I recently purchased a BlackBerry Pearl 8120 from Orange for a freelance writing project and chose this particular smartphone because I had never used one before. Three later I am glad… glad that I had never used one before.

I was ready to write a review of the Pearl, but really cannot be bothered. It is slow, frequently stalls and in comparison to the Curve 8520 feels basic and from a time when smartphones were slow and didn’t do much well at all.

Part of my frustration with the Pearl came from having to deal with Orange- two days of calls and five promises that BIS had been set up got my juices flowing until eventually on the third day it appeared. Everyone was polite, but seemingly had no idea of what they were doing and this left a very poor first impression of the company to me. My very first mobile phone was with Orange many years ago and the service was delightful; every agent was multi-skilled and all too willing to help. Compare that with today where talking to each agent leaves the impression that their training was given to them on a post-it note.

Anyway, I digress. The strange thing about the Pearl is that three days later I kind of like it. The keyboard is surprisingly useful and the software takes care of almost every word I input. Despite its small size I can respond to emails very quickly and can fully understand why people like this phone so much. However, for an extra £60 the Curve 8520 offers better battery life, better call quality, a better speakerphone, a better camera, a bigger screen, a better keyboard, better OS, faster performance, more memory and an overall feel of a phone that you can rely on. It is a complete no brainer to me to say that the 8520 is the option to go for.

Like many BlackBerry’s the Pearl will be employer supplied and so most users will not care what it is like in the real world, but there is much better out there and better means being more productive. The diminutive size of the Pearl does offer many advantages though and it is one of those devices that can do an awful lot in the smallest of spaces. At its current price point it is still a bargain, but one which could do with some spicing up in the near future. Chances are that that will happen very soon.

Get used to seeing some musings from David. He has kindly agreed to write for PDA-247 and here is his first article- a mini-review of the Palm Pre.

I’ve always loved Palm, I loved my m505, I loved my Treos, but do I love the Pre? Well, yes and no. I love the feel of it in my hand, they were going for the pebble feel and have got that just right but the build quality leaves a lot to be desired! The slide mechanism wobbles from side to side and sometimes won’t open and the keypad area feels cheap and nasty. The track ball thingy is a complete waste of time (and has been removed on the latest “Plus” models) and the screen is plastic, not glass, so will scratch quite easily. I do keep picking it up and turning it over in my hand, (and the last phone that made me do that was a Motorola MPX200), so they must have got something right.

All the usual suspects are here, 3g, GPS, Wi-Fi, accelerometer, camera and 8GB of storage, one missing feature is a memory card slot, but so far that hasn’t bothered me as much as I thought it would. One nice touch is the internal memory can mount as a USB disk, I wish the iPhone could do that. I also love the Touchstone inductive charger, I know it’s not that hard to plug in a wire, but there is something futuristic about just plonking the Pre down and watching it start charging.

I love webOS. It’s as easy to use as an iPhone, five minutes tuition and anyone can use it, and it’s the only mobile OS I’ve seen that makes multitasking so obvious you don’t even notice it: to steal a phrase, “it just works”. The built in apps are about average and with the latest OS update you get video recording, bringing it up to par with the opposition. OS updates are handled nicely, with the phone telling you when one’s available OTA, but application updates have to be looked for. The app store isn’t a patch on Apples, but most of the stuff you need is there and there is a healthy homebrew community, which Palm seem to encourage, so you can find a lot of patches and apps there as well, really adding to the phones functions.

The integration with Google and Facebook (Palm call it Synergy) is quite good, enter you details and a few minutes later all your calendar and contacts information is on the phone. But it could go much further and if you’re not living in Google’s world things are not quite as easy. Getting media on the phone is a pain since Apple blocked the iTunes route, you pretty much have to drag and drop or dig out a third party solution but that’s really no different to everyone else except Apple.

On the whole I think the Pre is a winner, apart from one thing- price. For o2 to try and sell it at the same price as the iPhone is crazy. It maybe almost as good, but the Apple hype makes it a non starter; at that price no one will even notice it. Offer it at half the price or for 99 quid on pay as you go and it will sell loads.

So, on balance I do love the Pre, just not as much as my iPhone.

Motorola Milestone Review (part three)

Available from www.clove.co.uk for £398.33

OK, time for the final part of my Motorola Milestone review. This is a difficult phone to judge as a whole because it includes so many facets that the at times contradict with other. The slide-out keyboard should be an advantage, but it is so poor that I have found myself using the onscreen keyboard nine times out of ten and as such it is an unnecessary addition due to its design. This is a real shame because Android is a great OS in my opinion and the inclusion of a decent keyboard would greatly enhance its corporate potential and the user’s ability to manage PIM to the extreme.

There is little doubt that the Milestone is built very well indeed and that it is near the top of the pile when it comes to specification and that its provides a near flawless Android experience, but the looks are another detracting factor which will put many in Europe off. Ugly phones still seem to do well in the US and the looks are of little consequence to many users. I can’t work out if Americans simply look for the functionality and are not fooled by the looks of a phone or if some just have no taste. I suspect it is more the case that many people like me are just too shallow to get past the looks.

