Sony Ericsson Aino is a musical mobile phone with great screen. It is, really an interesting model and is indeed worth attention.

Design

The Novelty from the Swedish-Japanese joint venture is very voluminous. It hardly fits in the palm, and it is clear that someone may not like it. Well, someone has a small hand. However, if you’re a lumberjack, a master of shovels and sledgehammers, or just a big man, then this is your size. However, everyone has his/her own taste. Want a great phone? Here’s a great phone.
What I personally do not like is the fact that it is not very comfortable to hold, the phone seems somewhat unpretentious, despite the verified design.
By the way, when we first met it we all thought that the device is fully touchscreen, and has no keyboard, seeing the large diagonal display. Half a minute later we could find the keyboard, moving the top half of the shell.

The quality of the materials used does not cause problems – everything is done solidly, reliably, on the reverse side of the cover is relegated stylishly executed corrugated metal insert. I really liked the decision.
Of course, inserts on the ends could also be made of metal, but it would make the device even more slippery, and, of course, will increase its value.
Oh, how nice it was to see in such a multimedia device standard 3.5-mm audio input, but alas … Sony Ericsson took up the old one and put on the left side the firm universal connector. On the right side there is the camera button and control wheel of sound, in the bottom we see the slot for the dynamics of polyphony. In short, everything is as usual.
In general, the device produces a pleasantly strong impression with a high quality and successful combination of materials and, of course, great display.

Display and keypad

It is equipped with a 3-inch display, with non-standard resolution of 240 x 432, high brightness (adjustable by hand), greater viewing angles.
Screen is convenient, comfortable to understand information. It allows you to read e-books, to watch photos and video. I will tell you honestly, Aino is suited for this purpose perfectly. You can watch images on your PC.
Interestingly, when the keypad is locked (the phone is closed) the screen turns into a horizontally oriented one. Simply put the closed device, go with a finger across the screen, thus removing the lock, you’ll see five icons multimedia features and … can chose what you want to run. Finger input is easy, because all the icons are large (even as beautifully drawn) and mistakes simply do not happen. The sensitivity of the screen is what should be. Just great!

Camera
In Aino is installed an 8-megapixel camera with flash. Resolution is impressive; there are users that pay attention to it. As we already know, the camera works only when the phone is closed. Interface is touch, you can take a snapshot by traditionally pressing the shutter button, or simply clicking on the screen by selecting the focus point. After 1.5 seconds the camera “catches” the focus and makes that shot. By the way a very amusing feature. As I already mentioned, it’s very convenient to control – the icons are large and well-painted.

Focusing speed is high, misses almost do not happen. You can assess the quality of images from a merely remark that the matrix starts to make noise even when adequate artificial lighting.

Entertainment

Yes, Aino does not belong to a series of Walkman, but the MP3-player will be enjoyed by all without exception, I am sure for one hundred percent. Music application is tastefully decorated. It’s nice that some of the settings slightly redraw that somehow distinguishes the shell of what we have seen in old models. Also, we note that the scroll bar to display the names of songs is located on top. If you flip phone, then it will turn taking a horizontal position and an image. There is no sacred meaning in this act, if you do not pay attention to animation styles. These are decorating tricks to please the user’s eyes. Most of all I liked the tape, which swirls while playing videos.
When the track comes to an end, it ends on one side of the tape. If anyone remembers, the way it happens in the recorder, it may cause nostalgia. There are more animations with CD, records, flying balloons, etc. This looks more than amusing.

Outcome

Sony Ericsson Aino will interest fans of products of the Swedish-Japanese joint venture. Moreover, everyone wants to hold it in his/her hands and play with touch screen. Price is 20 thousand rubles. For me Aino is a decent device, which has many pluses, at least a rich and complete set of gorgeous screen.

The central control buttons are traditionally located under the display and are made from a metal pleasant to the touch. The buttons are balanced with a little aggressive design and are responsible not only for the reception or the abolition of call, but even for charging and job-specific functions of the new operating system – call (or cancel) the Quick Launch toolbar utilities and applications.

It has all in all five buttons – first, the smallest, breaks the symmetry and extends slightly between the two buttons in the right side of the device.

This block of the cursor is surrounded by a thin chrome ring. In the center there is a confirmation button “Ok”. If this button is made convex, then the ring itself controls for greater convenience concave inward. Indeed, the buttons at the Samsung I7500 can be clicked blindly, random errors are eliminated. In addition, each time you feel very clear and confident, which is usually characteristic only with expensive machines.

Filling and Communications

The novelty is built on a Qualcomm MSM 7200A CPU platform at a frequency of 528 MHz. Nowadays this is one of the most powerful processors, which is convenient to work with absolutely any application. RAM on board is only 128 MB, but the device has a built-in flash 8 GB drive, in which you can install programs, store cards to work with navigation, etc.

