mobile phone reviews

Mobile phone for Visually Impaired people

To make telephony easier for the visually challenged people, Intex Technologies has launched a Braille phone.  Called Intex Vision (In 2020 Vision), this dual Sim phone has a large Braille keypad for easy dialing. Also for those visually challenged people who do not understand Braille, the phones come with a voice Dial+ Speaking sound. What this second feature effectively does is like a Talking keypad, as the user dials the key, the key is voiced.

Phone highlights:

• Braille key pad with big fonts
• Voice Dial + speaking sound
• Display is Braille supported
• Hearing Aid earphone
• Wireless FM Radio + Audio player
• Dual Sim
• Expandable memory upto 2 GB
• Emergency SMS key

This candy bar shaped phone is very practical to use for the targeted group and thoughtfully made for their special needs. The nine numbers are single dial keys for easier dialing and also have the feature to voice the number pressed.  Also the display screen is Braille supported. By touching the screen, the user can read the SMS.

The phone comes with a inbuilt SOS key in the back panel.  During any emergency situation, the user can press the key, and an SMS automatically goes to 4 numbers that the user has preset.

The phone claims a talk time upto 3 hours and a standby time upto 460 hours.

The phone is priced at Rs.2, 600. For the members of the National Association for the Blind, the phone is available at a discounted price of Rs. 1,800.

Samsung Galaxy Pro – review

My wife loves to text, dig into social networking and check mails and laze in IM and she is fascinated by Android but touch screen is not her comfort pad. There are many like her who loves to explore the best of Android experience but enjoy the best of QWERTY and Touch screen together.  Samsung has extended its Galaxy series to cater to that segment with its new offering Galaxy Pro.

So like always let’s see the vital stats first.

The vital stats:

• Capacitive touch screen and QWERTY packed together.
• Candy bar shape
• 320 x 240 screen resolution
• Screen size : 2.8 inches
• Processor 800 MHz
• Memory: 160 MB internal memory + microSD card expandable up to 32 GB
• Android Froyo 2.2
• 3 MP auto focus camera
• 3G connectivity and includes wireless connectivity features in the form of Wi-Fi , microUSB v2.0, Bluetooth v2.1
• Multi format Music player with DNSe sound enhancement and 3.5 mm jack, Wi-Fi access, FM radio.
• 7 customizable home screens
• Swype text input method

What it looks like and feels like?

If you think the candy bar look with a QWERTY experience is more Blackberry curve type, the first look would disapprove. The Blackberry curve had a smooth curvy and more compact to palms feel while Pro is wider and might look bit awkward too for many. Infact my friend joked it reminded him of good old calculator shape. He might be far stretched but you cannot rub aside the thought. Nevertheless, the QWERTY pad is a delight to key and practical. The 2.8 inch capacitive touch screen occupies the rest of the space  and with its latest version of Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface it is smooth and quiet responsive like you find in the other Galaxy models like Fit, Ace etc.

• The volume control  is on the left panel
• The power button could be found in the right panel
• The 3.5 mm audio jack sits on top along with the Micro USB slot.

The back panel has a textured pattern that gives you a good hand grip. The body is mostly plastic with a dash of chrome finish, while the grey and black color gives a pleasant look.

Galaxy Pro is powered by 800 MHz processor which is identical to that powers the other popular model from Galaxy series, Ace.  For most smart phone users, this is pretty good while running facebook, twitter and IM all together along with the push mail service. If you are a serious gamer, you will find the performance bit lagging though Pro could handle most of the available game in the market decently well. With the Android market with tons of free apps and also Samsung apps to dig upon, you have lots to fiddle around with Pro in hand. 7 home screens in the phone is a happy play ground to pack widgets. Samsung has pre-loaded some of its own widgets to kick start the usage.

Pro comes along with the now standard Samsung smart phone fixture, Social Hub Premium. What it means for you is a seamless access to all your social networking messages in one single access be it from facebook, twitter or mails from multiple accounts also you can directly view all communications for a contact in the phonebook itself.

