Introduced in 2005, Sony Ericsson W800i was greeted by critics and consumers. Key factors for success were few, but all of them were verified to the last detail. It was the first phone with a legacy of the famous players Sony from no less famous Walkman brand with all the ensuing consequences. In fact, the phone W800 was really a serious music player. It shows today’s situation in the market, new F300 from Samsung, Nokia 3250 or 5700 XpressMusic. To grow on megapixels 2 million cell phone makers have taken a time out. Secondly, W800i has serious functional content.

Design

Certainly, now thin phones are fashionable, important and sometimes even very practical. However, the overwhelming number of slim-devices is extremely inconvenient to use. In pursuit of millimeters manufacturer forgets about ergonomics, forcing the user to break the nails on the keyboard and when working with menus to twist his/her fingers in the untold patterns.
Fortunately, this fate to a greater extent bypasses Sony Ericsson W880i. Its dimensions are 103×47x9, 4 mm and weight is 71 grams. Thus, the device is long enough, but due to its rectangular shape it has stunning design.

Thickness, or rather its absence, and light weight make it possible to carry the phone anywhere. Whether it is a breast pocket of your shirt or the pocket of tight jeans, W880i looks good from everywhere, more precisely, in jeans, it is imperceptible.

The front part of Sony Ericsson W880i is made of stainless steel, and can be in silver (Steel Silver), and black (Flame Black) colors. In the first version the rear face of rubberized plastic is matte black, while the second one is orange. Both the colors and the presence of metal among the components add to an already excellent design of W800i a fraction of sophistication. Moreover, it is worth noting the excellent build quality of this phone.

Keyboard

When dealing with the keyboard of Sony Ericsson W880i it is possible not to feel discomfort.

But there is an unambiguous claim to the navigation key. It is too small.

And if girls with nails of medium length speak positively about the numeric keypad, than they will scold the navigation. So if you prefer long nails, you should think about shortening them.

On the right side there is a key to access the camera (horizontal mode).

At the top there is a small multi-purpose “rocker” (or even a slider).

With its help you can get into the menu of the phone, adjust the sound volume, or play around with the scale of the photographs. Access key to the player Walkman 2.0 is located on the left end.

By tradition, the Sony Ericsson phones are not usual green and red phones, and their functions are performed by two context keys. Beneath them there is a button fast access to the Internet browser and “My Menu”. Below that are key “return” and “C”.

So we glad to note that the keyboard of W880i is somewhat unusual, but it is viable.

Display and menus

Screen of W880i is rather narrow, but it has dimensions of 1.8 inches, supports QVGA-resolution (240×320 pixels) and displays up to 262 thousand colors. The display, of course, belongs to the premium class – high brightness, excellent clarity, rich colors. Due to its elongated shape, the upper line with the level of reception, battery indication, hours and other information icons are always active when you move the menu (if you have the theme Walkman), unconditional and very significant advantage.

Simple and intuitive menu of W880i consists of 12 icons, and subsections in a tree form.

However, changing the theme to the standard Walkman on “Bits of the City” you can get a stylish black and red menu with icons, arrayed in a row. These moves through the main menu will be accompanied by a mild vibration.

To master the organs and functions of control of W880i can even unprepared person. Anyone who has ever spoken on Sony Ericsson phones over the past three years, the process of learning and adapting to the new product will take a couple of minutes.

Multimedia

Traditionally, the older phones of the Walkman series inherit a full set of features and capabilities of their business counterparts. So the user of W880i gets 16 MB of internal memory, support for memory Memory Stick Micro (1 GB card included) card, Bluetooth with support for A2DP protocol (wireless stereo headphones), convenient and functional web browser Net-Front, Java , support for USB and much more.
Well if living without ICQ to you means not to exist, then go to the menu “Applications” and run powerful client which is able to function (like other Java-based applications) in the background.

The phone works in three GSM and UMTS 2100. This means support for video streaming and video calls. For the latter there is a small camera on the front panel.
In general W880i is a modern phone with classically-considered trifles. Does it have tuned Bluetooth? Does it easily work with uploaded files? Does it have functional organizer? Can it work in Flight Mode? All these questions can affirmatively be answered with the abbreviation of five characters – W880i.

Walkman 2.0 is stuffing, let’s consider hardware. Headset connector (HPM-75 included) is located at the left bottom.

