Sleek and classy, the T-Mobile G2 is the carrier's first high-speed HSPA+ handset, and its and the best smartphone with a keyboard you can buy on T-Mobile. The G2 is fast, powerful, and it feels expensive. If you're looking for an executive-class Web and messaging phone on T-Mobile's network, look no further.
Having said that, the G2 isn't quite what it claims to be. This handset has been billed as the "pure" Android experience, much like the original T-Mobile G1 (3.5 stars) and the Motorola Droid (4 stars). It isn't. Rather, it's a Google and T-Mobile experience—full of Google apps, but with its tethering feature removed by the carrier. This shouldn't make a huge difference to your buying decision, and a lot of those undeletable Google apps are quite fun, but this will probably have some geeks up in arms.
View Slideshow See all (7) slides
T-Mobile G2 : Front
T-Mobile G2 : Keyboard
T-Mobile G2 : Right
T-Mobile G2 : Back
More
Hardware and Phone Calling
Made by smartphone veteran HTC, the T-Mobile G2 feels like a luxury product. At 4.68 by 2.37 by .55 inches (HWD) and 6.5 ounces, it's quite heavy and is constructed of metal and silver plastic, but the metal is strategically placed so your fingers are usually on it, giving the phone its luxurious feel. There's an optical trackpad for navigation below the super-sharp 3.7-inch, 800-by-480-pixel LCD.
The screen slides with a powerful, guillotine-like snap to reveal a sweet four-row QWERTY keyboard, with a large space bar. The most intriguing thing about this keyboard is three user-customizable quick keys which can be set to launch any app. You'll have to memorize which one you set to what function, but it's a neat idea. When the phone is closed, there's a nice on-screen keyboard with Swype, which makes entering text a snap.
A truly great voice phone, reception on the G2 is strong and the earpiece sounds clear and true. It isn't blaringly loud, but it's loud enough. The speakerphone is also loud enough for outdoor use. Transmissions through both mics come through clearly, albeit with a bit of background noise. The phone paired very quickly with an Aliph Jawbone Icon Bluetooth headset and even triggered Google's quite comprehensive voice command suite with Bluetooth, which is a rare find on an Android phone. We're still working on the battery rundown tests, and will report our results as soon as they're available.
The G2 works on T-Mobile's and international 3G networks, as well as 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi. The G2 is also T-Mobile's first HSPA+ phone, capable of HSPA+ 14.4 speeds. Using even faster HSPA+ 21 modems, I've achieved speeds of up to 6.72 megabits down in New York City. With the G2, I got a pretty consistent 2.0 megabits down. That's faster than most 3G systems, but not on a par with the speeds I've seen from Sprint's 4G phones or from T-Mobile's HSPA+ modems.
The phone runs on an 800MHz Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM7230, ARM Cortex-A8 processor with Android 2.2. In my tests, the G2 felt quite speedy, and my benchmarks bore that out. Android 2.2 is so much faster than previous versions of the operating system, that it more than compensated for the difference in horsepower between the G2 and 1GHz phones running Android 2.1. I'm curious to see how the Samsung Vibrant ($199, 4 stars) compares once it gets its Android 2.2 upgrade later this year, though.
Software
Time for the tough truth: forget ever seeing "stock" Android again. The T-Mobile G2 runs Android 2.2, but it isn't the pure base build that techies are always looking for—it's been "enhanced" with a ton of bloatware and one big, missing feature.
But let's start with the good parts. The G2's Android 2.2 feels fast and sleek. Apps switch quickly and Web pages load promptly, unless they contain Flash, at which point they load with a considerable delay (but they do eventually show the Flash content). In my tests, Google Maps looked great and the GPS locked in quickly, whether using cell towers or satellites. Android 2.2 has all the checklist features most people are looking for. The relatively standard UI means the G2 will probably get updates more quickly than more-heavily-customized phones like the Samsung Vibrant.
This is the first handset with Google Voice preloaded, and the setup experience is smooth. After playingwith the settings a bit, you can use Google Voice to make all of your calls and handle your voicemail.
To give the best possible Google experience, Google preloaded all of its apps—not just the typical Maps and Gmail, but Places, Shopper, Earth, Sky Map, Latitude, Tracks, Finance, Listen, Translate, and Google Talk. And guess what? You can't delete any of them—not even Tracks. That's bloatware, right? I'd call that bloatware. Google's apps are often useful, but some of Google's partners do a better job than Google does with some aspects of Android. I prefer Samsung's address book and media players. Google currently integrates Facebook but not Twitter, the music player has some problems with artist and album tags, and the video player is labeled "Gallery," which is just wrong.
T-Mobile, meanwhile, has removed Android 2.2's ability to tether or act as a wireless hotspot—though the carrier has said it may restore it in an update.
Multimedia
The G2 is a good media phone—it's just not as good as the Samsung Vibrant. The device has about 1.3GB of free internal memory, plus an 8GB memory card stuck under the battery. You can replace it with a card as large as 32GB if you'd like.
The phone comes with doubleTwist (free, 4 stars) preloaded to sync music and videos with PCs and Macs. The stock Android music and video players do the job, but they're a little confusing. The music player could handle all of my AAC, MP3, WMA, and even OGG tracks, but lost some album and artist names. The video player could play videos up to 640 by 480 in MPEG4 and H.264, but it crashed when trying to play HD, DIVX or XVID videos. Music and video both sounded fine through wired and Altec Lansing BackBeat Bluetooth headphones.
The G2's YouTube client had some trouble loading HQ videos, even over Wi-Fi. Standard quality videos played smoothly, but they looked very low-res.