The 3MP camera is nothing great to boast about.  It can click ordinary pictures with ordinary results but if you are just concerned about clicking random pictures and not very quality conscious, you could live with this.

Pro scores well with its QWERTY key pad, the keys are big and easy to type. Rightly spaced, you don’t fumble between characters.  But you might have to compromise a bit with the 2.8 screen size and envy those big screen monsters flooding the market.  But then remember the phone is targeted at a small segment of users who would prefer the best of touch and QWERTY. So browsing experience might not be the best in the small screen and the 320 x 240 screen resolution does not help either.

Ginger Chai verdict: Galaxy Pro retails at sub 10 K and at this price it provides the best of Touch screen and QWERTY key pad. Ofcourse you can find better models at this price range but considering the target group it is aimed at and the lack of much competition in this candy bar QWERTY key pad with touch screen model, Samsung Pro is definitely a model worth a buy for those buyers.

Samsung Champ – A pocket friendly touchscreen phone

As touch screens are becoming a mainstay, the price barrier has been crashed and we have touch screen phones at very affordable prices. So if you want a stylish phone with touch screen, owning it is lighter on your pocket now. Let’s look at Samsung Champ C3303 , the musicgiri phone.

Samsung has been aggressively flooding the market with plethora of products to suit different needs, technology and budgets. With Samsung Champ it aims to attract the budget conscious buyer looking out for a stylish touch screen and music experience.

The USP of the phone apart from the affordable stylish touch screen is that it is a music phone with sound-alive 3D effect which delivers wide, dynamic & surround mode music (only with earphones) and  with a dual loudspeakers.

Samsung Champ is small, cute with a shiny chassis that the company claims to be similar to premium crystal design chassis found in high-end Samsung TV’s. It comes in 5 colors – Black, White, Wine red, Espresso brown and Pink.

The Champ sports Samsung’s Cartoon UI, coupled with the TouchWiz Lite 2.0, it allows seamless menu navigation. For the price range, the touch screen was quiet impressive and responsive. Touchwiz Lite 2.0 interface allows easy and fast navigation.

Another selling point of the phone is its music capabilities. The phone comes with an internal FM receiver with a built in antenna and supports FM with recording. So goodbye to ear set plugin to listen FM. The phone also comes with 3.5 mm audio jack so listening music is more pleasurable now. With an expandable memory up to 8 GB with microSD card you have more than enough space to store all your favorite songs. The box comes with a 1 Gb memory card. It supports MPEG4 video format.

With more and more people looking for social networking features, C3303 also supports it with direct access to 7 Social Networking Sites including Facebook, MySpace, Photobucket, Flickr, Twitter and Picassa. You can also download free apps from the Samsung Apps store.

C3303 sports a 2.4” TFT screen which might be marginally smaller when compared to the bigger cousins in the market but then don’t forget it is an entry level touch screen phone. The 2.4” screen comes with a handy stylus pen. It has a VGA camera which supports video recording. Though of course some of you might be let down by the 1.3 megapixel camera.

The C3303 Champ comes with a customisable home screen which supports up to 7 pages enabling you to highlight the most frequently used widgets for easy access. The handset supports connectivity via Bluetooth 2.1(A2DP) and microUSB.

GingerChai Verdict: At the selling price of Rs.4099 and with an overall good, decent functions and performance, champ is a champion at this price range.

Nokia N97 Mini – Review

Bigger is better but when it comes to Nokia N97 Mini smaller looks even better. Yes agreed that the mobile screens are getting bigger and bigger but mini manages to catch your eyeballs amidst a crowd of fat screens thanks to neat packaging.

Let’s fiddle further and check the good, bad and ugly of the mobile phone.