Unfortunately, we can only subjectively evaluate the performance of Samsung I7500 – at the speed of those or other programs, because test packages for Android are extremely difficult to find. But dealing with Windows Mobile – communicators on Qualcomm MSM 7200A platform – we can say that such a powerful device will be quite suitable for small mobile activities, as well as for games and multimedia tasks – such as watching movies with high quality.

Developers paid particular attention to the fact that the Android OS is designed for those users who spend a significant part of their time in the network. Here they can (according to the developers) communicate, store personal data, work and relax.

Samsung I7500 supports module GSM / GPRS / EDGE (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) as well as new networks of third-generation UMTS / HSDPA / HSUPA (900/1700/2100 MHz. The presence of Bluetooth 2.0 and Wi-Fi is very important, because in the big cities there is Wi-Fi in many locations.

Display

The novelty is equipped with 3.2-inch display with HVGA resolution (320 x 480 pixels), established in AMOLED-technology. This is a very bright display with live (literally) images and natural color. Granularity is not visible on the display, and viewing angles can be described as the highest. Unfortunately the display fades in the sun so that reading at least some information is not possible. In general we can say that this is one of the most suitable displays for viewing mobile video and photo.

Camera

Samsung I7500 is equipped with a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash. Photos from this camera are obtained with a resolution of 2592 x 1944 pixels.

But despite the large number of megapixels and a solid value of the smartphone, the quality of the images does not withstand serious criticism. Even when shooting in bright sunny weather in the photos it is easy to see a number of significant shortcomings, which should include low for such high-resolution detail and a strong distortion of colors.

Battery power and software

Samsung I7500 boasts with a fairly capacious battery (1500 mA ∙ h). With an average daily load (20 minutes of calls a day, work with address book and the Internet) without recharging the device works almost three days. Therefore, in order not to remain without communication in the morning on the third day of operation, it is better to charge the device in the evening.

Conclusions

If we talk about hardware of Samsung I7500, then we can say that this is a classic business-genre: high-quality and expensive shell, productive filling, the full range of communications, a convenient multitouch-control. There is practically nothing to fault – the device is placed on a high level. If it disappoints someone, it is only the most ardent opponents of the fashionable gloss and glitter, which after five minutes of work without gloves can easily turn the apparatus into the “criminal’s dream”.

Design
The phone designed for a business man must meet certain standards of mobile dress code, without pretentiousness and brightness. The device should not attract attention. All these requirements and wishes fully correspond to a new Fly B600 business mobile phone.
The dimensions of this phone are 110×49x14 mm. Weight is also proportional: only 110 grams. The device easily fits in pockets of trousers or a jacket.
The front panel is made of a high-quality plastic. The back part of Fly B600 is made of a soft (it seems rubberized) plastic. Camera protrudes from the shell and has no cover. Thus, you will have to put the phone either on screen or on the lens of the camera – decide which one you need less.
I think that serious buyers can find any drawback in this phone.

Display
Asian manufacturers have accustomed us to the fact that their phones have displays above average. And if you’re skeptical you expect good performance from the screen of B600 but I have to disappoint you. Executed on TFT-technology, the display shows up to 260 thousand colors and has resolution of 240×320 pixels (2.4 inches). As a result, the screen takes up the most space; keypad and the speaker are simply lost in the background.
The first thing that your eye catches is that the display is very, even too bright. But the real shock comes after a short jogging on the settings. Colors are juicy and bright, the image is perceived well, did not catch on for anything. Such a display is perfect for working with text and calendar.
The only thing that upset me are its viewing angles. They are sufficient for comfortable work; however, the image is badly tarnished vertical even when rejecting a couple of degrees.

Keyboard
Dark and light gray buttons harmoniously complement each other.
The screen took so much space that the bottom row of keys, could hardly find a place, and moved gracefully as the fourth column in the right lane. Of course, such a decision is unusual for most users, but it is not so critical that the next day at the level of reflexes fingers themselves find the right path.
Buttons should be sufficient for comfortable work, have an average course and allow you to quickly and carelessly work with any text.
Additional controls are buttons to access the camera on the right end (horizontal shooting mode) and the usual rocker for volume control, on the left side. In addition, one should mention the three connectors (they are all closed strong enough plugs) – expansion slot for memory cards microSD, mini-USB (it also serves to connect the charger) and 2.5-mm headphone input (TV-out).

Menu
The menu of Chinese phone is almost always quiet horror. No eastern colors, all is very succinctly.
The main menu shows 12 icons; with the upper line the system information is available in both the substantive and in any sub-menu. Chapters are arranged quite comfortably and that is important – it is logical. There was only one question. It is unclear why the album is under “Entertainment”, but Video album in “Multimedia”. Agree that it can be called only a minor drawback.
Separately I want to note the high level of localization is another issue of Asian phones. All menu items are transferred without errors, absurd reductions as a result of which it is impossible to understand. Well, the font is very nice; the eyes do not get tired.

