When one of my friends was looking for a cheap smartphone, I was suggested Motorola Q9h by a another friend who is a Motorola distributor. When I was told its 9000 Rs/- (180$) for a brand new phone I was surprised and when I played with it I was impressed by it feature set and its BANG for your BUCK specs.
- It is made up of black plastic very solid in construction looking more like a old age blackberry with its full qwerty keypad and 2.4″ TFT 320 x 240 landscape screen.
- Even though its not as slim as the previously reviewed E71 (mind you its double the rate of Q9), its qwerty keypad is much bigger and easier to use.
- Inside the hood is a 325 Mhz processor with 96 MB RAM, 128 MB ROM powering up Windows Mobile 6 professional edition.
- The call quality and signal reception was good and along with a full featured address book and sms capability making it a capable regular mobile phone
- A smartphone must haves like Office document viewer, EMail capability, HTML Opera browser are all there.
- The phone wasn’t slow like the Asus P320 but some windows bugs did creep up while using it.
- Multimedia wise a capable 2 MP AF camera with video recording, Audio / Video playback with stereo speakers and micro sd card slot makes it a portable multimedia player.
- Connectivity wise USB, Bluetooth, GPRS, 3G, HSDPA are present for local and internet connectivity. Wireless LAN would have been a ‘icing on the cake’ ..pity it isnt there (sigh)
- What made it a BANG for your BUCK is the accessories provided like Micro USB charger, Mini USB charger, Extended travel battery, 1 GB card, Pouch, Headset, USB cable making it one of the most crowded mobile phone boxes I’ve even seen
written by Vignesh
\\ tags: Motorola, q9h, windows mobile, windows smartphone
When one of my friends asked me to suggest a entry level windows smartphone , I suggested HTC Touch Viva or HTC Touch, mainly because of their internal memory being 128 MB RAM & 256 MB ROM so that the phone isn’t as laggy as the Asus P320 which I have posted about earlier. And he bought a HTC Touch (Model No.: P3452) , I got to play with it here are some points I took from it,
- Its very handy (measuring 99 x 58 x 13.9 mm & weighing 112g) and the matte finish makes it look extra smart.
- The Home Screen customized by HTC touch flo interface was a nice ‘Touch’ making the phone easier to use hiding the clutter of windows mobile 6.0
- When I read a spec that it had 3 speakers and I didn’t see it on the phone I thought its music qualities would be iffy…BUT when I played a song through the headphones it was rocking.
- The 2.8″ 240 x 320 TFT screen was nice and crisp
- The network reception and sound quality was good so making it a Nice phone to start with
- The 2.0 Mpx camera was OK, should suffice for the occasional snaps
- Office stuff like EMail, Office Suite, PDF reader are all standard and works well
- Connectivity wise GPRS/EDGE, Wireless LAN, Bluetooth, USB should be enough in India
- Even though the Touch Flo interface is good in some parts I wasn’t able to use the finger swipes to work for me
- A FM radio would have been nice
- The mini usb jack must be used for connectivity, charging and for the headphones making it quite cumbersome. A dedicated 3.5 mm audio jack would have been nice
- Priced at Rs. 15,750/- (310$) with 1 additional stylus, 1 GB micro SD card, pouch, screen protector, stereo earphones, mini-usb cable its 2000 rs costlier than HTC touch viva. Basically both are same minus the exterior looks.
So those who want to step into the world of windows mobile can try either the Touch or Viva….
written by Vignesh
\\ tags: htc touch, windows mobile, windows smartphone
Its been a while I got my hands on my friend’s Asus P320, supposed to be a stylish smartphone first but also one of the cheapest windows smartphones (retailing around 10,500/- rs or 210 $) available in the market probably the other cheaper winmo phone out there is HTC P3400. Here are some of my observations on this phone & some of my friends own views on it,
- I was amazed by its size & weight (99 x 55 x 13 mm @ 105g), it was in someways seemed smaller than my non smartphone and quite stylish to say. But it doesnt have that kind of premium finish but at this price its quite good
- The 2.6″ 240 x 320 TFT screen was nice and the windows mobile 6.1 pro was customized with asus’s own launcher which displayed some useful info on the homescreen
- The main negative of this phone is its processing power , armed with 128MB ROM and 64MB RAM & TI OMAP 850 (201MHz) processor, its slow and according to my friend it sometimes wont allow you to multitask saying that there is no memory
- Connectivity wise its very good, like GPRS / EDGE, WiFi, Bluetooth , USB makes it worthy of a road warrior atleast in India where there is no 3G yet
- The music and video playback was ok and with a micro sd card slot the memory can be expanded for your work & multimedia needs
- The 2 megapixel camera with Autofocus & video recording is quite good
- Other standard windows smartphone stuff like Pocket IE, Pocket Office, PDF reader is all there
- Phone reception wise was ok it seemed to struggle sometimes but voice quality was good and battery life is also quite ok
So what to make of it all, people who want to try windows mobile and dont want to burn their pockets while doing so can give it a try. But be sure you have some amount of patience if you want to multitask.
written by Vignesh
\\ tags: asus p320, windows smartphone
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