The 5-megapixel camera is a good representation of a phone of the G2's class. Photos were sharp enough, though I saw a bit of softness when I zoomed all the way in. Shutter lag, at 0.9 seconds, was a bit longer than I'd like, but not unbearable. I didn't see low-shutter-speed blur in low-light photos, which is great. The video camera records wobbly 720p HD video at 24 frames per second (15fps in low-light conditions) and smoother standard-resolution 720-by-480 video at the same frame rate.
Conclusions
Here's an easy proclamation: The G2 is the best smartphone with a keyboard on T-Mobile. If you like the tap-tap-tap of physical keys, the G2's speedy Android style, excellent messaging software and top-notch Web browser make it a pleasure to use. The phone is much faster and classier than its main keyboarded competitor, the myTouch 3G Slide ($179.99, 3.5 stars). There are also specific features on the G2, like voice dialing over Bluetooth, that aren't available on its main competitor, the Samsung Vibrant.
While the Vibrant and the T-Mobile G2 are both Editors' Choice winners (one for smartphone with a physical keyboard, the other without), I still prefer the Samsung Vibrant. The Vibrant has an even faster processor, better multimedia skills, stronger social-networking integration, and it's noticeably lighter. Both are top-of-the-line smartphones#151;your choice should be based on your form- factor preference—but either will serve you well.
Kamis, 21 Oktober 2010
Nokia N8 (Unlocked)
The Nokia N8 is an amazing mobile device, that's nearly unusable thanks to its interface. The phone is a perfect display of Nokia's strengths and weaknesses: stellar hardware, combined with an OS that appears to have been designed ten years ago.
First, let's get one thing straight: I write reviews that help U.S. consumers choose cell phones. Outside the U.S., the N8 has a very different profile—it will be available for much less money, and people in those countries are more familiar with Symbian's awkward gyrations. Sorry, guys, I'm not writing for you. This review is for the U.S. consumer, who has excellent Apple, Android, Palm, and now even Microsoft options available for less than $200 with a contract at a local carrier store. Meanwhile, the Nokia N8, with its bizarre interface is only sold unlocked, for $549, on the Web.
View Slideshow See all (8) slides
Nokia N8 : Front
Nokia N8 : Horizontal
Nokia N8 : Back
Nokia N8 : Left
More
The N8 is somewhat irrelevant to the U.S. market. It probably won't be picked up by a carrier, and not many handsets will likely be sold here. So I'll be a little more creative than usual here. I didn't go through our full suite of lab testing with the N8—instead, I lived with the phone for a week and a half, putting it through its regular-use paces—after that week and a half, I put my SIM card in a Samsung Galaxy S phone and breathed a profound sigh of relief.
Specifications
Service Provider
AT&T, T-Mobile
Operating System
Symbian OS
Screen Size
3.5 inches
Screen Details
640-by-360, 16.7M-color capacitive touch screen
Camera
Yes
Network
GSM, UMTS
Bands
850, 900, 1800, 1900, 2100, 1700
High-Speed Data
GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA
Processor Speed
624 MHz
More
The Good News: Great Camera, Great-Sounding Phone
The Nokia N8 is one of the best voice phones, and probably the best camera phone, I've ever used. It's a rare "everyband" phone, and works at 3G speeds on both AT&T and T-Mobile. Just pop in your SIM card, and it auto-configures itself for the right network. Signal reception is spectacular, and calls sound absolutely crystal clear. Apple's stable of Keystone Kops RF engineers should be taking this phone apart right now to learn its secrets.
The N8's 12-megapixel camera is fantastic for a camera phone. Images are heartbreaking in their clarity and ideal in their color balance. Even the Xenon flash is bright enough. The shutter isn't instantaneous, but it shows less lag than most camera phones. The N8 records HD video and outputs its entire interface to TV screens via an HDMI cable—no annoying DRM here to prevent you from watching your videos on a big screen. There's a front-facing camera, but I found it much less useful. My wife described a video recorded with the front-facing camera on the N8 as "three dancing pixels."
The processor feels snappy—the N8 played XVID-encoded episodes of "Burn Notice" beautifully on its 3.5-inch, 640-by-360-pixel screen. Video playback is definitely a speciality here, with wide codec and format support that even includes MKV files.
This awe-inspiring voice and image performance is wrapped up in a sleek body, a metal torpedo that comes in green, blue, orange, gray, or dark gray. The screen is made of practically scratch-proof Gorilla Glass. There are flaws, though: the battery is non-removable, so it's a good thing the N8 has terrific battery life (unless you're trying to push Microsoft Exchange e-mail, which cuts life to half a day.) The camera lens forms an unfortunate squarish bump on the back that could catch on pockets, and the memory card and SIM card slot doors are a bit sticky. Overall, though, the phone looks and feels elegant.
Before you go ahead and get the N8 to taunt your iPhone-owning friends with clear, non-dropping phone calls, though, read on.
Stop Symbian Before It Loads Again!
Symbian, on touch screens, is a total disaster. I used to love Symbian, and I still do, on non-touchscreen phones. Symbian's interface isn't designed for touch-screen use.
Everything about the N8's software is bad. I can't find a good thing to say. When I reviewed the Sony Ericsson Vivaz (1.5 stars), I called it the worst smartphone in America, and I blamed Sony Ericsson for the terrible software. Actually, it's Symbian's fault.
We've been tiptoeing around this problem for more than a year. Look at our reviews of the Nokia N97 Mini (3 stars) and the Nokia X6 (3 stars), for instance. Symbian phones are now designed solely for people who previously owned Symbian phones, because the interface just doesn't make sense to anyone else.
For instance: Text entry. The N8's landscape-format virtual keyboard defaults to turning off predictive text and autocorrect (they can only be turned on via buried menu options), and the phone doesn't even have a portrait QWERTY keyboard. In portrait mode, you're triple-tapping on a T9 number pad like it's 1998. That landscape keyboard, by the way, takes up the whole screen, obscuring what you're typing into.