Functions
Although we have determined that this phone is suitable for business people. Thus the phone should support applications which business man needs. First, it is an organizer. Menu of Fly B600 consists of a calendar, tasks, alarm and world time. Calendar is comfortable enough, you can assign notes (point of the problem “duplicate this feature, and made, apparently for faster access) to the date and time, while adjusting items such as: light, repetition, timing, number of repetitions. The only drawback of the calendar is the weekly view.
The user provides three independent alarms, each of them can choose the time (including on the day).
Business phone should have a convenient phone book. Again, and this parameter B600 demonstrates enviable results.
Your phone can store up to 1000 contacts together with name and number there are 5 additional fields of information where you can indicate birth date and picture, video clip, tune and add to the user group.
The phone book displays contacts, both from the internal memory, and located on the SIM-card.

As we see, business indicators of the phone are up to date. But there are also additional functions. For example, an MP3 player with good mid-level (headset included, but the 2.5 mm input lets you connect via an adapter and more serious headphones).
There is FM-radio, a simple photo editor, composer, Java (games and programs in Java is not preinstalled), calculator, converter units and currencies.
But what is most interesting is that this phone has some exceptional abilities. First recall the aforementioned TV-out (cable included). Easily connecting your phone to your TV provides great opportunities for both presentations and to view photos in the family.
By connecting the telephone to a computer via miniUSB cable (included, but not with a standard connector), you’ll see a menu of three items: use your phone as a modem, a flash-drive or as Web-camera.

Fans of honor on the road will appreciate the availability of reading “electronic books”. Settings are enough for comfortable reading. Of course, you can find a replacement in the ranks of Java-applications, but the existence of such a function is inherent, whatever one may say, plus.
Finally comes the function that you’ve encountered only in smartphones running Symbian and then as an alternative software. This is the background sound, overlay tube during a call. You can adjust the volume, duration and interval. You can choose from 10 preset or 10 of your (possible record with voice recorder) ringtones.
When you activate this feature you can lay on the couch, honestly say that standing there in traffic and the phone will simulate car horns, noise, uproar, and all that you want. Of course, it’s not fair, but – rather funny.
You can connect your phone with the rest of the world through the miniUSB cable, Bluetooth 1.2 (support SPP, DUN, OPP, FTP, A2DP profiles, and remote control) and GPRS (WAP 2.0, built-in POP / SMTP-client).

Camera
A 3.2 megapixel camera with flash and autofocus is already a matter of respect, though photos are not of the best quality.
As we have already mentioned, you shoot in a horizontal position.
The camera cannot turn into a camcorder. The latter is a separate program and is available from the “Multimedia” menu. Rollers can record the entire free memory at resolutions 176×144 and 352×288. Codecs are MPEG4 and H.263. Video has good quality, it is quite enough for viewing on the phone and share with friends. As for the camera, it works very slowly. When shooting with a maximum resolution (2048×1536 pixels) by pressing the capture button to direct the photograph, is about a second or two, during which you are sure to slightly move the phone, and this guarantees blurry picture.
It is noteworthy that when shooting from 1600×1200 and less, you can not notice such things. There is a problem with low productivity of the processor.
You can save your photos or video in 87 MB internal memory and microSD memory card (not included) up to 2GB.

Conclusion
Even though the phone has two stereo speakers, it is virtually inaudible in the city noise.
The situation could partly rescue the vibration, but it is very weakly expressed, as in the pocket of pants, it is hardly felt.
It is very uncomfortable to type SMS-message. For example, standard things such as capital letter after full stop.
You can find a few more minor soft-roughness and irregularities. But let us remember the low price of the novelty above opportunities. Thanks to TV-out all the deficiencies can be forgiven at once.
Despite the huge display, Li-Ion battery (940 mAh) copes with its task. Telephone works up to 4 days at 20 minutes of talking time and use of various functions. But even with such a very decent performance, the manufacturer added the supplied spare battery, just on the safe side.
As a result, Fly B600 is very pleasant and worth much money. If you want a modern, reliable, functional assistant in the cheap price range, Fly B600 definitely can rightly be considered one of the best mobile phones.

Construction
In fact, RoverPC S6 has a twin brother – the communicator Lenovo ET600, released only for the Chinese market. But unlike it, the device from Russian brand has its own complete set.
As Lenovo is one of the largest manufacturers of computer electronics in the world, there is no need to worry about the quality of this novelty. Indeed, if you hold RoverPC S6, you can feel that you do not hold a plastic toy, with which the market is filled but a solid weighty (128 grams) device. The build quality of this communicator can be assessed a firm “excellent”! Even the more expensive devices may envy this novelty.