Many good things in life come in small size. This is what Nokia planned in mind to counter its rivals like Sony who are making the eyeballs wide with large screens like we see in Xperia model. When Nokia launched the communicator series years back it was love at first sight for me. I simply adored the look and feel of the phone and the keyboard that gave me a feel of a laptop in my packet. Nokia mini brought back the memories when I first glanced it.

When compared to the original N97, the mini is marginally smaller shedding a little bit of flab but not drastically. At 3.2 inch the screen is just .3 inch less than the elder brother. So don’t mistake it to be a real dwarf.

The slide-out full QWERTY keyboard with a tilting screen sits pretty and the key pad spacing gives you confidence at first look and proves its mettle when you key in. One disadvantage of the earlier communicator series was the slide-out keyboard which hanged on a thin strip with the screen. It caused serious problems more than often but the N97 mini like its sibling is attached more strongly with a thick molded attaching piece.

The vital stats:

• 8 GB internal flash memory
• Symbian S60 5th Edition platform
• It supports High speed HSDPA mobile data. So it handles 3G and also GPRS/EDGE.
• Bluetooth & Wi-Fi connectivity as well as a TV out.
• Armed with a 5 mega pixel camera with a Carl-Zeiss optics
• 3.2 inch wide resistive touch screen with 640 * 360 pixels , 16.7 million colors
• Weighs 138 gm
• Slide-out full QWERTY with 38 keys
• Free GPS navigation.

Nokia brands N97 mini as an all-in-one phone for your social networking needs as well as business purpose combined with rich multimedia features. Well but it does has a tough competition but still manages well in many fronts.

Don’t expect the feather touch response that you have felt in Iphone. The mini like most other normal touchscreens uses receptive technology which is decent enough and way better than the ones Nokia packed in Xpress music series. But the average touchscreen is compensated by a superb key pad. The key pad is very user friendly and feels nice on the fingers. If you are a heavy metal texting guy you will love the handy keypad, even otherwise a touchscreen freak will enjoy the big touch text screen it comes with.

Mini comes with an 8GB built-in memory which is expandable upto 16 GB which is half of some of the competitor’s 32 GB but still more than enough for most users. Nokia has stripped down the lens cover from the 5 mega pixel camera. Clicking a picture is quiet easy thanks to the side camera button and a simple neat interface. The images are good enough for the camera phone of its kind and uploading the pictures to internet is quiet an easy task.

Due to the tilted screen when the keyboard is out, watching a movie or video is great when the mobile is kept on a desktop or on your lap.  Rest of the video and audio capabilities follows the familiar Nokia standards. The audio quality is good and the mini handles FM radios too.

Like most other recent phones, you can personalize the home page with widgets that are easy to navigate and comes bundled with preset widgets like Facebook and Youtube.

When it comes to business usage, if you don’t want pay monthly blackberry bill, Nokia will make your happy with its messaging service and e-mail client that comes free of cost.  Not just that, Nokia also offers free GPS navigation along with the handset. You can view all kind of attachments – doc, .xls, .ppt, .pdf and handles PC applications like Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, Lotus Organizer, Lotus Notes. With OVI services, you have access to a wide range of applications, games, wallpapers and themes and other features of OVI stores.

With the advent of Android and Iphone OS, the Symbian S60 even at its 5th edition seems aged to handle the demands of a touch screen smart phone. So web browsing is a little disappointment if you have hit upon Android or Iphone OS already. Still the browser delivers full web pages pretty quick and efficiently.

Nokia claims a battery back up of 7 hours talk time and a standby of 320 hours. 28 hours of music playback time and 3.5 hours video playback this is not very impressive but decently good enough for its kind.

GingerChai Verdict: So will I buy this phone? I loved the design, the look and feel of the phone. More importantly, I liked the key pad and the slide-out functionality. The multimedia features of the phone are quiet impressive. Since am not a corporate honcho, I will sacrifice the easiness of Blackberry and would prefer the free email client and messaging service that Nokia offers. At a price of around 19.5 K as on date, I might be tempted to forgive the S60 5th edition OS and pocket the mini.