To go to a new Web page in a touch-screen mobile browser, you typically swipe to the top and enter something in the address bar. Not here! It takes four clicks through unintuitive, nested menus to open a new page.
Also, the N8's music player took a long time to scan my memory card for songs in my tests. That made the software feel stale, even though it looks good, sounds good, and displays album art well.
Ovi Maps Navigation gives N8 owners free turn-by-turn driving and walking directions, along with attractively detailed maps and lots of ancillary content from big-name partners like Lonely Planet. So far, so good. But I couldn't figure out how to set the start point to anywhere other than my current location. I later found out that you have to tap on a location and then click "add to route" —it's doable, just not intuitive, like so much in Symbian.
Wow, does Symbian love folders. Nesting folders on a non-touchscreen phone makes a lot of sense, because it takes a lot of clicks to get through a long menu. But when you can scroll a long distance with just a flick of your finger, hiding options multiple taps deep is just frustrating.
Everything seems to involve more clicks than necessary. Take adding an app shortcut to the home screen. I couldn't figure this out initially, because if you click on the home screen and add "Shortcuts," you get a preprogrammed shortcut bar with no obvious way to change its contents. Instead you have to click the bar you've added again, pick "Settings," choose one of the four shortcut slots from a separate text list, pick "Application," and then choose what you want. It gets the job done—in the most awkward, unintuitive way possible.
The hideous software even damages the N8's two positive experiences. Where most of the rest of the smartphone world is working hard on multiple address book integration, the N8 syncs one, and only one, at a time. I could get my Microsoft Exchange contacts, but not my Facebook, Google, Twitter, or Yahoo address books. You can append Facebook and Twitter information to individual contacts, but you have to enter them one at a time, using an interface with several steps per contact. That's just a no-go.
The camera app, meanwhile, has trouble turning off. I sometimes had to stab an unresponsive touch button several times to quit the camera.
Nokia has sped up considerably and smoothed-out login problems in its Ovi app store, but there's still very little in there that anyone would want to download. I typed in two dozen popular American Web brands and content providers and came up with only a few apps. Want to enjoy media? There's no Netflix, no Pandora, no Slacker Radio. Nokia offers three proprietary Web TV channels, which are outdone by any carrier's MobiTV lineup. (And no, MobiTV is not available.)
Nokia's own TV commercial for the N8 shows how unaware the company seems to be. The commercial calls out as top features "three home screens" (competitors all have more), Ovi Store (without U.S. content), and Symbian^3, which is meaningless to Americans.
I could go on like this for a while, but you get the point. The touch-screen smartphone world has a consensus on the way some things should work. If you're going to buck that trend, you need a radically usable new idea. Symbian^3 brings a 2004-era, non-touchscreen interface awkwardly translated onto a high-end touchscreen phone. It's infuriating.
If the rating on a review was just about features, the Nokia N8 would get much higher than a 2.5. But I wanted to throw this phone through a window, it was so frustrating to use. Nokia says about the N8, "it's not technology, it's what you do with it." The company needs to take their own words to heart. If you don't make your $549, super-smartphone usable, nobody will want to do anything with it at all.
First, let's get one thing straight: I write reviews that help U.S. consumers choose cell phones. Outside the U.S., the N8 has a very different profile—it will be available for much less money, and people in those countries are more familiar with Symbian's awkward gyrations. Sorry, guys, I'm not writing for you. This review is for the U.S. consumer, who has excellent Apple, Android, Palm, and now even Microsoft options available for less than $200 with a contract at a local carrier store. Meanwhile, the Nokia N8, with its bizarre interface is only sold unlocked, for $549, on the Web.
View Slideshow See all (8) slides
Nokia N8 : Front
Nokia N8 : Horizontal
Nokia N8 : Back
Nokia N8 : Left
More
The N8 is somewhat irrelevant to the U.S. market. It probably won't be picked up by a carrier, and not many handsets will likely be sold here. So I'll be a little more creative than usual here. I didn't go through our full suite of lab testing with the N8—instead, I lived with the phone for a week and a half, putting it through its regular-use paces—after that week and a half, I put my SIM card in a Samsung Galaxy S phone and breathed a profound sigh of relief.
Specifications
Service Provider
AT&T, T-Mobile
Operating System
Symbian OS
Screen Size
3.5 inches
Screen Details
640-by-360, 16.7M-color capacitive touch screen
Camera
Yes
Network
GSM, UMTS
Bands
850, 900, 1800, 1900, 2100, 1700
High-Speed Data
GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA
Processor Speed
624 MHz
More
The Good News: Great Camera, Great-Sounding Phone
The Nokia N8 is one of the best voice phones, and probably the best camera phone, I've ever used. It's a rare "everyband" phone, and works at 3G speeds on both AT&T and T-Mobile. Just pop in your SIM card, and it auto-configures itself for the right network. Signal reception is spectacular, and calls sound absolutely crystal clear. Apple's stable of Keystone Kops RF engineers should be taking this phone apart right now to learn its secrets.
The N8's 12-megapixel camera is fantastic for a camera phone. Images are heartbreaking in their clarity and ideal in their color balance. Even the Xenon flash is bright enough. The shutter isn't instantaneous, but it shows less lag than most camera phones. The N8 records HD video and outputs its entire interface to TV screens via an HDMI cable—no annoying DRM here to prevent you from watching your videos on a big screen. There's a front-facing camera, but I found it much less useful. My wife described a video recorded with the front-facing camera on the N8 as "three dancing pixels."
The processor feels snappy—the N8 played XVID-encoded episodes of "Burn Notice" beautifully on its 3.5-inch, 640-by-360-pixel screen. Video playback is definitely a speciality here, with wide codec and format support that even includes MKV files.