RoverPC S6 seems to be quite voluminous (110×59x15, 8 mm), but due to the rounded shell the device is simply perfect in the hand. In this case the index finger and thumb clearly fall into two blocs of control buttons.
The buttons are decorated in accordance with the style of the communicator – it seems that designers have worked on this device.

Now let’s talk about the design … RoverPC S6 is made of high quality and very pleasant to touch plastic, and the front panel is covered with metal. The main color is purple metallic unobtrusive light shade. The sides of the case are decorated with a wide silver border, where control buttons are placed. There is a camera activation button, and “reception / retreat” rocker. Of course, the location is a bit puzzling, but as it turned out during the operation, there is nothing uncomfortable about it.
Another cluster of four buttons and a multifunction joystick is located below the display. All buttons of RoverPC S6 have the best short course and excellent tactile feedback – tactile feedback is very clear. The same applies to the joystick.
It has a microSD slot for memory expansion, and the proprietary interface to connect the device to a computer located at the lower end which is closed with plastic plugs. Here (in the lower right corner) is located and the metal telescopic stylus.
Unfortunately, we could not find a separate audio output on the shell. It turned out that the headset is connected directly to the interface connector without an adapter. This means that in case of losing or damaging the headsets you have to make friends with a soldering iron, or … find a new one. In addition, the headset from the package can not compete with headphones Koss or AKG.

Display
LCD touch screen with 240×320 pixels, 2.8″ diagonal, which is one-tenth more than most competitors have. However, this is not the most important feature. The display supports for 262 thousand colors and has an excellent color reproduction.
The contrast and brightness allows you not only enjoy viewing photos, but even working with ordinary office programs. The brightness of the display is regulated in a very wide range, so it is comfortable to work with the communicator in a dark room, and in bright sunlight. Certainly in the latter case, the screen fades, but this is typical for any LCD panel.
RoverPC S6 is built on a processor from the Texas Instruments company, as some other smartphones and communicators from Rover Computers. OMAP 750 processor has a frequency of 200 MHz and does not pull serious calculations. But in order to work in the office programs this is quite enough.

There is 64 MB RAM and 128 MB ROM – a standard size of memory for communicators. Well, to expand the memory the user can take Micro SD.
Performance of the device was tested using Spb Benchmark.
Spb Benchmark index 268
CPU index 975
File system index 98
Graphics index 2359
As expected, the results are not very high. However, the novelty is quite suitable for listening to music, and for reading electronic books, as well as for watching movies. It is unlikely that someone would do mathematical calculations with this device, somewhere in the underground.
But for the purposes of office, this device fits very well. By the way, as we already mentioned, RoverPC S6 runs the operating system Windows Mobile 6.0, which comes with an expanded package of Office Mobile, which includes not only Word and Excel, but also a package for working with PowerPoint presentations in the Mobile-version.

Communication abilities
The device operates in GSM: 900/1800/1900, supports GPRS, and also has a traditional set of wireless communication interfaces: Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Contact for all these interfaces is carried out without any problems, but some details still saddened. Thus, the novelty does not support GPRS called EDGE. In addition, Bluetooth is fairly new to the old version 1.2, and therefore works relatively slowly.

Camera
Camera is located on the reverse side of the battery compartment. The camera does not have a curtain – the manufacturer has decided to limit with the usual protective glass, behind which are hidden the lens and built-in LED flash. In terms of ergonomics the camera is ideally located.
The device is equipped with 2 megapixel cameras with autofocus. Of course, this won’t surprise anyone, but do not forget that RoverPC S6 does not claim to be named a fancy (expensive) device.
A software application that is responsible for the camera with one hand catches the eye with its stylish design, but on the other hand – disappoints with its slow work.
It takes only photos in JPEG format with a resolution of 320×240 up to 1600×1200 pixels. In addition, there are settings such as brightness, contrast, white balance.
You can even choose one of the preset user programs of shooting – portrait, daytime, night, landscape, standard. You can set the timer (2/5/10 c) and take pictures yourself in.
Video recording is available in formats 3GP, 3G2 and MP4 with resolution 160×120 or 176×144 pixels. The settings for video are the same as for the photo.
The quality of the images can be assessed as a solid four. There are some noises, but only when the lighting is really not enough. The camera focuses on a fairly long time, but accurately.
Video quality is worse, and the colors are not very natural.

Sound
On either side of the built-in camera there are two stereo speakers that produce rich and loud sound. The quality of their sound pleasantly surprises. Of course, you are not going to listen to music in the crowd, but you can stand out with your stylish and beautiful as well as loud ringtone.
The sound quality is quite standard.

But the built-in microphone has surprisingly high quality – the noises are little. In addition, the system has a special program, which also helps to reduce annoying background noise while recording.