In my time with the Milestone it as proved to be highly practical; the battery is excellent, the screen works well almost everywhere and the voice quality is ‘just’ good enough for my needs. It is not perfect, but when I consider the needs of someone who wants practically, fun and the ability to tweak a smartphone until their fingers bleed this is a dream device. Is it worth the asking price? Oh yes. For all of my grumbles about the keyboard and the looks I can’t help but like the Milestone. It has shown me just how good Android can be and the potential of the OS is huge. Of course some of the apps available are a little shabby and there is a lot of junk out there, but this is a trait seen on the iPhone, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry and all other mobile operating systems.

The Milestone is one of the very best smartphones I have used to date, but I can’t help feeling that the Nexus One and next iPhone will push things forward once again and date it quite quickly. However, if you need a powerful smartphone that is fun and one which offers multiple data entry options, that you are prepared to get used to, look no further.

Motorola Milestone Review (part two)

Available from www.clove.co.uk for £398.33

I have spent more time playing with the Milestone so far than almost any other phone I have reviewed in the past year. It is a schizophrenic mix of oddly shaped hardware and an OS which keeps me coming back for more and as such I am struggling with my feelings towards this phone. I normally split my reviews into paragraphs looking at each feature of the phone and in this case it is very apt because there are some marked differences between each function which all come together to make a phone the like of which I have not seen before.

Screen

The screen is lovely to use and works well in all conditions, but it does seem to attract smudges very easily and within minutes a thin film of finger stuff was laying over the screen. I could eventually remove it, but if ever a phone needs a screen protector it is this one. The sensitivity is good and the WVGA resolution makes everything from the OS interface to video playback a pleasure, but not all third party apps have been scaled to cope with it yet. 8/10

Battery

The battery is not something I would have been expecting to be good, but it is very good. In my rather limited tests I have managed to get through two days with no need for charging and this includes constant push email, lots of Wi-Fi surfing and app downloading and some tests with the GPS system. In my experience it is much better than the iPhone 3G as a comparison and seemingly ahead of the HTC Hero. Impressive. 8/10

Data Input

The onscreen keyboard is much better than I expected and as easy to use as the iPhone setup. For someone like me that means it is not easy to use at all, but I am someone who will never get on with QWERTY touch screen keyboards because I need to do too much quick data entry during a standard day. Fortunately there is the slide-out hardware keyboard which could be so much better than it is. The strange placement, the horrible gold navigation button and the small flush keys make the typing experience slow and often inconvenient. It doesn’t always seem to fit the OS either and at times I was getting lost in data input fields. It is such a shame that the keyboard functionality appears to have taken second string to keeping the device slim. 6/10

Connectivity

All good here apart from the occasional lag on some web pages when the Milestone doesn’t quite seem to realise that it is using a 3G SIM card. The GPS antenna strength is very good and pickup was almost immediate when using it in MOTONAV or for GPS enabled apps. All in all, there is nothing missing here and I found most connectivity aspects, especially Wi-Fi, to work flawlessly. 8/10

Browsing

The web browsing experience is exceptional and despite some small issues with having to manually set the width of text it is probably the best mobile browser I have used to date. This is the first phone I have used which offers a sense of the real internet on a mobile phone. Compatibility with many web standards also makes it ideal for managing secure web services wherever you are. 9/10

Camera

The camera specs promise a lot of sort of deliver. I was pleased with the video capture quality outdoors, but inside they sometimes came out grainy with poor colour definition. It is a similar story for the stills camera, but it is possible to capture some exceptional shots if you have the time. Time is a factor because it is also not the quickest camera in the world either. 7/10

Entertainment

Music playback is very good and I was fairly impressed with the included headset, and this translated well to the mobile video experience. The navigation of music and video files could be better and downloading an app or two will help you out here. Ultimately it is the quality that counts and as such I have to rate it highly in this section. 8/10

Apps

Third party apps are the major battleground in the smartphone race at this time and Android is starting to encroach very slightly into Apples dominance in this area. Actually on second thoughts it isn’t, but my first few days with the Milestone suggests that the quality is improving all of the time and in the Android Market. I found many free apps and games of good enough quality to keep them installed and there are examples of games which rival the iPhone in quality. More time is needed here, but the potential is great looking forward. 8/10

Tomorrow I will finalise this review by looking at the remaining features, including the all important OS experience, and concluding my overall thoughts on the Milestone.

Motorola Milestone Review (part one)

Available from www.clove.co.uk for £398.33

Highlights-

Integrated sliding QWERTY keyboard
3.7 inch WVGA Display
Fast Internet access with rich content availability
5 Mega Pixel with 4 x digital zoom and image stabilization
AGPS with Motonavfind-products/phones/5530xpressmusicgamesedition

The Motorola Droid was proclaimed by many websites to be an iPhone killer when it was released in the US and seen as a return to form for Motorola who had not had any real successes since the RAZR mobile phone many, many years ago. For us in the UK the Milestone represents our chance to get in on the action and see for ourselves just how good this ‘wonder phone’ really is.

Hardware

Initial impressions are close to what I expected, but it is important not always judge a book by its cover. The problem here is that the cover is in my opinion opposed to what we expect a smartphone to look like in 2010. With the Nexus One, iPhone and Acer Liquid being examples of how full screen smartphones should look in 2010, the Milestone is verging on industrial in its design. It has sharp edges and a look that screams function more than anything else. I have no issue with phones that focus on function because that is of course most important, but there is no excuse not to lend some time to styling a device as well. I wouldn’t go as far as to call the Milestone ugly, but it isn’t far off and it reminds of the dark days of Fujitsu-Siemens and i-mate when their design departments seemed to be having holidays.

