Some of you may have read about our "workaround" to the slow registration issue with the MDA. The "workaround" was to buy another phone - a real phone this time - not a pda/phone combo.
At first glance, the t809 has the appeal of a new-model Lamborghini with a hard top that slides to expose the driver to the summer elements. OK, while the Lambo doesn't quite do that (yet), the t809 infers that nonetheless.
Its thin body and large screen is a joy to hold. A simple thumb action pushes the screen up to expose the keyboard. While it takes getting used to, after a few practice runs, the operation become quite easy...
While many reviewers have reported issues with the 5-way navigation keypad, the only thing to say here is that this operation, once learned, becomes quite intuitive and easy to use. Of course if you have a thumb the size of a US quarter, you may indeed encounter problems pressing more than what you intended.
We're still amazed that the US carriers continue to sell phones that have the image throw-back to the old 286 PCs of yesteryear. Even the now ancient Commodore 64s, Vic 20s and Apple IIes have immensly more styling than the bulk of the phones sold here in the US. With the exception of the t809 of course! Surely, this is highly subjective talk, so onto the review.
In our review, the t809 will be paired up against the MDA. Since that would be comparing apples to oranges, we use this only for dimensional reference only.
Let's first slide the front panel and look at the internal mechanism:
OK, that was a bit difficult to see. It's quite interesting how it works. There's an internal spring that has a positive lock at both extremes of travel.
Let's see how it sizes up with the MDA:
Clearly these phones not only have different form factors, they also have a noticeable size difference. If thin is in, the t809 is the clear winner. While not as thin as the Motorola Q, it still has sexier styling than the Q.
The t809 can easily be placed in your shirt pocket without creating any bulge:
Let's slide it up and look at the back of the phone. Notice the 1.3MP camera. It takes video as well in fairly decent quality (we'll post comparison sample pictures shortly). The camera can be rotated around to the front as well for video conferencing and snapshots while the phone is closed. There's a hard button that invokes the camera. While the UI to switch between camera and video is a bit counter-intuitive, you can easily see why when playing around with the phone - there are lots of options! There's a zoom function that's nothing to write home about.
As we did with previous shootouts, we'll walk around the phones. Let's start with the bottom. The only thing down here is the microphone. BTW, you can use the speakerphone function with the front slid shut - we think this is a nice feature, but it can cause some confusion if you think you're off a call - just watch what you say! :)
Now let's look at the left side. The t809 uses special (read proprietary) jacks for charging AND the headset. You're better off getting a Bluetooth headset. The volume buttons are located here. Before we go into any in-depth review of features such as its MP3 player and speakerphone, let's say this - this thing is LOUD! It comes with "Remedy" by.
The top of the t809 has a small hole in the casing for something. We're not sure exactly what it is. There are rumors about its use, but we won't go there for now. The camera is also located up here.
The right hand side exposes yet another small port. This one's for the microSD/transflash chip. It comes with a 32MB chip and a SD card adapter. All we can say here is - that's small! The microSD chip is not only another piece of memory we have to go out and buy, it's so small it'll fit on your fingernail!
That's about it for the physical stuff.
What may be of interest to some of you is that while the t809 is faster to get on the T-Mobile network, it still takes up to a minute at times to register. This indicates to us that there's something with T-Mobile's network in Northern California (and probably other areas where Cingular had an initial prominent network).
With the phone slid up, you expose the keyboard:
The keyboard is easy to use with the exception of the 123 buttons. You can sometimes get your thumb squished in there just shy of the bottom of the front panel. It may have been a good idea for the hardware designer to increase this area by even by 1/16 of an inch.
We'll go over some of the other features in the coming weeks. The overall impression still holds true - sexy phone, great features! Even with the nit-picky items, this phone is a winner!
Posted 06/21/2006 by Administrator | Filed under: General
Comments