This is quite inconvenient, since the plug is not small, so it still goes on thick wire, which is not particularly flexible. The most reasonable accommodation would be a 3,5 mm input on the top of the phone. Headset HPM-75 has decent quality and should satisfy most of the audience. We have to test headphones Sennheiser CX 300, in order to feel all inside the player. Fortunately HPM-75 is a structure of the adapter and headphones, so that the 3,5 mm input is available, albeit not at the phone.

To start the music application you can use the little orange button or through the menu.

At the start screen “My Music” can sort tracks by artists, albums, play-list or simply the list of tracks.

Play-lists can and should (because 1 GB is about 250 songs in good quality, very easy to get confused) be created directly on the phone.

In addition, the player has a standard set of visualization (animation, or album cover), play mode “in a random order”, repetition, and changing colors of the application.

There is also an equalizer. Unfortunately, it was a simpleton, from the available preset modes you can choose – Bass, Mega Bass, voice, lifting high frequencies.

In addition to these four settings, it is a possible and a manual calibration. Player responded only to the most understated or overstated frequency. And the description on the website Mega Bass Sony Ericsson says “improve bass, let music become more volume, in practice, the sound remains flat. But what pleases me is that only player can be scold in W880i.

The volume is enough comfortably to listen to music not only on a busy street, but in the subway or any other public transport.

Out of interest, just as noteworthy feature, is TrackID. A

gain we turn to the description on the official site – “Just record a song a few seconds and all the information about the track, artist or album will be available within a few seconds”.

Funny opportunity for Walkman with FM-radio on board, but in the case of W880i it is a useless icon on the desktop, because the music that pours from the player to know there is no possibility, as composition should be recognized only through a microphone. Another function of downloading content PlayNow seems much more interesting in this case.

The player supports popular formats such as: MP3, AAC, AAC +, E-AAC +, WAV, WMA, M4A, however, it is difficult to imagine that many users listen to music in the format E-AAC +.

As a conclusion of the player it should be noted that it has many useful features. As for the level of the music, Walkman in this sense is ahead of other phones. However, if you are a music fan beginner, features of Walkman 2.0 will be sufficient.

Camera

In case of W880i camera is more a design element than a serious application. In fact, a small lens with a penny coin and the matrix of 2-megapixels is not as bad as it might seem at first glance.

Using the camera in landscape mode is very practical. The camera settings are standard – resolution, quality, effects, 2.5-fold digital zoom.

Conclusion

A small step for Sony Ericsson is a big leap for the market. Player phones go to the next level, slowly biting more and more of the market. Union of a phone and a music player looks more organic than a phone and a camera. In case of W880i nirvana is aggravated with battery with a capacity of 950 mAh. At 30 minutes of calls a day, using all sorts of functions and player for 2 hours a day, the phone worked for five days. It is an excellent result.

Having examined W880i brick by brick on the components, we have a stylish phone, rich functionalities and a decent player. Definitely a successful model, I recommend to buy it.

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.

In 2006 Motorola began releasing a new line of MOTORIZR image sliders. The first was the model Z3, which is the first GSM-slider of the company. Great attention was paid to materials, as well as on internal functional filling which couldn’t make this mobile phone a bestseller. In early 2007, an updated model Z6 was launched. Now the phone is positioned as a musical image slider. And again – beautiful, functional, but unpopular. Till the end of 2007 an updated Z8 model released. In addition to black-and-green color it has Symbian UIQ platform and many other advantages.

Finally, there comes RIZR Z10 – an updated model of Z8 which has a more rigorous design. So let’s have a look at this novelty.

Design

With all of its non-standard (in a good sense of the word) design, Z8 had a very cool reception. Young people, to whom the acidic insert might come to taste, started criticizing the price of the device.

Speaking about its design, we can not accept the harsh brutality of the Staff. This feature is peculiar to many phones from Motorola. On the contrary, in an era when everything is “Slim, soft and low”, to have a heavy device in the hand during conversation is not very convenient.

Unfortunately, here come some disappointments. First of all the metallic color. The phone is entirely made of plastic.

The original arrangement of this new Z8 slider has not been modified. Moreover, the numbers did not differ from each other with designing elements, with the exception of the back side, which is caused by a more serious camera in RIZR Z10.

As in the previous model, the opening of the upper half is lifted under a small angle. This is definitely an interesting solution.