Battery power
RoverPC S6 is equipped with Li-Ion battery with a 1100 mAh capacity. And here is the full opening of improvement in the low productivity of the communicator. The manufacturer claims that in talking mode the novelty will work up to 6 hours and in standby mode up to 200 hours. But we have found out that these indicators more or less correspond to reality or even a little understated.

Conclusion
This novelty from Rover Computers is a device for practical people. The build quality and long battery life with the convenience of control is adjusted for an adequate price. Yes, this device is for practical people… but only for those who are not behind the fashion world of electronics and appreciate the design of the communicator.

Sony Ericsson has a new flagship model K850i. This is a heir of serious phones like K810i and K790i, and like no other device it deserves the “brutal monoblock” definition.
If you look at a brand new device Syber-Shot from Sony Ericsson K850i, you’ll understand that this is a real flagship, a kind of severe male phone for touch fans.

Keyboard
I don’t want to play “find 10 differences from K810i”, although some similarities can be traced in the appearance of both typesetting keyboards. Unlike its predecessor, the buttons are not circular and made of metal. Buttons are square.
But the principle of location of these buttons has remained the same. There is a distance between the “squares”, so no mistakes occur while dialing numbers. The proceedings of the buttons are small, fixation is not very clear, however, no inconvenience arises.

Display and menu
K850i does not have a touch display. TFT-screen with a resolution of 240×320, caresses view of quality and natural color reproduction, ultra-fine grain (if you notice of course), high contrast. Out onto the actual settings, there is only brightness.
In the sun, just under the rays, the screen behaves properly, ie the image quality is good; the picture fades slightly, so you can work almost at any lighting. Yes, probably, under the rays of the North African sun, you have to cover up the display with a hand, but it’s not a problem.
K850i menu will be familiar to the owners of Sony Ericsson, because the principle remains the same. Bold icons, clear “image”, known from previous models.

Multimedia
Though this is a Cybershot and not a Walkman phone, K850i is one of Sony Ericsson’s flagship phones, and the K850i’s music-oriented feature set is identical to most Sony Ericsson Walkman phones. Auto-rotate of the display works in the Media suite of applications, and it’s generally fairly responsive. Video playback performance is better when auto-rotate is turned off. The display is one of the best we’ve seen on a mobile phone: extremely bright, sharp and saturated.

Media uses Sony PSP interface which is both intuitive and cool looking. The app handles photos, video and music. The FM radio with RDS has a good reception. The FM radio app can save favorite channels and play the radio in the background. K850i has Sony Ericsson’s free TrackID service that identifies songs playing on the radio or in the environment, and this feature works quite well (it requires a data connection since the track info is downloaded over the Internet using the phone’s browser).
The phone supports a wide variety of audio formats including MP3, Podcasts, Audiobooks, MP4, AAC, RealAudio (.ra, .rm), WMA, XMF, M4A, WAV and midi. Video formats include MPEG4 (MP4 with AAC or AMR audio), 3GPP, WMV (.asf, .wmv) and RealVideo 8 (.rv, .rm). The K850i supports OMA DRM 1.0 and 2.0 for copy protected music, video and Java applications.

Camera
Obviously, the 5 megapixel camera with an autofocus lens and Xenon flash is the centerpiece of the Cybershot K850i. And it didn’t disappoint us, in fact for the first release firmware, the camera was stable, and overall did an excellent job of imaging. The SE isn’t as fast as a dedicated digital camera, but it’s quite usable and you just might manage to catch a fleeting moment.
K850i can shoot photos at a maximum 2592 x 1944 resolution in 5MP mode and has a variety of lesser resolutions from 3MP down to VGA. The camera can shoot video at QVGA resolution (320 x 240) at 30 fps. The phone has a hardware slider button that you’ll use to select photo, video or playback mode. There’s a tiny camera application launcher button that turns the camera on and off as well as controlling the lens cover. When the camera app is running the entire screen becomes a viewfinder and it runs in landscape orientation.
Photo quality is excellent, with more usable data than K790i and K800i’s 3MP images and better exposure (no white haze or washed out effect which we sometimes noticed with K800i). Colors are accurate, if not sometimes understated and we couldn’t find a hint of color cast in outdoor shots. Indoor shots became overly warm as the camera didn’t compensate well enough for incandescent lighting in auto exposure mode with the flash on (turning off the flash fixed the problem). Indoor evening shots in poor light were pleasing with good blacks, but surprisingly the N95 managed a more exposed shot.

The K850i’s Xenon flash illuminates close subjects very well, but doesn’t add much ambient lighting, which means your subject will be decently exposed but awash in a sea of near blackness. For all but dark club shots and outdoor night shots, we recommend experimenting with turning the flash off – we consistently got brighter and more balanced shots while it was off. The camera uses a LED (actually 3 tiny LEDs) to illuminate the scene for focus and fires the power-hungry Xenon flash only when snapping the photo.
Should K790i owners upgrade it, based on the higher resolution camera? That depends on what you do with your photos: 3MP is really good enough for viewing on the average monitor (if you’ve got a 30″ LCD display, that’s a different story), and you won’t be able to view a 3MP image at 100%, let alone a 5MP image. But if you want to print photos, the extra pixels and sharper images are worth it. From what we can tell, the lens quality hasn’t improved.