This awe-inspiring voice and image performance is wrapped up in a sleek body, a metal torpedo that comes in green, blue, orange, gray, or dark gray. The screen is made of practically scratch-proof Gorilla Glass. There are flaws, though: the battery is non-removable, so it's a good thing the N8 has terrific battery life (unless you're trying to push Microsoft Exchange e-mail, which cuts life to half a day.) The camera lens forms an unfortunate squarish bump on the back that could catch on pockets, and the memory card and SIM card slot doors are a bit sticky. Overall, though, the phone looks and feels elegant.
Before you go ahead and get the N8 to taunt your iPhone-owning friends with clear, non-dropping phone calls, though, read on.
Stop Symbian Before It Loads Again!
Symbian, on touch screens, is a total disaster. I used to love Symbian, and I still do, on non-touchscreen phones. Symbian's interface isn't designed for touch-screen use.
Everything about the N8's software is bad. I can't find a good thing to say. When I reviewed the Sony Ericsson Vivaz (1.5 stars), I called it the worst smartphone in America, and I blamed Sony Ericsson for the terrible software. Actually, it's Symbian's fault.
We've been tiptoeing around this problem for more than a year. Look at our reviews of the Nokia N97 Mini (3 stars) and the Nokia X6 (3 stars), for instance. Symbian phones are now designed solely for people who previously owned Symbian phones, because the interface just doesn't make sense to anyone else.
For instance: Text entry. The N8's landscape-format virtual keyboard defaults to turning off predictive text and autocorrect (they can only be turned on via buried menu options), and the phone doesn't even have a portrait QWERTY keyboard. In portrait mode, you're triple-tapping on a T9 number pad like it's 1998. That landscape keyboard, by the way, takes up the whole screen, obscuring what you're typing into.
To go to a new Web page in a touch-screen mobile browser, you typically swipe to the top and enter something in the address bar. Not here! It takes four clicks through unintuitive, nested menus to open a new page.
Also, the N8's music player took a long time to scan my memory card for songs in my tests. That made the software feel stale, even though it looks good, sounds good, and displays album art well.
Ovi Maps Navigation gives N8 owners free turn-by-turn driving and walking directions, along with attractively detailed maps and lots of ancillary content from big-name partners like Lonely Planet. So far, so good. But I couldn't figure out how to set the start point to anywhere other than my current location. I later found out that you have to tap on a location and then click "add to route" —it's doable, just not intuitive, like so much in Symbian.
Wow, does Symbian love folders. Nesting folders on a non-touchscreen phone makes a lot of sense, because it takes a lot of clicks to get through a long menu. But when you can scroll a long distance with just a flick of your finger, hiding options multiple taps deep is just frustrating.
Everything seems to involve more clicks than necessary. Take adding an app shortcut to the home screen. I couldn't figure this out initially, because if you click on the home screen and add "Shortcuts," you get a preprogrammed shortcut bar with no obvious way to change its contents. Instead you have to click the bar you've added again, pick "Settings," choose one of the four shortcut slots from a separate text list, pick "Application," and then choose what you want. It gets the job done—in the most awkward, unintuitive way possible.
The hideous software even damages the N8's two positive experiences. Where most of the rest of the smartphone world is working hard on multiple address book integration, the N8 syncs one, and only one, at a time. I could get my Microsoft Exchange contacts, but not my Facebook, Google, Twitter, or Yahoo address books. You can append Facebook and Twitter information to individual contacts, but you have to enter them one at a time, using an interface with several steps per contact. That's just a no-go.
The camera app, meanwhile, has trouble turning off. I sometimes had to stab an unresponsive touch button several times to quit the camera.
Nokia has sped up considerably and smoothed-out login problems in its Ovi app store, but there's still very little in there that anyone would want to download. I typed in two dozen popular American Web brands and content providers and came up with only a few apps. Want to enjoy media? There's no Netflix, no Pandora, no Slacker Radio. Nokia offers three proprietary Web TV channels, which are outdone by any carrier's MobiTV lineup. (And no, MobiTV is not available.)
Nokia's own TV commercial for the N8 shows how unaware the company seems to be. The commercial calls out as top features "three home screens" (competitors all have more), Ovi Store (without U.S. content), and Symbian^3, which is meaningless to Americans.
I could go on like this for a while, but you get the point. The touch-screen smartphone world has a consensus on the way some things should work. If you're going to buck that trend, you need a radically usable new idea. Symbian^3 brings a 2004-era, non-touchscreen interface awkwardly translated onto a high-end touchscreen phone. It's infuriating.
If the rating on a review was just about features, the Nokia N8 would get much higher than a 2.5. But I wanted to throw this phone through a window, it was so frustrating to use. Nokia says about the N8, "it's not technology, it's what you do with it." The company needs to take their own words to heart. If you don't make your $549, super-smartphone usable, nobody will want to do anything with it at all.
Rabu, 06 Oktober 2010
T-Mobile G2 is the carrier's first high-speed HSPA+ handset
Sleek and classy, the T-Mobile G2 is the carrier's first high-speed HSPA+ handset, and its and the best smartphone with a keyboard you can buy on T-Mobile. The G2 is fast, powerful, and it feels expensive. If you're looking for an executive-class Web and messaging phone on T-Mobile's network, look no further.Having said that, the G2 isn't quite what it claims to be. This handset has been billed as the "pure" Android experience, much like the original T-Mobile G1 (3.5 stars) and the Motorola Droid (4 stars). It isn't. Rather, it's a Google and T-Mobile experience—full of Google apps, but with its tethering feature removed by the carrier. This shouldn't make a huge difference to your buying decision, and a lot of those undeletable Google apps are quite fun, but this will probably have some geeks up in arms.
Hardware and Phone Calling
Made by smartphone veteran HTC, the T-Mobile G2 feels like a luxury product. At 4.68 by 2.37 by .55 inches (HWD) and 6.5 ounces, it's quite heavy and is constructed of metal and silver plastic, but the metal is strategically placed so your fingers are usually on it, giving the phone its luxurious feel. There's an optical trackpad for navigation below the super-sharp 3.7-inch, 800-by-480-pixel LCD.