With regard to the process of opening / closing, despite the complex mechanism, to perform this operation you can either injure your finger in a special rubber stress below the display, or in the upper halves of the rib.

As for the remaining designing solutions they are acceptable, such as bolts on the rear lid. The size of the phone and the weight fit into the overall image due to the fact that the phone is large in order to work with it comfortably. In general, even in the pockets of jeans or trousers Z10 isn’t comfortable to carry. However, if once again we draw a parallel with the predecessor, the Z8 is 1.5 mm thinner and 5 grams lighter.

Display

Z10 is only a continuation of Z8 (in fact – an Update). Like Z8, it has a 2.2-inch TFT-display with QVGA-resolution (320 x 240 pixels) and supporting 16 million colors.

As in previous models, the screen does not have impressive specifications, but generally looks modern. Getting ahead, I will say that Z10, with its entire functions is a simple device poorly suited for multimedia.

Keyboard

Describing this phone’s keypad, we traditionally divide it into three units – nautical, digital, and additional keys. In the case of Z10 the navigation block is executed in classical style for this line. There is a 4-position button in the middle, two soft keys, two additional buttons (Menu / list of tasks and “back”), as well as standard “phone”.

The buttons are made of rubber, so pressing them is hard enough. That is, any action requires serious effort.

The second stage of our conversation will be about additional buttons. At the left end of the monoblock there are three buttons.

Two are responsible for the volume, and the third – for quick access to multimedia gallery. This is more than a controversial decision. You can easily get to the gallery through the menu and, yes, and you need it less frequently. Below there is a slot for memory cards. Suitable card format is microSD, up to 32 GB.

Right end is equipped with one button, which is responsible for the rapid launch of built-in camera. Here is the miniUSB connector, serves to connect the peripherals and the charging / docking to a PC.

All connectors are covered with plastic plugs, so the aerodynamics of the shell did not violate anything.

The digital keyboard brings controversial feelings. In principle, it has not changed since Z8.

All the keys are highlighted with pale green light, which is not very suitable for this device. Milky and white would be fine.

Features

As we have already noticed, the phone is built on Symbian 9.2 (Motorola Symbian UIQ 3.2). In fact it is a capricious platform which has little in common with the classic S60 from Nokia, and with UIQ from Sony Ericsson. As a result, all the charm of the smartphone as a multimedia device is reduced to 0.

First, it requires a very long download time. In order to switch the language from English into Russian (search for the notebook, or enter the address in the browser), you must enter the corresponding menu, select language, press “save”, then “use”, and only then get the desired result.

Almost every operation is perceived as a personal affront to the phone and requires a minimum double confirmation. For example, setting the alarm clock: you choose the time, say 9:00, press “save” and come out of the directory. In the morning, you get at 11:00, remembering that you have not clicked “use”.
However, the heavy menu is the only serious shortcoming of the phone. It is not just difficult to control; it is not suitable for everyday use.

From the additional features we can mention a list of supported formats, such as: AAC, AAC +, WAV, AMR NB, MP4, MP3, MIDI, WMA, MPEG4 (30 fps), H.263, H.264. Thus, the device is more than suitable for listening to music, and even for viewing videos. The player is quite suitable.

Regarding the possibility of connecting to other devices, you can use USB-cable or Bluetooth 2.0 (A2DP, AVRCP, DUN-GW, FTP, GAP, GAVDP, Headset-AG, HFP 1.5 AG, OPP-Client, OPP).

Camera

The camera is good. Basically the camera is the main difference of Z8 from the Z10. Thus, the latest has a 3.2-MP CMOS-matrix with autofocus and flash, and the opportunity to make up to three images per second.

The camera works in a horizontal mode, like Sony Ericsson. For the convenience of shooting the camera has a pre regime: “normal”, “indoor”, “street”, “Sport”, etc. There is not a very powerful LED flash (there is a regime of “red eye”). It has the following functions: color effects, white balance, sharpness, you can select the image quality and size. As you can see, it has a solid set of features.

Z10 has a 3,2 MP camera. The photos in good lighting are bright, juicy, but not ideal.
You can save the images in the internal memory (45 MB) and a memory card, moreover, the phone has a built in Photo Editor, so you can process the received pictures.

The modern phone should have a powerful battery. Battery 1130 mA • h (Li-Ion) is able to provide vital energy for needs of the phone up to 3 days.