The camera has a wealth of manual settings for ISO, white balance, flash control, auto/infinity focus, metering mode and 7 scene modes. Sony Ericsson’s BestPic feature shoots several shots with varied settings so you can choose the best one, and Photo fix lets you tweak photos you’ve taken before transferring them to a PC. The camera has 16x digital zoom, but alas no optical zoom (that’s still a rarity on camera phones). Video quality is very good with no jerkiness or blockiness. Colors are strong and accurate, even in low light, and the sound is clear.

Working with K850i
When you connect your phone via cable to the USB-port on your computer, mobile phone becomes visible as a normal flash drive, for ie it is available as a card, and built-in memory about 40 MB.
Data transfer rate floats from 75 to 60 kB / s, for example, the absence of the cable makes it easy to transfer a few tracks in MP3-format into the phone.
The battery power is enough for about two days: you can listen to music, make few shots a day and for an hour and a half use the Bluetooth-headset and talk 15-20 minutes a day. If you find yourself a more active user, then the battery life will decrease accordingly.

Conclusion
We get a very feature-rich (and not in vain) phone that can compete with brand new smart phones from top manufacturers.
Significant functional and somewhat dramatic appearance make K850i unless a bestseller, and surely one of the most cherished and sought after market mobile phones.

An amazing case when a market leader in mobile communications devices does not have enough traditional batteries, the company starts to use already forgotten format of energy carriers. Here is Xenium X520, which is able to squeeze all the juice not only from a rechargeable battery and but from all the surrounding ones.

Appearance

Philips Xenium X520 attracts everyone with its mysterious form of a shell, bringing nostalgia of cassette players and pagers (beepers), and also of banal remote control for home appliances. It is really amazing. However, apart from the fussy block below, the size of the phone is quite typical – 111,1 x 48,8 x 16,3 mm.

Yes, it has exactly 16 mm of thickness, and do not believe the advertising image, there you can see that the lower part is much thicker as flat side of the butt-end make the device look much thicker. However, the thickening at the rear part of the shell can be considered a necessity, because it will be inconvenient to hold a 95-g device in your hand.

On the front side of the device you can notice a silver navigation key with a relief texture, as well as a flat button of confirmation “Ok”. In general, the whole block of keys on the phone was made as separate plane areas of opaque plastic, separated by a glossy front panel. The keys have a short tight stroke with a clear click, invariably accompanied by a click. In addition white lights under the small letters are also worth mentioning.

Just above the keyboard a thick plastic cover is placed, which is designed to protect the 2-inch TFT-screen with a resolution of 176 x 220 pixels from mechanical damages. The applied matrix does not have excellent quality colors – 260 000 colors. However, there is no need to expect more from the Philips phones and do not expect particularly outstanding results. Of course, you can read phone number and text message without any difficulty, but studying pictures and photographs in sunny weather will be much more difficult.

There is a conversational dynamics opening above the display, which is located directly in the center. Polyphonic speaker is hidden on the back side, next to the small enclosed module of 2-MP camera without autofocus.

There are separate silver volume keys with tight audible click at the ends. There is also a slot for micro SDHC memory card, located on the right end. In the same place, close to the lower compartment, you will notice one more interesting detail, the attachment for the strap, unusually solid and reliable.

Battery

The block is a cylindrical projection, the diameter of which is the 16.5 mm. Polarity battery switch is located on the left end of the block, but from the opposite end, everything is made much funnier.

While rolling the holder, you can see the battery compartment, under the storage component of the standard AAA, spread not less than the traditional finger batteries. In addition, the kit has an Energizer battery.

The main battery is located under the back lid, which you can remove with a hand movement. Under there is a Li-Ion battery with a capacity of 1050 mAh «hidden», providing five days of work in the everyday operation of phone calls and half an hour of listening to music. The batteries charge the device for up to two three-days of work.

Interface & Communications

When you first listen to the greeting sound of X520 you see that it is not worth waiting for anything complex in the phone, and after a couple of seconds, we already see the concise standby mode. Here everything is done without a hint of originality, but this simplicity in fact seems to be convenient. The menu may be represented by a boring list, or matrix of 12 simple icons.

Submenu and all other places of the interface are presented in the form of lists with nice animation cursor, and at the same time you can quickly move to the line through the numerical keys. It is a pity that the ease of navigation is not supported by the personalization, which allows one to change wallpaper in the standby mode or to choose a lighter theme, instead of a dark one. There are also seven profiles in this device. You can adjust each of the five profiles to your taste; you can choose offline and silent alert.