The Milestone is actually quite slim for a slide-out keyboarded unit and makes good use of the hardware features within. The 3.7” screen is delightful and compliments the Android interface well with just the lip of the keyboard sticking out at the bottom. I don’t understand why the back has to be longer than the front because the screen may as well have been made longer or the buttons below the screen larger- if anything it lacks uniformity especially when the keyboard is open. Below the screen are four flush buttons for return, menu, home and search and the obligatory camera and volume keys are well placed on the right-hand side. The on/off button on the top is awkward to use at best and its positioning right next to the 3.5mm audio jack could be better. The microUSB charging port is high up on the left which is a pet hate of mine- these things should be on the bottom edge.

Sliding out the keyboard reveals a setup which somehow managed to rival the Nokia N97 in its stupidity. The keys are tiny and flush with the casing and do not use the space afforded to them properly. Throw in the large navigation key to the right and you end up with a hardware keyboard that so far has proved very difficult for me to use. The positioning of the keys on the left, however, makes lots of sense and feels quite natural, but I will need more time with the phone before I conclude my keyboard thoughts.

Specifications

You can’t knock the specifications on this phone- HSDPA, AGPS, Wi-Fi, 5Mp camera with DVD quality video capture and a whole heap more means that you are getting a smartphone more than capable of coping with the relatively efficient Android OS. MOTONAV gives you turn-by-turn navigation out of the box and the rest of the software will take some time to cover, but that is far from a bad thing.

First impressions were not good, but second impressions suggest to me that the Milestone could be something special. There are aspects of this phone which I have not seen on any phone before and some of the features put every other smartphone on the market to shame. Come back tomorrow for part two which will explore these features in more depth.

The Samsung GT-B3410 is one of a number of new feature phones which include many functions you would normally expect to find only in a smartphone. The GT-B3410 can now be bought for under £80 unlocked with a pay as you go SIM card and the main features stand out for people like me who expect certain things in any phone-

A slide-out QWERTY keyboard, 2.6” TFT LCD touch screen, 2 Megapixel camera, MP3 / Voice recording, Built in instant messenger, Social networking out of the box, Email setup wizard.

Can an £80 phone really cut it as a smartphone? Well I have to say that the answer is yes if you are happy with more caveats than I have time to quote here. The B3410 is very easy to use and the touch screen is ultra responsive with the clever interface making you feel that you are using a phone which costs at least twice as much. The build quality is good and sliding out the keyboard produces an immediate change of orientation that makes some of the Windows Mobile devices feel sluggish in comparison. Sadly the keyboard is somewhat dowdy and doesn’t provide much feedback, but it is still better than most touch screen keyboards.

For size and form factor the B3410 feels almost perfect and offers a reassuring if slightly chunky feel in the hand. I have little doubt that it will survive that harshest of handbag and briefcase environments. The 3.5mm headphone jack shows that entertainment is high up on the list of priorities here and music and video playback are acceptable, if not of the level of most other devices. The microSD expansion does mean though that you can carry a large selection of music and videos with you whenever you like which is a bonus.

There is a lot of software included and the PIM side is usable at best. The notes application and calendar do the job quite well with the contacts app feeling more than a little clunky, but the inclusion of tasks, memos, a world clock, calculator and a converter will no doubt be all that the target market will want on a phone. Other apps are included with Google and Facebook being the most notable alongside an FM radio, voice recorder, communities (MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, Photobuscket and Picasa) and some trial Java games for good measure. Sadly you will be relying on Java apps for expansion, but again I suspect the target market will not need to download much (patronising I know).

The communication side is weak with no 3G or Wi-Fi and only EDGE support offers usable internet browsing. However, this phone is all about messaging and keeping in touch and for that you can easily get away with 2G so it will still suffice for what it really needs to do.

The B3410 is a basic phone which knocks on the door of the smartphone world, but ultimately provides a voice experience which is too weak to be classed as a serious contender. It feels slightly cheap and this goes against the great screen and usable keyboard which are the highlights here. It is a hugely likable device with a good battery though and will serve its purpose well. For £80 it is a demonstration of what is possible in 2009 / 2010 and I suspect we will see a feature phone which deserves the title ’smart’ before 2010 is over with.

The Acer Liquid A1 has surprised me in so many ways and is a complete departure from what Acer has made before. Acer has a habit of making competent phones which have advanced features and which somehow fail to inspire. The A1 is completely different and the screen makes Android come to life in more ways than I thought possible.

From the fashionably cool design through to the screen and the general speed of the unit I have struggled to find significant failures. The entertainment capabilities take it to a whole new level and make it a genuine competitor for the HD2 and iPhone. Indeed, it is sort of a marriage of the two- you get lots of expansion, a highly customisable OS and iPhone style entertainment.

The words ‘iPhone killer’ are far too often written, but in this case I would go as far as to say that the A1 is close. The voice quality is the main issue, but that is because I am seeing it on a unit which does almost everything else near perfectly.

The A1 is without doubt the best Android device I have used to date and the mixture of all of the parts (hardware, OS and software) make it better than the HD2 in my opinion, and even the iPhone. It truly is an excellent smartphone and much better than I ever expected. Acer is finally in the game.

Available from Clove for £328.90.