The screen slides with a powerful, guillotine-like snap to reveal a sweet four-row QWERTY keyboard, with a large space bar. The most intriguing thing about this keyboard is three user-customizable quick keys which can be set to launch any app. You'll have to memorize which one you set to what function, but it's a neat idea. When the phone is closed, there's a nice on-screen keyboard with Swype, which makes entering text a snap.
A truly great voice phone, reception on the G2 is strong and the earpiece sounds clear and true. It isn't blaringly loud, but it's loud enough. The speakerphone is also loud enough for outdoor use. Transmissions through both mics come through clearly, albeit with a bit of background noise. The phone paired very quickly with an Aliph Jawbone Icon Bluetooth headset and even triggered Google's quite comprehensive voice command suite with Bluetooth, which is a rare find on an Android phone. We're still working on the battery rundown tests, and will report our results as soon as they're available.
The G2 works on T-Mobile's and international 3G networks, as well as 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi. The G2 is also T-Mobile's first HSPA+ phone, capable of HSPA+ 14.4 speeds. Using even faster HSPA+ 21 modems, I've achieved speeds of up to 6.72 megabits down in New York City. With the G2, I got a pretty consistent 2.0 megabits down. That's faster than most 3G systems, but not on a par with the speeds I've seen from Sprint's 4G phones or from T-Mobile's HSPA+ modems.
The phone runs on an 800MHz Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM7230, ARM Cortex-A8 processor with Android 2.2. In my tests, the G2 felt quite speedy, and my benchmarks bore that out. Android 2.2 is so much faster than previous versions of the operating system, that it more than compensated for the difference in horsepower between the G2 and 1GHz phones running Android 2.1. I'm curious to see how the Samsung Vibrant ($199, 4 stars) compares once it gets its Android 2.2 upgrade later this year, though.
Software
Time for the tough truth: forget ever seeing "stock" Android again. The T-Mobile G2 runs Android 2.2, but it isn't the pure base build that techies are always looking for—it's been "enhanced" with a ton of bloatware and one big, missing feature.
But let's start with the good parts. The G2's Android 2.2 feels fast and sleek. Apps switch quickly and Web pages load promptly, unless they contain Flash, at which point they load with a considerable delay (but they do eventually show the Flash content). In my tests, Google Maps looked great and the GPS locked in quickly, whether using cell towers or satellites. Android 2.2 has all the checklist features most people are looking for. The relatively standard UI means the G2 will probably get updates more quickly than more-heavily-customized phones like the Samsung Vibrant.
This is the first handset with Google Voice preloaded, and the setup experience is smooth. After playingwith the settings a bit, you can use Google Voice to make all of your calls and handle your voicemail.
To give the best possible Google experience, Google preloaded all of its apps—not just the typical Maps and Gmail, but Places, Shopper, Earth, Sky Map, Latitude, Tracks, Finance, Listen, Translate, and Google Talk. And guess what? You can't delete any of them—not even Tracks. That's bloatware, right? I'd call that bloatware. Google's apps are often useful, but some of Google's partners do a better job than Google does with some aspects of Android. I prefer Samsung's address book and media players. Google currently integrates Facebook but not Twitter, the music player has some problems with artist and album tags, and the video player is labeled "Gallery," which is just wrong.
T-Mobile, meanwhile, has removed Android 2.2's ability to tether or act as a wireless hotspot—though the carrier has said it may restore it in an update.
Multimedia
The G2 is a good media phone—it's just not as good as the Samsung Vibrant. The device has about 1.3GB of free internal memory, plus an 8GB memory card stuck under the battery. You can replace it with a card as large as 32GB if you'd like.
The phone comes with doubleTwist (free, 4 stars) preloaded to sync music and videos with PCs and Macs. The stock Android music and video players do the job, but they're a little confusing. The music player could handle all of my AAC, MP3, WMA, and even OGG tracks, but lost some album and artist names. The video player could play videos up to 640 by 480 in MPEG4 and H.264, but it crashed when trying to play HD, DIVX or XVID videos. Music and video both sounded fine through wired and Altec Lansing BackBeat Bluetooth headphones.
The G2's YouTube client had some trouble loading HQ videos, even over Wi-Fi. Standard quality videos played smoothly, but they looked very low-res.
The 5-megapixel camera is a good representation of a phone of the G2's class. Photos were sharp enough, though I saw a bit of softness when I zoomed all the way in. Shutter lag, at 0.9 seconds, was a bit longer than I'd like, but not unbearable. I didn't see low-shutter-speed blur in low-light photos, which is great. The video camera records wobbly 720p HD video at 24 frames per second (15fps in low-light conditions) and smoother standard-resolution 720-by-480 video at the same frame rate.
Conclusions
Here's an easy proclamation: The G2 is the best smartphone with a keyboard on T-Mobile. If you like the tap-tap-tap of physical keys, the G2's speedy Android style, excellent messaging software and top-notch Web browser make it a pleasure to use. The phone is much faster and classier than its main keyboarded competitor, the myTouch 3G Slide ($179.99, 3.5 stars). There are also specific features on the G2, like voice dialing over Bluetooth, that aren't available on its main competitor, the Samsung Vibrant.
While the Vibrant and the T-Mobile G2 are both Editors' Choice winners (one for smartphone with a physical keyboard, the other without), I still prefer the Samsung Vibrant. The Vibrant has an even faster processor, better multimedia skills, stronger social-networking integration, and it's noticeably lighter. Both are top-of-the-line smartphones#151;your choice should be based on your form- factor preference—but either will serve you well.