Outcome

In a competitive market Z10 is largely inferior to the alternative proposals to price / capabilities and status of the device. If you want to stand out, then it is for you. The phone did not become popular and is quite rare. However, once again reiterate that this does not make Z10 a bad phone, it just has its own specifics.

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In general, the appearance of Nokia 6210 Navigator left a pleasant impression. All elements of management and other technical units are in place, but it is no wonder, because these indicators the 6210 has completely copied from other models.

Display
In the process of getting acquainted with new phones I again and again catch myself at the thought that, in general, today’s screens of mobile phones are equal among themselves. This is particularly true for Smart-phones, and even more so for the platform S60. If earlier the consumer quality was judged by the number of supported colors, today, in most cases, this parameter is equal. Nevertheless, let us run through the technical data of the display of the 6210. The screen has a QVGA-resolution (240 x 320 pixels) supports up to 16 million colors (24 bit). With regard to physical dimensions, here too everything is in order- 2.4 inches.
The front panel is the light sensor that regulates the intensity of illumination of the screen. The function is not only convenient, but also useful. In fact, although slightly, but it saves battery power.
A unit titled with the responsible name of Navigator simply must demonstrate excellent results in the intense daylight. Unfortunately, these rates are at the secondary level. Neither under the direct (the use of navigation in walking mode), or under the slanting (used in car) rays, the 6210 has not shown any special abilities. The phone display goes fairly blind though the information is still legible, but to call this kind of work comfortable is not possible. However, we should note that in the standard mode, the screen displays 8 lines of text and 3 service lines of information (up to 14 lines in certain modes) and it again is a standard for such devices.
In general, the 6210 has a modern display that can handle most multimedia and functional tasks. Naturally, we would like to see something more, but in the present form it is already not bad.

Keyboard
There is no innovation in the navigation block of the 6210, which is perhaps for the better. Keys are few, so they all are of a size more than comfortable to work with. You can forget about such troubles as false clicking. The progress of the keys is smooth and soft enough, and it is a genuine pleasure to work with them.
Additional controls are focused on the right end of the phone and are presented by a coupled volume key and the key of the camera activation.
The dial unit also deserves praise. All keys are large-sized, of a standard form and configuration. Working with such buttons is a pleasure.
It is heartening that the novelty has been able to avoid artful design decisions and acquired a standard (comfortable) keyboard, and this statement is relevant to whole management of the phone. The milk-white backlight of the keys is in perfect harmony with the varnished plastic of the phone.

Functions
Technically, the model 6210 Navigator is a S60 device of the latest generation. Analogues are found in N-, and E-series of the company. The operating System Symbian OS v9.3 (S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 2) and the ARM 11 processor with a clock speed of 369 MHz are more than adequate for the challenges facing a smart-phone.

But the 20 MB of RAM is extremely small. For example, the N70, the 2005 model, had a maximum memory of 22 MB and in the new N78 this figure is 48 MB, the popular N82 model has a 90 MB of operation memory. What does this figure influence? It affects the quantity and quality of work with multiple applications. For example, the 6210 is beginning to experience problems with the downloaded applications Nokia Maps, the Internet browser, and MP3-player. To continue the comfortable work with the device it is better to close one of the applications. If additional programs running in the background are installed in the phone, then the free memory will be even less.
The phone has a motion sensor. It is used in several modes, for example, in the Internet browser; depending on the status of the phone, the screen orientation changes from vertical to horizontal. False abrasions occur, but they are rare and do not cause inconvenience.
Despite the availability of the latest version of the operating system with Feature Pack 2 (the analogue has recently been considered in the review of Nokia N78), in the 6210 the menu and other options are closer to the possibilities of Feature Pack 1. For example, the 6210 has no multimedia menu and the gallery, the media player and the camera are as in older versions. And this is even more surprising because we tested the pre-sales sample. In fact, along with the N78, the new 6210 Navigator, possessing all the features FP2, would stand out against the background of other solutions from Nokia.
Thus, in functionality Nokia 6210 Navigator is a typical representative of the glorious family of S60 devices, the capabilities of which have been considered in our reviews.
One fact will upset fans of free Internet – there is no Wi-Fi in the 6210, and it is a serious minus on the background of competing devices from the same Nokia.