Over the past three days the Acer Liquid A1 has continued to impress in ways which I never expected. It manages to pull off the trick of being a reliable workhorse while offering some excitement which is rare these days. We tend to see devices which can do one or the other well, but rarely one that does both. The fact is that Android is a joy to use given the right hardware and Acer has managed to intensify the sensation by including a WVGA capacitive screen which looks fantastic indoors and which works well in bright conditions. When HTC invented Sense UI many of us felt that it would be needed to enhance Android use, but the Liquid A1 proves otherwise. Let’s look at the individual features-

General Performance 8/10

The speedy 768Mhz processor works alongside 512MB of ROM and 256MB of RAM and in my experience so far feels slightly quicker that the HTC Hero. Without all of the fancy pages that HTC offers there appears to be little room for areas where it will lock up and so far I have not experienced any slowness at all.

Screen 9/10

For completeness I will cover the screen again and this is without doubt the highlight of the device. It is as good as any I have seen to date and feels immediately responsive to touch. There is a slight quirk when inputting data in that you have to press slightly harder on the lower onscreen keys to register input. This is obviously because they are near the edge of the screen, but is something you will need to adjust to when you start typing- I am guessing a software fix could solve this.

Battery 8/10

Judging battery life over a few days is never easy because they tend to take time to bed in and produce optimum performance. However, I managed 2 hours of calls on the first day and some intensive Wi-Fi use with the battery dropping down to 60%- I am guessing that heavy users will need to charge every day, but this is not unusual for touch screen devices now. I will follow the battery rating up in a week or so.

Buttons 7/10

The hardware buttons are often overlooked when reviews are done of smartphones, but they are very important during day to day use. The side buttons are neatly positioned albeit preferable for left-handers and the virtual buttons below the screen are highly responsive. I am not a fan of virtual buttons, but I am growing to like these and thus they just about receive a thumbs up from me.

Entertainment 10/10

Music and video are now more important than ever before and you shouldn’t be making a smartphone with a 3.5” screen and then implement poor entertainment capability. Acer has jumped up to a new level with the A1 and produced a phone which easily rivals the iPhone in the quality of music and video playback. I have never seen this on any other phone before, but this one is a rival to the iPhone in this area and I could go as far as to say it is slightly better.

The inclusion of Spinlets brings a world of streamed music and video to the equation and is well implemented. You can also share your personal media with others at the click of a button. Playing music and video on the Liquid A1 is a beautiful experience. Now I have picked myself up off the floor I will move on with the rest of the review…

Web 9/10

The goodness keeps on coming with a web browser that is super quick and exceptionally easy to use. It is all too easy to compare to Safari running on an iPhone, but I will do so and proclaim it to be just as good. The lack of finger zoom is strange at first, but the way it handles pages and zooming actually has some advantages here- clicking the zoom (+) key will make the text bigger without ruining the layout of the page and I found it quick on almost every site I used. The web experience is second only to the entertainment side.

PIM 7/10

The PIM side is more important to me than almost any other which is why I use a BlackBerry every day. The calendar view is lovely and cleanly shows everything that is coming up and is one of the few that comes close to the simplistic visuals of the early Psion experience- adding new entries is not the easiest though and too many fields are required in my view.. Contacts is as you would expect- it looks nice and just about does what it needs to and is similar to the efforts on other operating systems such as iPhone and Windows Mobile. Tasks takes a similar line and offers basic management, but remember that there are many third party enhancements available so you have room to experiment.

Data Entry 6/10

You will never get a high rating for data entry from me unless it has a physical keyboard. The data entry setup on the Liquid is similar to the Hero and most other touch screen devices and landscape typing is supported throughout. Haptic feedback is included and suggested words so you will know what to expect. It’s as good as the rest and is usable, but my personal issues with onscreen keyboards leaves me airing on the negative side.

Voice 5/10

The voice quality is not good, especially the speakerphone which is not very loud and which breaks up when you attempt to crank it up to its loudess setting, which as I said is not very loud anyway.

It reminds me of the quality of some of the lesser Windows Mobile units and is the main drawback with the Liquid A1.

Camera 7/10

The 5MP camera with auto-focus is acceptably good and produces some decent snaps, but the process of taking pictures can be slow. This is not a camera that you can whip out of your picket, capture the moment and then carry on- it takes some effort to reproduce good quality snaps.

Video capture is better than I expected, but the sound appears to be limited to just those noises near to the phone. This camera setup reminds me of many others- works OK for most purposes, but could be better.

Tomorrow I will conclude my thoughts on the A1, but you can no doubt already tell how I feel about it.

Available from Clove for £328.90.

Available from Clove for £328.90

The HTC Hero and Motorola DROID have received much praise in recent months and are considered to be the best Android powered handsets on the market. They are indeed impressive, but the DROID does not have the best design in the world and the Hero has a slight quirk in its design which is not to everyone’s taste. However, they have proved to be tough competition for any new entrant into the Android smartphone world and it would take something special to compete with them, let alone beat them. Is the Acer Liquid A1 a worthy contender?

In the box

Acer Liquid A1, Battery (1350mAh), 2GB microSD Card, Screen Protector, Stereo Headset, Mains Charger (UK), Data Cable, Software CD, Quick Start Guide.

The box contents are not too bad with a screen protector thrown in as an extra. It would be nice to see this addition with more devices, particularly for large screened units like the HD2, and even though the quality of the protector is not the best in the world it is welcome. The 2GB microSD card is another bonus, albeit one that you will likely upgrade very quickly, and the rest of the kit is what you would expect from Acer- functional, but not mind blowing.