The Plantronics Savor is a sort-of-successor to last year's Discovery 975
Design, Fit, and Call Quality
The Plantronics Savor is about the same size as the BlueAnt Q2 ($129, 4 stars) and the Sound ID 510 ($129.99, 4 stars), but it's a little longer and pointier. It's made of darkened chrome plastic and black rubber. The bottom edge contains a hardware power switch, while the top edge has a volume toggle; the front panel contains two buttons.
Fitting the Savor was easy, although I've noticed that Plantronics headsets just tend to fit my ears better than those from other brands. That's purely a personal trait; the Savor comes with two extra ear buds in different sizes in case the default one doesn't fit. The clear plastic ear hook snaps on and off; wearing it is optional, though I preferred the fit with the hook rather than without. The Savor's hook also stayed put, unlike the Aliph Jawbone Icon's ($99, 4 stars), which tends to fly off at the slightest provocation.
For this review, I paired the Savor with a Samsung Captivate and an LG Ally. The pairing process went smoothly in both cases. Like the BlueAnt Q2, the Savor offers voice control, which you cue up with a button press. This lets you check battery life, pairing status, and other features on the fly while wearing the headset. You can also answer or ignore calls with voice commands.
In testing, voice quality was good overall in the earpiece. The volume button cycles between four settings; any of the top three were plenty loud enough. Callers on the other end said I sounded pretty clear, but it was still relatively easy to tell I was on a headset.
Noise Suppression, Other Features, and Conclusions
Most headsets feature two mics; one captures your voice, while the other analyzes external noise and then suppresses or cancels it with its own algorithms. The Savor contains three mics; the first two work as usual, but the third mic doesn't kick in until there's at least 65 dB of extreme external noise. Oddly, noise suppression still wasn't one of the Savor's strengths in practice. For example, it was easy for callers to tell I was in the car driving with the window down because of the excessive background noise, even though I was only driving at about 35 mph.
The rather expensive, Dial2Do-powered Vocalyst service is available in two tiers. The Savor comes with one free year of Vocalyst Basic, which costs $2.49 per month or $24.99 per year after that; it offers voice e-mail, reminders, Twitter updates, and news and weather. Vocalyst Pro costs $5.99 per month or $59.99 per year; this level converts your voice messages to text , sends text messages, plus some other less-useful services. You don't get a year of Pro free to begin with. I don't expect many people to spring for these; to cite just two reasons, Google Voice handles voice-to-text conversions for free, and Android devices (plus Bing and other apps) already offer voice-activated searches.
The Savor works with companion BlackBerry and Android apps, which let you set up auto-responders and listen to text messages (if you have Vocalyst Pro). If you have an iPhone, the Savor adds a headset battery indicator next to the iPhone's battery icon, just like the Jawbone Icon. The Savor also features A2DP, so you can stream podcasts, audiobooks, voice prompts from GPS apps, and other mono sources through it. Battery life was a little short at 4 hours and 17 minutes of talk time.
Longtime PCMag readers know that there are dozens of options for Bluetooth headsets these days. The Savor cuts through with its unique combination of style, voice-activated features, and A2DP streaming. But the latter feature is becoming more common on high-end handsets, and the Savor's noise suppression could be better. Other options include the Aliph Jawbone Icon, our current Editors' Choice. It sounds more natural, has vastly better noise suppression, and runs its own selection of apps, although it doesn't last as long on a charge. The BlueAnt Q2 offers a similar voice-controlled interface as the Savor, while the Sound ID 510 delivers top-notch sound quality without the voice control.
Rabu, 01 September 2010
Pantech Jest (Verizon Wireless)
Design, Voice Quality, and User Interface
The Jest measures 3.7 by 2.5 by 0.6 inches (HWD) and weighs 4.1 ounces. It's made entirely of high-impact plastic, with a fingerprint-attracting glossy finish on the front, and a textured, matte back panel. Like other recent Pantech devices, the Jest feels well made, like it could survive a few good knocks over the course of its life. The vibrant 2.6-inch screen sports a sharp 320-by-320-pixel resolution, which led to crisp fonts and smooth lines.
The slider mechanism felt smooth and solid. The four-row QWERTY keyboard was cramped. At least the bottom edge of the front panel didn't get the way of hitting the top row of keys, like on many other vertical sliders, thanks to a small plastic ridge between the keyboard and the open panel. They keys are silent and have a nice grip, with just the right amount of resistance. Typing was reasonably comfortable as a result, though I'd prefer a roomier design.
Specifications
Service Provider
Verizon Wireless
Screen Size
2.6 inches
Screen Details
320-by-320-pixel, 262K-color, TFT LCD
Camera
Yes
Network
CDMA
Bands
850, 1900
High-Speed Data
1xRTT
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The Jest is a dual-band 1xRTT (800/1900 MHz) device with no Wi-Fi. Verizon phones usually sound good on voice calls, but the Jest was a rare exception. I heard a loud but harsh sounding tone in the earpiece. Transmissions were clear, though, and external noise rejection was good. Reception was average. Calls sounded fine through an Aliph Jawbone Icon ($99, ) Bluetooth headset, and voice dialing worked over Bluetooth without training. The speakerphone was a little tinny sounding, but went just loud enough for outdoor use. Battery life was excellent for a compact Verizon phone at 6 hours and 46 minutes of talk time.
The home screen contains animated wallpaper and a hiding taskbar you can pop up with a shortcut button on the right side. The menu system consists of numerous, brightly colored option lists. These were easy to read, but the four-way circular touch pad was a misfire. It made navigation a royal pain, regardless of the sensitivity level I selected. Targeting the right option often took several tries. You know there's a problem when Verizon includes a separate pamphlet with the Jest that explains how the touch pad works.