Calling service consists of a simple-to-use phone book that can store up to 1000 entries consisting of a name and a number. This Spartan filling of each cell is an offset with a «black» list of ignored numbers, user-friendly control scheme records, as well as simple editing functions of subscriber numbers in a call row. Accordingly, the call lists serve only for the most basic information, without any counters and tariff.

There are two separate SMS and MMS editors, creating simple multimedia messages, or banal text messages consisting of 1-4 length 60 characters.

Communications

Despite the fact that Xenium X520 belongs to the innovations of 2009 at an average price range, we cannot speak about its abilities to support networks of the third generation. Instead, you have to enjoy only GPRS-connection.

In addition to the wireless connection it has a normal mini USB-connector for charging and connection to a PC. In the latter case, the choice remains between the connection as an ordinary flash and expanded opportunities as a modem, which would require a software installation from the CD.

Utility and games

It has three separate alarms. Each of them can be configured to repeat on selected weekdays, or dwell on a single signal.

In addition, there is a good organizer with a calendar, voice recorder to record sounds, ability to set recording to playback at the selected time, the black list of unwanted numbers, calculator, stopwatch and timer. In general, all is quite ordinary, if you do not take into account the ease and simplicity of using the black list of numbers. If you have few minutes to rest, here are simple games such as funny Snake or Sudoku.

Multimedia

The music player will surprise you by the presence of sorting.  The radio has a high quality sound, as well as memory for 20 stations. Naturally X520 has RDS and AF, so everything is quiet normal with radio.

Camera

The phone has a built-in 2-megapixel camera. In addition, there are several settings, including color effects and serial imaging. You can also save funny moments of your by recording movies with a resolution of 176 x 144, at 5-15 frames per second.

]]> http://www.newphonesreviews.com/philips-x520-review/feed/ 0 http://www.newphonesreviews.com/samsung-b2700-review/ http://www.newphonesreviews.com/samsung-b2700-review/#comments Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:43:56 +0000 Mia http://www.newphonesreviews.com/?p=358 Several years ago the company Samsung did not think of producing secure mobile phones in the belief that it is strictly niche product. The production of such a phone is expensive and the price of it must be democratic. Anyway, the Korean giant could not ignore this little untapped sector of mobile telephony, and produced a secure pipe Samsung B2700.

The market didn’t favor devices from Siemens, Ericsson and Nokia having high degree of protection. Samsung decided not to hurry. There, after a few years of thought-thinking … and the first protected model was released this summer. The M110 had (and has) one big drawback – the phenomenal functional austerity. That is, in fact, there are almost no advanced features, even a camera with VGA-resolution display and STN-matrix.

The hero of our review is the model B2700. In fact, it is the improved and supplemented M110 with the possibilities of low-level tubes of middle-class, production 2007-2008.

Appearance

Of course, unlike its glossy contemporaries, Samsung B2700 looks brutal. From a distance of a stretched hand, it reminds me of a toy-phone of Chinese production in a counter area of a manufacture market.

This is not a stone in the garden of Korean designers, simply such specific devices always looked like that, and the B2700 has been no exception.

Samsung B2700 is indeed a very impressive toy, thanks to a rather thick rubberized plastic, but on the back side of the camera lens, the thickness of «coverage» is 3.5 mm, which demonstrates the strength of protection.

However, you can see below how it looks in general.

From the side the loop for the strap looks very reliable, somehow reminding a rifle.

The removable rear lid is also of considerable thickness.

With a powerful clip, it is pressed on the body, which (at the perimeter of the battery compartment) is a thin rubber gasket, which prevents the penetration of moisture.

In our test sample, the clamp was so tight that it proved difficult to open the door. A battery connector for the SIM-card and the card memory is under the accumulator so there is no chance of an instant replacement.

The camera lens is not particularly protected – a normal glass, as in most cell phones.

At the left end of the swing are the volume and the universal connector shielded by the «sly» and tight sealing cover, protecting the filling tube from dust and moisture. At the right end the on / off button of the camera and the flashlight are located.

The keyboard of Samsung B2700 is executed on a rubber substrate and fits extremely snugly to the body. Despite the simple appearance (although when it comes to glamour there is so much of it around that it becomes repugnant), it is very convenient, no mistakes in typing and management, the finger always falls on the appropriate button.

The white backlight is very bright, and symbols are perfectly visible in any light, and it is pleasant.

Display

Display with a resolution of 176 x 220 pixels and a diagonal of 1.9 inches is of good quality: bright, contrasted, it provides a distortion-free transfer of color test images. All done at modest levels. There is an adjustment of brightness in display as well as in keyboard. Viewing angles cannot be called narrow which is something significant for a phone addressed to active users.