First Impressions

The very first impressions are surprising indeed. Gone is the standard Acer feel of fairly cheap plastic and boring design which has been replaced with a sleek shape created out of high quality materials which come together perfectly. It sort of feels like a slimmer Palm TX and although this version is in white (not a preference for me) the screen dominates everything about the look. Build quality also feels very good indeed and there are no moving parts to offer a sense of insecurity in use. It is all a bit slippery in the hand, but the white plastic means that fingerprints do not show up at all.

The buttons below the screen are completely flush, but do work well enough which lots of spacing around each to ensure accurate thumb pressing. The power key is on the left, not the best place for it, and on the right you have the volume keys and the camera shortcut key lower down. This setup is almost more suitable for left-handed people who would tend to hold the phone in the right-hand, but it is not a killer problem. The microUSB port is at the bottom and is protected by a swivelling rubber flap which is great for stopping dust getting, but slightly awkward when you are charging the phone.

I have to say that from a hardware perspective the Liquid A1 is a seriously smart piece of kit and one of the nicest smartphones I have held in my life. It looks fashionable in a way that is not obvious i.e. it is so cool that this kind of look has not been taken onboard by the majority of manufacturers yet. It is the kind of device that would look good in smarter establishments and not necessarily in an office. When the black one is available it will look great everywhere.

This is the first smartphone I have used that has the singular feel of the iPhone in that it really does feel like one slab of material that is honed together perfectly and I would go as far as to say that it has much more style. The use of plastic is a curiosity because some metal here would take it to a whole new level.

This is just a quick first look, but the Liquid immediately feels better than the HTC Hero in many ways. Tomorrow I will be looking at the OS and how well the phone copes with some serious use. It is looking much better than I expected so far.

Gavin waxed lyrical about his first two weeks with the HTC HD2 on Monday and so I thought I should write up my experiences with the BlackBerry Bold 9700 after a fortnight using it day in and day out. The devices could not be any different in terms of form factor, usability and software, but they ultimately perform similar tasks. The thing is that they do it in very different ways which is why the Bold suits my usage better.

The online technical press is largely besotted with the new touch screen devices hitting the market and the iPhone and HD2 have garnered millions of words discussing every facet of the devices and related software, and users are also highly enthusiastic about this new type of smartphone. This is great for the industry and bodes well for the future, but all of this attention ignores the quiet revolution which is happening in the background. To say it is happening in the background is of course wrong, but you would believe that to be true the moment you hit the smartphone web.

There is a myth that the BlackBerry market share is only large because businesses buy them for their employees. Historically that was true, but over the past 18 months more and more consumers are buying BlackBerry’s to manage their personal lives and to communicate with others. I know five people at work who own personal BlackBerry’s and only two who own iPhones- when I ask what they think of them they are more than enthusiastic about the experience. Every one of them owns a Curve 8520 which I guess is down to the price, but it doesn’t change the fact that they are carrying BlackBerry’s.

When I ask people who work for the network operators the general response is that they are asked about BlackBerry phones more than any other. I did a very small poll around my local phone shops and I received the same response at O2, Vodafone and T-Mobile. These are not business users buying them; they are normal people off the street who want to communicate with their friends via Twitter, Facebook and the like. Big screens are great, but it seems that there are many people who feel like me and prefer the keyboard, long battery life and no nonsense approach of the BlackBerry platform. It may not be exciting, it may not turn heads, but it works and this is what traditional feature phones users want above all else.

Anyway, time to talk about the Bold. Over the past two weeks I have just used the Bold as I did my previous BlackBerry’s, but with one crucial difference. I am not worrying about the trackball, I am not worrying about a lack of memory and I can just get on with what I need to do. Work has been tremendously stressful of late and the BlackBerry has taken a back seat in terms of the attention it gets, yet it is at the forefront of what I need to do each day. Constant calendar changes, urgent email responses and countless calls are just part of the day and all of these functions are what the Bold is best at. Battery life is never a concern, voice quality is always good in the car, on a conference call in a meeting room or anywhere else and the stability has been 100%.

The Bold 9700 has nothing missing in terms of practicality and is an example of how a smartphone should be built for those who just want to get on and do things. Entertainment is not too bad either with good quality audio and exceptional video playback. However, I still use the iPhone for videos because of the larger screen. The camera is way better than previous BlackBerry efforts and ideal for capturing special moments such as when my son, Tom, got a player of the match award at a recent football match. Sharing photos and videos is also extremely easy by pressing the menu and then choosing the desired platform.

It is ironic that I have little to say about the Bold 9700 and yet at the same time rate it so highly. I am not going to get all emotional about it and proclaim it to be the best phone ever, but will gladly say that it is the best smartphone I have used to date and the first one that ticks almost every box for my needs.

The Samsung Omnia Pro B7330 Pro Scala has lived up to its early potential for me over the past few days and proved to be a workhorse capable of undertaking multiple tasks when it needs to and doing so with just enough power and practicality to make it a worthwhile investment. The main competitor to the B7330 is the HTC Snap and an identical price point, this makes the decision hard. At the end of the conclusion I will try to see which of these two just edges past the other, but first we will look at each feature of the B7330-

Keyboard- the keyboard is one of the better front facing QWERTY efforts on the market and after some familiarisation time it feels quite natural to use. It is not at the BlackBerry Bold level, but in my view is better than the Palm Pre and HP variants.

