Smartphone Review

BY: Ed Hardy, Brighthand.com Editor

The HTC Snap is a newly-announced QWERTY smartphone that will be released later this year. The unveiling was at the CTIA trade show, and I was there to get a video preview of this upcoming Windows phone.

I also had a brief time to test out the Snap. From what I can tell, if you like the T-Mobile Dash, you’re going to love this new model. It’s thinner, and has some nice new features. Read More »

BY: Jen Edwards, Brighthand.com Contributor

The Pantech Matrix Pro, recently released by AT&T, is a unique dual slider phone with both a QWERTY keyboard and a full number keypad.

It has a 2.0 megapixel camera, Bluetooth 2.0, a microSD card slot, and 128 MB of RAM. It comes with a nice protective pouch that also doubles as a polishing cloth, a very small AC adapter, and a headphone adapter dongle.

In some ways it’s the best of both worlds, but there are a quite a few tradeoffs which make it hard for me to recommend this device wholeheartedly.
Design and Build
The Pantech Matrix Pro is a dual slider phone, so it’s somewhat “fat” but still pocketable and comfortable to hold in the hand. It is very solidly built, and when I manipulate the sliders I find that they work smoothly and strongly “snap” into the appropriate position whether they are being opened or closed.

The phone has a two-tone color scheme, with the display and the QWERTY slider done in a metallic pewter-gray plastic with a very shiny mirror finish. I think it’s very sharp looking and attractive, so I was slightly disappointed when I turned the phone over and found that the back was a muted blue that clashes just a bit with the front of the phone. It isn’t ugly by any means, but I would like to have seen better coordination as far as color and finish are concerned.

The buttons on the front are rather small and fairly hard for me to hit consistently. The five-way navigator is large enough to work well, but that comes at the cost of making the other six buttons too small. My biggest problem is with the two soft menu keys, as I tend to hit either the Home (left) or back/recent programs (right) button instead since they stick up a bit. I don’t seem to have as much of a problem with the call and disconnect keys, but this is still an annoying issue for me. I’ve had the phone for almost three weeks now, and I still have to look down at it to make sure I’m pressing the correct key.

My other issue is the missing headphone jack; you have to plug the included dongle adapter into the sync/charge port. Not only do I hate dongles (they’re so easy to lose!), but that also means that there’s no way to plug the phone in and listen to music while it’s charging. It’s not a deal breaker by any means, but it is disappointing when you consider that this phone is definitely on the larger side of the current form factor spectrum. There should be room for a headset jack. Read More »

BY: Ed Hardy, Brighthand.com Editor

The T-Mobile Shadow II is a Windows Mobile smartphone with a tablet shape featuring a portrait-oriented, sliding keypad. Naturally, it has a great deal in common with the original Shadow, but adds support for T-Mobile’s VoIP service, HotSpot @ Home.

I’ve been using this phone for a couple of days now, which isn’t long enough for a complete review, but I can share my first impressions.
Build and Design
Overall, I like the design of the Shadow II. It’s light and pocketable, but packs in plenty of features.

The slider is there to let you hide the keyboard when you’re not using it, but it also offers one of my favorite feature of this device: the sliding screen also can do double duty as the On/Off switch. Naturally, you’re going to want your phone’s screen to be off and the keys locked when it’s in your pocket. When you pull the Shadow out and slide up the screen, it immediately wakes up and is ready to go. When you’re done with it, sliding the screen back down turns the screen off and locks the keys. You can do the same thing with button presses, but it’s not as easy.

Display: This device runs Windows Mobile Standard, which means its display doesn’t function as a touchscreen. That’s not a flaw, but it’s something you should be aware of.

I’d describe the 2.6-inch QVGA screen as typical for a smartphone. There’s nothing outstanding about it — either good or bad — but it gets the job done. Still, its much better than the displays you find on most non-smartphones.

Keyboard: The Shadow’s 20-key keypad is a compromise between a full QWERTY keyboard and a numberpad. Each key does double or triple duty, so the whole device can be smaller. Typing on a keyboard like this takes some getting used to, but after a while it gets to be a breeze. I vastly prefer it to entering text on a numberpad with T9. Read More »

BY: Shaun Mahal, Brighthand.com Contributor

The Samsung Propel offers a sliding keyboard, camera, and 3G antenna in a compact form factor.

This AT&T-powered phone is web enabled with a full keyboard to make messaging easier, but there are some notable deficiencies in the Propel. The screen has an average resolution, and is small compared to the available space available.

Weighing the pros and the cons of the phone, it’s hard to say that the Propel significantly outshines its competition in the $50 price range in which it resides.

Design and Build
The Propel is more comfortable in your pocket than a deck of cards when the keyboard is hidden. The keyboard slides out easily, though not easy enough to do so accidentally.

Keyboard: The Propel’s keyboard features a dedicated letter per key, with most keys also serving as a function key. There are also shortcut keys for AT&T’s Cellular Video, the camera, and a toggle mode for vibration.

Users probably won’t feel comfortable typing at great lengths on this keyboard, but it is a big improvement over the traditional numeric keypad. The biggest problem with the keyboard is the lack of space between the top of the top row and the bottom of the sliding portion of the phone. A touch more space would make it more comfortable for the user to type using both hands at once.

Display: The display is larger than an average phone, but it could still be a little larger to really stand out. Though its resolution is average, some features look better than others. For example, AT&T’s Cellular Video provides full episodes of your favorite shows (read: Lost) that are actually good enough to watch. Read More »