrait mode the onscreen keyboard if fabulous. Its sensitive, the keys are a decent size and you get some haptic feedback to round things off.

 

Watching video on the OmniaPro had its good points and its bad. The bad bit is I could not find a YouTube player on the phone. I cant remember the last time I had a phone that did not come with one but if it was there it was hiding. Its a shame as I tend to use YouTube apps quite a bit.

On the upside watching movies was excellent. The Samsung OmniaPro B7610 comes with a media player installed and I thought this may be restricted to a few formats like WMV files but I put a full movie on the device I had converted from DVD to MP4 and it played fine. The AMOLED screen certainly helped the colours pop out from the screen. It looked sweet.

 

The one thing that frustrates me the most about Samsung phones is the lock button they put on the device. Once the device goes into standby mode its a real pain having to hold down the lock button for a couple of seconds. Then you have to unlock the screen with the new windows mobile 6.5 screen lock. Its just too much and it got right on my nerves.

 

One thing I am always pleased with on Samsung phones is the music player. Once again it was fantastic on the OmniaPro B7610. The speaker was of reasonable volume but where Samsung do a great job is with the headphones. They just sound great. They are in ear headphones and feel well built. The music quality always sounds good through these and me and Linkin Park had a good rock session. Good job Samsung.

 

The camera on the OmniaPro was also very good, just like on the Omnia II. The interface is very nice with lots of on screen options. You can have the flash on, off or on auto. Focus options include macro, face and auto. You can change the exposure so in low light conditions you can let more light into the lens. There are many shooting modes including, single, continuous, smile, mosaic, panorama and action. All work well. There are also many scene modes – portrait, landscape, sunset, dusk & dawn, night, text, sports, indoors, beach & snow, fall colour (autumn), firework and candle light. Samsung really want you to get the best results possible. Its a shame the other major manufactures cant supply as many features with there cameras! In the settings you can alter white balance, effect, ISO, contrast, saturation, sharpness, metering and quality. There is a timer and an anti shake option as well.

 

 

Conclusion:

So is the Samsung OmniaPro B7610 a decent device? Hell yeah. I found very few things I didn’t like about it. Its a good all rounder with the added bonus of the slide out keyboard. Is it as good as the HTC Touch Pro2? I would say they are pretty much equal. The keyboard on the HTC TP2 is very slightly better but apart from that its a real close call. The camera on the Samsung is better than on the HTC so that may be a deciding factor.  Keyboard aside I think deciding which to get may come down to the user interface. If you like TouchWiz and its other options then go for the Samsung. If you prefer TouchFlo 3D on the HTC then that’s the one to get.

 

Posted by: James