Screen- it works well in all conditions and is an above average effort. The size suits the design of the phone which is not always the case and it is capable of displaying ‘just’ enough data at one time to make it is usable business device for document handling etc. This is not a criticism of this phone, but I would like to see more touch screen phones with front facing keyboards hit the market. It would offer the best of both worlds and offer much more flexibility than is currently on offer. We tend to either have keyboard or touch and not a lot in between unless you include sliding keyboards from behind the screen.

General Performance- the capacious memory bodes well for storage, but it has been difficult to find exactly where that memory is. When I check the memory info tab I get 168MB of RAM and 306MB of storage. I will double check the specs because I can see it listed, but not happening in real life. The processor is listed as an ARM1136EJS which also means little to me although I ‘think’ it runs at 528Mhz. This sounds good for Windows Mobile Standard and I would say that it just about copes with everything that is thrown at it. In a time where 1Ghz processors are capable of doing more than what is possible now we come to expect blistering performance all of the time, but the B7330 is fast without being blisteringly quick.

Connectivity- no problems here. Everything a business user needs is included and I found all aspects from the GPS to the Wi-Fi to perform as needed. For a device this small to include HSDPA at 7.2 Mbps in quad band configuration is special on its own, but the next bit makes the inclusion even better.

Battery- the 1500mAh battery does a great job of powering this phone through the most demanding of tasks and I still haven’t charged it. The first two days it was left alone due to work commitments, but I still came back to a 90% charge and seemingly almost everything else I have done with it has not made a big dent. It’s hard to tell, but I would put it close to the Bold 9700 in terms of battery performance and that is very impressive for a device running a more demanding operating system.

Media- this phone is not targeted at media functions specifically, but care has been taken to produce a passable music, photo and video experience. The lack of a 3.5mm headphone jack says a lot on any phone and it is true that most users of a 2.6” screened phone are not looking for media as a priority, but I found the music quality to be passable although not at the level of most of the competition and video playback is also good for playing back quick clips. I’m not convinced you will be wanting to watch full length movies on it, but then most would not expect to.

Voice- call quality is very good and I had no signal issues at all. I can’t say that about many Windows Mobile devices, but Samsung has definitely managed to create a smartphone that handles the voice side very well indeed. The keyboard is extremely useful for voice calling and finding contacts quickly and it is not that far off the later Blackberry phones in this area.

Software- Windows Mobile Standard is showing its age a little, but the recent update to 6.5 has done more for this version than the Professional offering in my view. The interface is slick and everything moves around swiftly. You still have to deal with lists or icons to get to apps, but there is more than a feeling of HTC in this device. Don’t tell Samsung I said that.

Conclusion- the B7330 is a superb phone in many areas and because of this it builds into a complete unit which is capable of being used for a variety of tasks. It does not attempt to stun you with fancy gimmicks and a fashionable design, it has no pretentions of burying the Windows Mobile OS beneath layers of graphics and because of this you end up with a seriously capable phone which is much, much better than I ever expected. Is it better than the HTC Snap? I would say it is, but the design of the Snap is better and the Inner Circle feature is exceptional. There is little to choose between them. But I would go for the B7330.

Available from Clove for £270.25.

I have now had the HTC HD2 a whole 2 weeks and this has enabled me to get to really appreciate the real HD2.

Naturally, I have been able to tweak it a little courtesy of the some smart people at XDA Developers. However, I strongly believe the HD2 is greater than most people realise. It is real life experience that matters so here goes my view.

The secret HD2- Beneath the surface are specifications not printed. We all know it has a massive 4.3 inch screen and a 1ghz snapdragon processor, and other to die for specs. These specs do create a monster of a device, but in real life there are other aspects that make the HD2 even better. Firstly, the radio strength is incredible. I live in a very rural location. The HD2 is the first phone to hold a permanent signal throughout the house. Even better in nearby Tavistock, renowned for zero signal in places, I had a full 3g signal whilst waiting for my Chinese Takeaway- impressive. I have found the call quality to be very good too.

So what is the next secret? The GPS signal strength. Once again, using Copilot 8, it has been faultless without losing the signal no matter where I have been in Devon and Cornwall. Some of these places are really remote! To put in perspective, the HTC Hero with Copilot 8 would lose GPS signal in places- the HD2 locks blistering quickly too.

The next secret is audio quality. As I am typing this I have my Sennheiser HD 415’s plugged into the HD2 enjoying Leon Lewis “Echo”. The audio quality is very good. I have not used my iPod Touch 2g since I have had the HD2!

The last advantage I find is the keyboard. In portrait mode I can use two fingers and it is just like having a thumb keyboard. I find typing speeds just as nimble as a physical keyboard.

HTC Sense- having used a number of Windows Mobile devices, the first thing I had to start getting used to was not to use it like any previous WM phones because it is different, very different. The rule is “don’t” leave the today screen. Use HTC Sense to operate everything and once you start doing this everything just happens. I use every tab in HTC Sense with no problems. I use MS MyPhone to sync everything now (bookmarks, texts, calendar, tasks, contacts, photos, videos etc).

Apps- I have added Coreplayer, so now I can watch any file type, Resco File Explorer, Wunderradio, Shazam, eReader, PocketClock Pro, and MyPlayer. For everything else I use the default apps; Opera, YouTube, Peep, etc.