The screen is closed by the shade, which is at a decent distance from the LCD matrix. Thus, it has a chance to survive if the unit is dropped on asphalt from a human height. The protective glass can be shattered, but the matrix is not affected. And to change the screen is more expensive than the glass.

Protective Properties

The new mackintosh is positioned just as secure (certified IP54), and not as water-shock-mud-resistant phone. This means that you shouldn’t swim with it, dive in the bathtub, put it under the wheels of a car, checking the strength of the shell, or crack the nuts, in order to withdraw the edible core. The tube is designed for active users – bikers, skiers, snowboarders, tourists and other fidgets. If the owner falls from a great height, the shell tube should not be greatly affected, and in successful set of circumstances there will be no trace of the fall to the ground. I admit that a couple of times I did throw the device a stone road at a speed of 15-20 km/h, and… there was only a small dent left on the body. My colleagues did not take long to be persuaded, and they were happy to be included in the experiment, heartily dropping  and throwing and the device on the floor, but the result was just a kick back of the lid along with the battery, which is just what should happen in such a situation.

In addition, I watered the B2700 by a watering-can, and to cap the water procedures dipped it for a minute in a mug with water. And nothing, it survived. By the way, the manufacturer states that with this innovation one could be caught in the rain without any consequences for the electronic filling. And more on water and Samsung – as the phone has two openings for the speakers and a microphone, the infiltration of water (in case of dipping, of course) inside – is a matter of time.

Here you can watch a video about how B2700 is taking a shower.

I did not risk larger experiments, simply because I was sorry for the device and because its «protective» properties were clear after 15 minutes with the tube.

Camera and Multimedia

Remembering that the predecessor had a «blind» STN-display, the 2-MP camera in the B2700 is perceived as a significant achievement of science and technology. In fact, the camera is perfectly ordinary, as in most modern tubes. In daylight, we get relatively high-quality images, but with the twilight picture noise is noted  (for the camera of this class it is in the order of things). Running takes three seconds, the white balance is automatic for 2, 5-3 seconds, which is acceptable. The interface is represented by translucent icons, though, what the camera of B2700 is capable (in functional terms), you can see for yourself.

No outbreaks (of shooting in the dark you cannot even think), but it is better than its impoverished embodiment of a LED. From the moment you press the button «Start» until the end of recording an image in memory it takes 2 seconds.

Player

The MP3-player moved from the middle class Samsung models. Let’s start with the criticism – no audio settings (EQs), not to speak about the «hand» ones. I think that it is not incidental, as a separate processor for playback of music is not available and therefore – there in nothing special to regulate. While doing so, the sound quality is good, i.e. music sounds natural, loud, but somehow «unsavory»,(bass is not pronounced). But because the B2700 is not from the music series, the mediocre sound can be forgiven. Functional applications are decent – there exist rewind within a track, a breakdown of the content on the artist, album, genre, etc.

There is a mode of mixing, repeating, the song can be broadcast on the bluetooth-headset, as well as songs are suggested to be assessed on a 5-point scale.

In general, the player is well suited to this sport model. It is simple, no luxuries, normally works.

Other functions

It is clear that in a sporting device there are to be some sports applications. And they have a place to be. This is, for example, the good old compass with integrated altimeter. But if the compass determines the side of light correctly, there is something amiss with the altimeter. It stubbornly showed 50-52 meters, but GPS-Garmin device showed 175 meters above sea level.

Even when being on the 5th floor of the building, the height may be some 20 meters from the ground at most, but not 50. I, frankly, never understood what height was shown on the device.

There is a pedometer with a built-counter of the distance covered, and … calories expended on it. They are calculated in accordance with your height / weight and passed distance.

This function is very useful, and perhaps not only for athletes. After all its interesting how much you cover in a day or week.

LED flashlight, equipped with a lens, is bright, its light is enough to illuminate a small staircase, on which there is no light, or, for example, a dinner table.

In addition, it is useful to motorists or tourists-hitchhikers.

Also there is the normal range of business functions – a notebook with the possibility of creating a note of 100 characters, a reminder, world time, a calculator with integrated converter, handy calendar. Of course, there are is a timer, stopwatch and… five independent alarms.

Thanks to a high-capacity battery 1300 mA • h, the machine works quietly four days in a regime of 15-20 minute conversation and durative use of other functions. In addition, I used the camera while listening to the player from time to time.

Outcome

Terrible outside, «good» inside – this is how you can describe the Samsung B2700. Naturally, this device is for those who particularly need a phone protected from outside influences, rather than one equipped with functional innovations. It is clear that such a device can not have a QVGA-display, or to support the playback non-converted video. It has another challenge – to continue to work after the «bath» in the rain, or fall to the floor. With the value of about 7000 rubles – this is a good proposal on the market, and so far the only of its kind.