Multimedia
Like any product on the S60, the model 6210 Navigator is not only a tool for navigation and other complex tasks, in many ways it is a multimedia entertainment center. At the service of users are all modern services and facilities starting from the radio and the Internet (through the air, of course) to watching movies and listening to music.
The music player has a large capacity, lets you sort songs in the phone memory in many ways, there is an equalizer with the ability to create your profile, a number of standard capacities – balance setting, extended stereo.
The sound quality of the 6210 is comparable with similar models of the manufacturer, which means that you can listen to music in comfort. However, the headset coming in the kit is more suitable for the radio perhaps; more demanding listeners will connect more serious headphones. It is good the 2.5-mm jack allows it.

Navigator
It is too early to make any conclusions, but there is a feeling that in Nokia they have come to the rake. It is seen in the totally lost uniqueness of the 6210 Navigator both as navigation and a competitive device.
If in the 6110 the default main program was the application Route66, and if you wanted any other navigation program (Nokia Maps, etc.) could be set in the phone, in the case of the 6210 the basis of the new program is Nokia Maps 2.0. Symbolically, it appeared long before Nokia 6210 Navigator, so that even in this aspect the model is not unique.
With all devices equipped with A-GPS module, Nokia offers a trial period for the navigation software. In the case of the 6210 the license Drive & Walk (pedestrian and car navigation) is pre-paid for 6 months. Further extension of the license will be expensive. There is a division into zones (Local, Mega Region, All regions) and time (1, 3 or 12 months). The price depending on the package can vary from 9 to 130 euros.
In the future, Nokia Maps can be used without paying for licenses, but the route organizing and navigation will be unavailable.
The second feature of the Navigator is the presence of an electronic compass. It is useful in pedestrian navigation (for example, in the forest, to determine the side of the light), in which case the map and the route will always be in front of you. The ability is convenient but it is not an ace yet. On this the peculiarities of the 6210 Navigator are exhausted.
And, of course, let us not forget the separate key of GPS (Nokia Maps) launch, with an indicator displaying the compass.
Thus, the main bonus of the Navigator is the quite lengthy license for Nokia Maps 2.0. Finally, we will return to the miserable 20 MB of active memory. Additionally, it affects the loading of the application Nokia Maps, and while working with background programs the loading time of navigation can take more than a minute. Trifle, but again, very unpleasant.

Camera
Unfortunately, the camera of the 6210 is clearly not the strong point of the device. Following the trend, the manufacturer has established a 3.2-MP CMOS-matrix with autofocus. The lens, unfortunately, is not from Carl Zeiss, but has a good performance – 4.6 mm/f2.8, minimum focusing distance is 10 cm. This is a modern solution with no additional features. In general, for the status of the 6210 Navigator, nothing less could be expected.
Structurally, the camera is not protected, the glass lens is slightly recessed into the body, but getting scratched, and even more so getting dirty is just a matter of time. In the horizontal position (and you can only shoot so) over the lens there is the built-in flash. At a distance of about 1,5-2 m, it is quite useful, which again is a norm for this type of devices.
Unfortunately, the interface of the camera is different from what we saw in the N78 (by the way, this model is not “photo-oriented”). Maximum resolution of images is 2048 x 1536 (also resolution modes of 1600 x 1200, 1024 x 768, 640 x 480 pixels are available), while the average size of the image at maximum quality and resolution is about 1 MB (supports JPEG / Exif).

The twenty-fold digital zoom, to a large extent, is useless, because when using it the picture quality becomes insufficient even for viewing on the phone. However, judicious use (up to x5) is perhaps possible, but still undesirable.
The governance is realized conveniently, all features are available on a horizontal strip. Among the options, to the obligatory (the white balance, brightness setting, etc.) were added and the elements from the major league (ISO setting, shutter speed). The capabilities of the 6210 are comparable with the camera solution used in N78, only the graphical shell of the interface is different.
The camera located on the front is especially designed for video communication, but in the absence of such, it can be used for taking self-portraits.
Video capturing with a VGA-resolution of 640 x 480 pixels and recording speed of 15 frames per second (formats H.263, MPEG-4) is a good complement to the photo-abilities of the 6210. In general, the camera left a positive impression. It is comfortable to work with and in the case of the Navigator you can’t expect miracles from a built-in camera, while the images sometimes please the eye.
The examples of images can be seen below, and the archive can be downloaded here.