Games- I have used Marketplace to buy apps on my HD2 and it works well. I do wish the UK catalogue was not as restricted as the US version and that we could change the default storage location to the card. Apart from Teeter, I have added Asphalt 4, Panoramic Blackjack, Bejeweled 2, Resco Sudoku Touch, Resco Brain Games 2009, Prince of Persia, Bookworm, Resco Bubbles, Astraware Casino, Experiment 13, Astraware Solitaire, Jackpot Casino, Yacht, Sherlock Holmes, Xtrakt, Sonic Unleashed, Pac-Man, Jewel Quest HD, The Sims 3, Meon and Uno. All these games look great on the HD2.

Tweaks- Me being me, I always like to tweak any new phone and I must admit that I have added a few courtesy of XDA Devs, but not that many. I have a dedicated Wi-Fi Toggle app, 9 opera tabs instead of 3, Camera as the left soft key on Home Tab instead of phone and a few other minor tweaks.

Issues- the HD2 is new and there are a few niggles. On a white wall, the 5mp camera creates a pinkish blob. HTC will have a hot fix out over the next few weeks to correct this. What has been bizarre is that in tests nearly all 5mp camera phones have “pink” effects. HTC’s Twitter app Peep doesn’t always update according to the user update frequency. Some apps don’t auto rotate and would benefit from being viewed in landscape e.g. excel. There is a registry setting to get around this, but it would be great if there was another settings option for this.

The Experience in use is so satisfying. Cover flow on music with album art retrieval option, albums show photos effortlessly, animated weather, HTC settings get rid of the old windows stuff and speed- no slowdowns, and a happy user.

Without fail, every person who has seen this wants one, including the Apple employees in the Apple store. Would I recommend it? You bet. In a short while all of the niggles will be gone and the device will just go from strength to strength. I joked I would keep this device 2 years, that’s 1 year 9 months longer than my normal duration, but in all honesty, I probably will!

Review by Gavin Fabiani-Laymond.

Samsung Omnia Pro B7330 Pro Scala Review: Hardware

Available from Clove for £270.25.

Features of Samsung Omnia Pro B7330 Pro Scala

Windows Mobile 6.5
QWERTY Keyboard
6GB on board Memory
WiFi
Bluetooth
HSPA
A-GPS
3.2 Megapixel Camera
FM Radio
Lightweight at just 109g

What’s in the box of Samsung Omnia Pro B7330 Pro Scala?

Samsung Omnia Pro B7330
Battery (1500mAh)
UK AC Adapter
Micro USB Cable
Stereo Headset
Documentation
Getting Started Disc

The Samsung Omnia Pro B7330 Pro Scala, I will just call it the B7330 from now on, is a new hardware keyboarded Windows Mobile Standard phone which follows the path blazed by the HTC Snap and others of this form. This is a form factor loved by millions across the globe and one which will grab few headlines, yet will appeal for a large sector of the smartphone market.

It is a solid unit which feels well built and which has a slab like feel, but without the weight. At only 109 grams it is very light and feels just right in the hand. It is like a BlackBerry Bold 9700, but slightly longer and with a square screen and this is where its appeal may lie. Those who prefer this form factor, but want to steer away from the BlackBerry OS will turn to this in the hope that it offers an experience which is flexible and powerful in one small unit. Specifications wise the list if impressive with 6GB of memory, HSPA, Windows Mobile 6.5 Standard, Wi-Fi, A-GPS and a 3.2 Megapixel camera the highlights in a fairly complete setup. There is a lot in a small space on the B7330 and you won’t be found wanting for flexibility.

Despite the good build quality the covering is plastic and has an air of the Treo Pro about it. Of course it is much slimmer and the keyboard is better, but a different covering would be less prone to fingerprints and may offer a more professional feel to the unit. The keyboard is good, but not great with most keys placed as you would wish. The placements are correct, but somehow don’t feel quite right when you first use them. However, within a few minutes I was typing away quite easily and would rate it as one of the best next to the BlackBerry devices.

The main navigation button sticks out markedly on the front and dominates the design. It works very well and suits thumb use perfectly, but is in contrast to the rest of the look on the front. It could be more subtle. The volume keys are top left, sensible placement, and also on the left is the sync/charge port which is also the headphone socket. Sadly no 3.5mm headphone jack, but the port is standard which enables lots of accessories to be compatible in the future. On the right-hand side is the camera button and microSD slot which is neatly covered for extra protection. All in all the hardware and design on the B7330 are a triumph, but one that will appeal to the type of user who is looking for functionality rather than excitement.

My initial impressions of performance are positive with only the occasional lag present when performing multiple tasks. I need to look into the processor specs more, but it seems to be just about up to the job and the inclusion of 6GB of internal memory is a bonus not often seen in smartphones of this type. Throw in a 32GB microSD card and you will have all the space you need for documents, music, video etc. etc.

The screen is bright and capacious for a smartphone of this form and this should be expected when you consider the lack of touch functionality. The 320 x 320 display is non-standard and won’t be compatible with all third party apps, but a good number do support this resolution so you should not be left out in the cold for extra software.

On Monday I will be looking at the general performance and the way it performs during the busiest of days. The potential is there, but will it succeed and be worth the asking price?

The hardware of the Nokia N97 mini passed with flying colours (see yesterday’s review) and it is difficult to fault in every area, apart from the quirky keyboard layout which takes some time to get used to. Today I am going to look at the OS and the included software and see how it compares to the other mobile platforms and to see how much it has been improved with the recent software updates from Nokia.

