As I’ve said before, I’ve switched my mobile provider from Tesco Mobile to 3, and bought a new phone in the process. It’s the 3 Skypephone. I shan’t review the network here: that is another tale for another day. I shall write about it next week. Now, I shall simply review the phone.
I bought it from a 3 store (in fact, a sublet of a branch of Superdrug). I was served by a very nice gentleman, who kindly reminded me that I needed to top up by £10 a month to keep the Skype minutes active, and was very helpful in serving me with the phone. He even gave me a penny’s extra change out of the two twenties and one ten pound note that I paid him with: he said he didn’t have a single penny. That was nice.
The phone’s packaging was very easy to open, and well-thought out. The phone itself is quite small, and is very nice-looking. It has a glossy finish, and also has quite tough casing.
I’m divided about the magnetic back cover. It’s easy to get off, but it doesn’t exactly lend itself to being sturdy. I haven’t had too much of a problem with it: it’s certainly given me less trouble than the Nokia 5200’s cover.
The pesky cover for the USB port soon came off (yay!) so that minor, and pointless, irritation has been removed. I noticed that as the USB port is in a recess in the bottom of the phone, it’s very unlikely that dirt will clog it up.
I’m a little concerned that the USB port is the only port on the machine. It means I can’t have the headset in while the phone’s charging, or while it’s connected as a USB mass storage device (although Bluetooth pretty much eliminates that need).
Niggles out of the way, I like the interface. It takes a lot of getting used to, but otherwise it’s quite good: it is very Sendo-esque. I like the fact that the Menu key is its own separate key.
The phone is also capable of multi-tasking. By pressing a button on the side, you can activate the task switcher. It can be activated by accident, but that’s only a minor inconvenience.
More annoying is the ‘click’ sound that the phone makes when its keys are pressed: it also makes this noise when the phone is locked, so if you bend down it can sound like there’s a Geiger counter going off in your pocket.
Also slightly pointless is the video-calling feature: whilst it does offer the facility, there is no forward-facing camera. This means either you can’t see your caller, they can’t see you, or you have to carry out the call in front of a mirror.
On the other hand, all the basic functions are there: call quality is good, text messaging is good, Skype is very clear, and WAP access over 3G is very fast. While the phone doesn’t support SkypeIn, SkypeOut or Skype Voicemail, and for some reason Google Maps cell tower triangulation doesn’t work (yet), the basic functions all work. And they all work well.
Don’t be deceived by the 2-megapixel camera. It’s rather rubbish in quality at 2MP, but it’s adequate enough for video calling.
I also dislike that the standby screen can’t be customised: you’re stuck with the keys for the Launcher and Planet 3. It’s not too big of an issue, but it’s something for future development.
Overall, the phone is quite good. It does get the feeling of being slightly unfinished, but I’m sure these will be sorted out with software updates. I highly recommend it as a general-purpose phone with plenty of functions: and at £49.99 (or £49.98 in my case) it is excellent value.
My ageing iMac DV has a miniscule (by today’s standards) hard disk - it’s only 12gB. Ridiculous. And even with a fresh install of OS X, it was starting to fill up.
My old mobile phone, a Motorola V220, was becoming increasingly incontinent, sucking up battery life as if it was going out of fashion. So, in the time-honoured tradition, I replaced it yesterday.