Apps, Multimedia, and Conclusions
The bundled software compliment was pretty decent. Opera Mini served up sharp Web pages, although the 1X radio meant desktop HTML pages were out. VZ Navigator is on board for voice-enabled, turn-by-turn directions at $9.99 per month, and the Jest also supports Verizon Family Locator. Verizon's IM client works with AIM, Yahoo, and MSN, but dings each message against your texting plan. Verizon also includes a pair of mobile e-mail clients, both of which cost extra per month. The Social Beat app was actually quite nice; it aggregates Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter updates, and even includes an RSS feed reader, Gmail, and Google Talk tie-ins, though it took a long time to load and set up.
The non-standard 2.5mm headphone jack makes finding decent-sounding earbuds virtually impossible. There's a generous 975MB of free internal memory, 910MB of which goes to music, and the top-mounted microSD card slot accepted my 16GB SanDisk card. But the phone spit out strange error messages and couldn't find my media. It turns out the Jest expects music tracks to be in root\synched\music, because that's obvious. It didn't matter anyway, because the phone refused to play tracks through Motorola S9-HD ($129.99, ) Bluetooth headphones, despite several seemingly successful pairing attempts. On the plus side, you can buy music over the air with V CAST Music for Rhapsody.
The 2-megapixel camera lacks a flash and auto-focus. Test photos looked passable outdoors, but downright distorted and blurry indoors, thanks to slow shutter speeds. The only usable shots I got inside were right by a window with plenty of sunlight. Standalone video playback was out, as the phone couldn't even play videos I recorded directly with the useless 176-by-144-pixel camcorder.
Verizon has plenty of decent phones, so there's no need to goof off with the Jest. Two good choices: the LG Cosmos ($29.99-189.99, ) is a horizontal slider instead of vertical and lacks a music player altogether, but it offers similarly high quality construction, better voice quality, and a simpler UI. The LG Accolade VX5600 ($9.99-99.99, ) loses the QWERTY keyboard, but it's an excellent voice phone with long battery life. Both the Accolade and the Cosmos are also free with a two-year contract.
Benchmark Test Results
Continuous Talk Time: 6 hours 46 minutes
Compare the Pantech Jest with several other mobile phones side by side.
BlueAnt Q2
Design, Fit, and Voice Quality
The Q2 looks like a proper executive-style headset. It is made entirely of matte black plastic, but the textured front panel and raised edges give it a classy look. Plenty of useful hardware controls abound, including a power switch, a multi-function button, and a pair of volume buttons where each one is a different size—perfect for controlling the volume without having to guess. BlueAnt bundles five rubber ear tips and a removable ear hook in the box, though the default ear tip fit me perfectly. The back panel holds the earpiece and rubber tip, a slot for the pivoting ear hook, and a small rubber pad near the front that rests against your cheek while wearing the unit. You don't need to press it against your cheek, the way the last three generations of Aliph Jawbone required for best sound quality.
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BlueAnt Q2 : Angle
BlueAnt Q2 : Side
BlueAnt Q2 : Angle with No Earhook
BlueAnt Q2 : Front
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The first time you power up the BlueAnt Q2, it automatically enters pairing mode. The Q2 walks you through the pairing process with voice prompts; later on, you can reinitiate pairing with a voice command. For this review, I paired the Q2 with an iPhone 3GS and a Samsung Captivate ($199.99-499.99, ). Each time, the Q2 transferred the appropriate address book to the device (more on that later).
In a series of voice tests, the BlueAnt Q2 sounded clear and punchy in the earpiece, with plenty of gain. It's still hit or miss whether callers can tell if you're talking on a headset. That's true even when you're using a class-leading device like the Q2 or the Aliph Jawbone Icon ($99, ), our current Editors' Choice. But in back-to-back tests, one caller had trouble distinguishing the sound of my voice between the Q2, the Jawbone Icon, and an iPhone 3GS ($99, )—a very good sign indeed.
BlueAnt claims that its Wind Armor technology withstands wind noise up to 22 miles per hour. I'm still not impressed; the Q2 simply wasn't as effective as the Jawbone Icon in blocking out a high-speed fan in my office, in a series of voice mail tests at varying differences. With the fan blowing in the background, my own voice also sounded a little more compressed and computery through the Q2 than it did through the Jawbone Icon.
Other Features, Mobile Apps, and Conclusions
To activate the Q2's voice recognition, you simply press the multi-function button once quickly. The Q2 will say, "Say a command." (I much prefer pressing the button than having to say, "BlueAnt speak to me," as the S4 requires). At that point, you can say, "What can I say?" for a list of commands, or speak whichever command you want. I successfully checked the Q2's battery level, activated the iPhone 3GS's internal voice dialing, and tried a host of other tasks all through the Q2.
Range was on the high side of average; I could walk about 15 feet away from the handset before the Q2's audio began to distort noticeably. You can also pair the Q2 with two devices simultaneously. A full charge takes about four hours, and the headset will tell you in the earpiece when the battery is very low. Battery life was average at 4 hours and 41 minutes of talk time.
The Q2 announces incoming caller names for up to 2,000 address book entries. Like BlueAnt's S4 ($99, ) hands-free speakerphone, the Q2 includes Microsoft Bing 411, which offers access to news, weather, sports, and other information. This is fun but somewhat sluggish in practice. Another S4 innovation carries over: A downloadable Vlingo-powered Android application lets Android 2.0 or greater handsets play text messages through the Q2. Sadly, just as I had trouble getting the S4 to work with an LG Ally ($99.99-396.99, ), I couldn't get the Q2 to speak text messages through the Samsung Captivate and the Vlingo app.