The updates have greatly improved the feel of the OS and the scrolling and general navigation is much improved. However, there are still too many schizophrenic areas where one tap seems to be required followed by two taps and it gets a little confusing very quickly. For example, you can scroll throw the app screen by moving your finger up and down in the main screen. Do the same in the messaging app when trying to read a long email and it will just select text- you have to use the scroll bar here which is not good for a right hander because your thumb blocks the text. Throw in a selection of confusing layers with so many apps and settings listed that you soon start to feel overwhelmed by what is on offer. It feels like an old fashioned OS which looks modern, if that makes sense.

The quirks do not stop at the OS though- I set up my MS Exchange account and was naturally asked to input a password. The problem is that no matter how hard I tried it wanted a password consisting of numbers and letters. I struggled with this, especially without opening the hardware keyboard, and found the whole process to be less than intuitive. The oddities continue with the calendar which ‘still’ doesn’t include the ability to set a default alarm time for new entries and the default onscreen keyboard in apps like contacts which offers a QWERTY keyboard over 2 screens; A-J on the first screen, click and arrow to go to K-Z. It is all quite bizarre.

Nokia has done some work on the overall interface, but completely forgot about the real features behind the icons and left us with a software experience which feels unfinished and which is simply not up to scratch in 2009. It is hard to fault the capability and the quality of the media playback and camera performance, but it needs to be wrapped up in a much neater solution than what is on offer here.

All of the above sounds remarkably negative and it is deserved in my opinion, but that is because I do not feel that I should have to spend time fiddling with an OS to set it up and I don’t want a learning curve to climb. In a world where every other OS is fairly intuitive Symbian stands out as an OS which requires the user to do too much in the first few days.

The problem is that if you do persevere and spend some time learning the OS quirks you will end up using a super stable operating system which is gentle on battery life alongside hardware which provides a superior voice experience and a feeling of reassurance that it will get you through the heaviest of days. I have spent 80% of this review dissing Symbian, but have to acknowledge that the entire package is still one that will perform for the individual who needs good media, great voice capabilities and a hardware solution which can take almost anything that is thrown at it. I am not a huge fan of Symbian, but I can’t help but still feel positive about the whole package.

If you are considering this against the N97 I would say to go for the mini. You lose little screen size, but gain more program memory and there are a bunch of small improvements which mean that it will work for you longer term than its bigger brother.

Available from Clove for £412.85.

Nokia N97 mini review: Hardware

Available from Clove for £412.85

Main features- 3.2″ tilting touch screen display, 8GB internal memory, 3.5mm audio jack, 5 megapixel camera, TV Out, 3G/HSPA, MicroSDHC card slot.

In the box- Nokia N97 mini mobile computer, Nokia Battery (BL-4D), Nokia High-Efficiency Charger (AC-10), Nokia Connectivity Cable (CA-101), Nokia Music Headset (WH-701), User Guide, Ovi Suite DVD 1.1

The original Nokia N97 wasn’t exactly large by smartphone standards, but with Nokia targeting a non smartphone audience it was seen by many as a bit of a brick. The main problem with the N97 at launch was the software which felt unfinished and there were many aspects that made it difficult for the user to get familiar with the phone. Nokia learnt from this and improved the software, and these improvements have been carried forward to the N97 mini. Everything is here that is in the original, and the only concession is that there is 8GB of memory onboard as opposed to 32MB on the N97. The inclusion of an expansion slot does mean that there will be enough memory options for almost every user though.

The packaging is very professional and you get the usual charger and sync cable plus, wait for it, a decent pair of headphones! This is the first set I have seen from Nokia which you will be happy to use for music playback and it’s great to see Nokia finally listen. However, for a phone which costs over £400 and which supports TV-out it would be nice to see a TV-out cable in the box. These cables are not overly expensive these days, but I am sure than many would appreciated seeing one included.

The phone itself is very slim and looks more like a Nokia 5800 than anything else when you first see it. It feels very solid and there is little indication that a slide-out keyboard is hidden beneath the screen. It is a touch on the weighty side at 150 grams, but it is a reassuring weight which is likely derived from the good quality materials that have been used. It is hard to explain how well this phone is built, but every aspect from the housing to the buttons gives an impression of superior quality and this is without doubt one of the best built phones I have ever used.

The buttons are as you would expect; lock key on the left, volume and camera keys on the right, on/off key on the top (also used for profile switching) alongside a 3.5mm headphone jack and a microUSB sync charge port top left which is not the best position for it.

The keyboard slide mechanism is superb and flips the screen immediately. There is again a real sense of solidity even when it is open and the shallower screen again (than the original N97) works very well. The keyboard is a bone of contention for many and I totally understand why; the space bar is to the right, the return key is where you would expect the delete key to be and everything feels somewhat misplaced. You do get used to it quite quickly, but it is a major shift away from the standard layout you may be used to on other phones, and is in my opinion an unnecessary shift because it adds little to the overall speed of typing. The keys are flush, but have just enough pronouncement and travel to provide a satisfactory typing experience and overall I would rate the keyboard as suitable for general typing, but a missed opportunity because we could have had so much better.

It is hard not to like the N97 mini from a hardware perspective and everything from the 3.5″ bright screen to the buttons make it feel top of the range. Nokia has done well on the hardware and so all you need to do now is come back tomorrow to see what the software is like.