Outcome
The model is complete with a BL-5F 3.7V battery, with a capacity of 950 mAh. By today’s standards, this is not much, but in practice this allows the phone battery about 2 days of intensive use (up to 30 minutes of conversation, about 1 hour of navigation and 30 minutes of other functions) which, in our opinion, is a fairly good indicator.
It remains to add that the phone has 120 MB of internal memory and a microSD card of 1 GB in the set. The supplement Nokia Maps is stored in phone memory, so that the user has enough space for additional programs and content.
In conclusion, we should note that the phone, and the entire line, and did not find a way to a bright future. In Russia, the popularity of this unit is below of the popularity of the pioneer model 6110. If this continues further, the very line of devices with the prefix Navigator will soon come to naught. Actually, the 6210 Navigator is a good phone, a decent member of the S60family. And it should be chosen by general criteria, forgetting about the prefix Navigator.

Construction and Design

The new model is slightly bigger than most devices in the market today, but it will fit normally in a shirt pocket – its mass is only 123 grams. On the one hand, the device is executed in the same form-factor single block as the majority of other communicators, and the management of Toshiba Portege G810 is quite traditional.

However, the developers managed to create a quite unusual device in the frames of the usual. The fact is that behind the severity of its forms and traditional materials, Toshiba Portege G810 (soft-touch plastic for the rear wall and a smooth plate cover of front panel) hides some futuristic features manifested exclusively through the various elements of decoration and design. One cannot help to recall the words that the high quality of the product proves itself only if the manufacturer pays attention to the minutiae.

So, minutiae… To begin with, the silver plastic edging of the side faces is made continuous and wide enough to hold all the additional controls, merging with this edging, as well as … the stylus!

Apparently, the designers have given complete freedom to their imagination, because the stylus from Toshiba Portege G810 forms a single entity with the right-side edge.

At a closer look, one can see that the right edging of the shell is a little thicker. Pull it with the thumb to the top, and part of the side facets will jump off of its track and turn into an unusual type of stylus.

The design idea, of course, is for one hundred points, but just to enjoy a stylus, which resembles a golf stick or a toothpick is extremely problematic. First, it is very small, secondly, its operation is severely hampered by the bend at the top, and third, the tip of the pen is so long and fragile that it looks as if it is going to break, whereas in the fourth, to find even something resembling this stylus in case of loss or breakage will be simply impossible. This is how one has to pay for the design.

Both on the right and the left ends the user can detect a swing- key.

If on the left such a key is traditionally responsible for the volume control, the right-button swing has two different functions – the launch of the application to work with the camera and software for voice recording. It looks original and stylish, but uncomfortable to use, because while focusing the camera you will want to either grope a button of the pair or search it visually. In addition, this pair of buttons is located almost exactly opposite the key of the device launch, on the left end. Thus, while switching on the phone or putting the device out of sleep, you often accidentally run either the camera, or the recorder. Instead the power button could be just placed not on the side but on the top, as in most other communicators, and such problems of management would not exist.

The slot for memory cards microSD and interface connector miniUSB are located at the bottom of the right and left sides and the plugs are not covered. But what is worth special mentioning is the main control unit of the communicator. The point is that it is fully touch. It looks just perfect!

The navigation key and the six main buttons have a bright blue backlight, and in off regime buttons are visible only through a blind slot in the black mirror substrate surface. In this regard, the G810 has something in common with the control unit of Motorola RAZR phones – the design is clearly borrowed from the «Shaver».

In general, the quality of materials and assembly of the shell are worthy of praise, and the design is beyond praise. But, alas, as it is often the case – not everything is comfortable, that looks stylish. Designers of Toshiba did an excellent job, of course, but about the comfort in work they seem to have forgotten.

The processor of the new item for is not the most powerful for the present time, yet efficient enough to cope with any application, be it office packages or a serious program for calculations. It is a platform Qualcomm MSM7200 processor with a clock speed of 400 MHz.

The on-board memory is standard: 128 MB RAM and 256 MB ROM. But for the user, unfortunately, little is available, in our case – 100 and 38 MB. The interface Spb Mobile Shell is partly to blame, as it is designed to work with a device without a stylus.

In order to evaluate the performance of the new item in figures, we used the package Spb Benchmark 1.6.

The G810 cannot be called a leader, but the communicator realizes all of its hardware capabilities very well. So for those who are not in pursuit for top models, but want to obtain sufficient power for a reasonable price, the novelty from Toshiba will surely be suitable.