So the Q2 is excellent, though there's plenty of competition in the Bluetooth headset market. The Aliph Jawbone Icon offers the best noise cancellation on the market and clear, natural sound quality to other callers. It's also a genuine app platform itself, one that works reliably in testing. But the Icon sounds a little tinny in the earpiece, it has short battery life, and its odd physical design and fit is still uncomfortable for some, even though the Jawbone is on its fourth revision. The Plantronics Voyager Pro ($99.99, ) is larger and heavier, and doesn't sound quite as good as the Q2 or Jawbone Icon. But it offers over eight hours of talk time on a charge and is still the most comfortable headset we've ever tested. Both the Voyager Pro and the Jawbone Icon list for $99, which is $30 less than the Q2.
Benchmark Test Results
Continuous Talk Time: 4 hours 41 minutes
Minggu, 08 Agustus 2010
BlueAnt S4
- Pros
Good sound quality. Effective voice recognition. Reads SMS and e-mail messages aloud (with companion smartphone apps). Easy to use.
- Cons
Text-to-speech only works with Android and BlackBerry phones. A few bugs.
- Bottom Line
The BlueAnt S4 is an excellent-sounding, voice-enabled, hands-free speakerphone that's a must buy for anyone sick of wearing a Bluetooth headset in the car.
Everyone with a car needs a hands-free device these days—for convenience, for safety, and (in some states) for complying with the law. The voice-controlled BlueAnt S4 is the company's best speakerphone we've tested so far. With a compatible Android or BlackBerry phone, the S4 will read aloud caller names, and (in some cases) SMS and e-mail messages. It's a great buy for anyone who wants to drive and talk more comfortably, and who doesn't already have a car with built-in Bluetooth.
Design, Setup, and Voice Commands
The S4 is about the size of a touch screen smartphone. It measures 4.9 by 2.4 by 0.6 inches (HWD). It's made entirely of plastic, though the contrasting textures, tapered edges, and charcoal grey accents look stylish. The package comes with two metal visor clips of differing sizes, plus a car charger, a very short USB cable, and a user manual. For this review, I tested the BlueAnt S4 with an Android 2.1-powered LG Ally ($99.99-396.99, 
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The front edge features three touch controls: two for the volume and a multi-function button in the center. A green LED lets you know the unit is listening for voice commands, while a flashing blue LED signifies the current status. The S4's bottom panel features two industrial-strength magnets, which grab onto the metal visor clip with a loud "thunk." The resulting marriage would probably survive an earthquake.
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The idea behind the S4 is to use it in the car without ever having to touch your cell phone. You activate the S4 by saying "BlueAnt Speak to Me." At that point, the S4 wakes up and waits for your voice command. From there, you can make calls by saying "Phone Commands," at which point the system transfers to whatever Bluetooth-enabled voice dialing system your phone has. (In the case of the LG Ally, that means none.)
The S4 transfers and stores up to 2,000 contacts from a paired cell phone. This lets the device read out the names of incoming callers, if they're one of the stored contacts. The first time you pair the S4 with a phone, the S4 will attempt to transfer its address book. At any point after that, you can say Update Contacts to synchronize the two devices. You can handle incoming calls by saying "Answer" or "Ignore." Saying the phrase "What Can I Say" cues up a tutorial, just like with BlueAnt's earlier Q1 ($129.95, 
Voice Quality and Text-to-Speech
The S4 sounds excellent. In a series of tests, voices were loud, full, and clear. Callers had no problem understanding me; in fact, one thought I was talking directly into the handset, even though I was driving at about 40 miles per hour. Another caller could tell I sounded a bit further away than usual, though. In a back-to-back test with my own car's built-in Bluetooth, which uses the car stereo, callers actually thought I sounded better with the S4. Voices sounded a little clearer and fuller through the car stereo speakers than through the S4—as well they should, since they're much larger and have a separate amp.
Saying "BlueAnt Speak To Me" all the time became annoying, though. Chalk up a serious victory for BlueAnt's marketing department, which gets S4 owners to say the company name repeatedly, and sometimes in front of other passengers. That said, the device always understood me, and responded to all of my commands quickly.
Things get more interesting if you have an Android or Blackberry smartphone. BlueAnt markets two free apps called BlueAnt S4 (Android) and Vlingo SafeReader (BlackBerry), both of which read incoming SMS messages out loud; the BlackBerry app also reads incoming e-mail. The Android app requires a phone running Android 2.0 or newer. Sadly, the text-to-speech function didn't work with our LG Ally, even though it is running Android 2.1; rebooting and reinstalling the app didn't help, either. BlueAnt representatives told us that it's because our LG Ally isn't running a standard version of Android, but that's not a great answer, since few Android devices run a completely stock version of the OS.
Bing-411, Other Features, and Conclusions
The S4 supports A2DP streaming. That's not novel in and of itself, since plenty of devices let you stream music and podcasts. But the S4 will also hook into cell phone GPS apps via AD2P streaming in order to amplify the voice prompts, which is a nice touch. The S4 also hooks into Microsoft's BING-411 service, for delivering voice-enabled stock quotes, movie times, weather information, sports scores, news, and traffic updates. This was a little clumsy in practice; often I found myself saying "News" once to the S4, only to have to say it again to Bing-411 once it connected. It also took a pretty long time, including numerous voice commands, to navigate to what information I wanted.
Other details: the S4 charges in about four hours, and it lasts for up to 20 hours of talk time on a single charge. With about a month of standby time, you can leave it powered up in the car; each time you get in the driver's seat, the unit pairs automatically with your phone. Should a firmware update ever become necessary, you can do so online. The Android app checks automatically for S4 firmware updates, but it can't install them; you'll need a PC or Mac for that.
There are other, less expensive hands-free speakerphones on the market. Many newer model cars offer hands-free Bluetooth that works with the in-car stereo. But the S4's voice-recognition and text-to-speech capabilities put it in a class of one, at least on the standalone hands-free speaker side. As long as you don't mind that passengers hear your conversation with you, the S4 is more comfortable and more enjoyable to use than having to wear a Bluetooth headset. If I didn't already have Bluetooth in my car, I'd buy one for myself.
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