But the playing of uncompressed video is worse off. To test these abilities we have, as always, taken advantage of the benchmark CorePlayer, running on it by turns three videos of different qualitative characteristics: 320 x 240/550 kbit / s, 640 x 480/784 Kbit / s 640 x 480/1320 Kbps. Test results are presented in the table.

Recall that the ideal is the index of 110%, so even the naked eye can see that the unit is unable to play uncompressed video below 320 x 240. If you deviate from the figures, then such a movie looks on the display of the G810 as a slideshow. And if take some time and pre-compress all the films and videos, which you are to see, there will be no problem.

Display

Portege G810 is equipped with a TFT-display with a diagonal of 2.8 inches and QVGA-resolution 320 x 240. Today, this type of matrix is set in budget devices or working horses.

With the unusual appearance of the new model, this screen, to put it mildly, has little in common.

Nevertheless, this «classic of genre» is still capable of much. The indicators of the brightness and clarity of the image, as well as the juicy colors are unlikely to cause any dissatisfaction, even among the most demanding users. As for the angles of the review, here it is possible to find fault with the decrease of brightness, occurring while rotating the display. The only drawback could be that the white color in this case is too cold, with some mixture of light-blue. But this weakness only manifests itself when compared with the displays of other communicators.

Camera

The integrated camera, alas, can not boast of high-quality images.

However, all is relatively well from the outside: 3 MP, autofocus, LED flash, and even a mirror for self-portrait. Moreover, the settings of the camera are sufficient, though they are made in plain text interface – exactly the same, as can be seen in most settings of Windows Mobile.

But when it comes to shooting, there begin the problems. First, the camera is very, very slow. It takes five seconds after pressing the shutter before you can move the camera. Otherwise, the image on the photo will be smeared or will fail altogether. In addition, the display turned out to be slow itself – or rather, the image on the display does not change smoothly when shooting (if you move the camera), but with severe starts. And the quality of the images is on the average level only – the focus often works badly, there is noise on images, even with a lot of good lighting and the colors are slightly shifted to the range of warm pink. Examples of photos can be viewed below.

Communications and Wireless Modules

In addition to a full support in GSM networks, Portege G810 also works in the third-generation networks UMTS (850/1900/200 MHz) and an Internet connection using GPRS / EDGE and HSUPA. Wireless data transfer is done through modules Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR and Wi-Fi 802.11 b / g. For the on / off of any of the modules the firm task manager is responsible, differing from the standard only in stylish appearance.

When testing wireless modules, no problems have been observed. Moreover, the device has demonstrated strong reception even in a place where other phones show either its absence, or do not work properly.

The novelty is connected to a computer with USB 1.1, like the overwhelming majority of communicators from other manufacturers. Therefore, the data transmission rate, alas, is not high. Of the characteristics of connecting it is worth noting the possibility of using the device as an external removable disc or card, for which you need to select an appropriate item in the manager of communications before connecting.

On board of the G810 there is also an FM-radio with a high selective sensitivity and convenient interface. As an antenna the cord from the headphones is traditionally used. So if the headphones are not connected, there will be no music.

Time of autonomous work

Under the cover of the battery compartment is located a fairly high-capacity battery of 1530 mA • h, which inspires hope for long time offline. And we have to say, that hope is fully realized.

With an average daily loading of the phone (20 minutes of conversation a day with an address book and the Internet) the G810 should be charged no earlier than after two days of use. If you save a little, charging will be needed only after three days, which is a very high figure for a communicator. Video viewing «ate» the fully charged battery only after 7.5 hours of use! And uninterrupted autonomous music listening is almost around the clock – 23 hours!

Conclusions

The hero of our today’s review, Toshiba PortegeG810, was not an ideal communicator. Mediocre (or at least very controversial) management, a weak camera and an outdated display – these are the obvious shortcomings of the novelty. But on the other hand, a complete set of communication tools, the availability of GPS-navigation and FM-radio, long time of autonomous work, good performance and an unusual chic appearance outweigh these disadvantages. Well, the final decision is only after the price but it is competitive and low – 13.5 – 14 thousand roubles. If you like the unusual design and are not afraid of the unusual features of the management of this communicator, then at this price a better offer from the «all in one» series will be extremely difficult to find.