Palm Pre Specifications:

• Provider: Verizon Wireless
• Operating System: Palm webOS
• Display: 3.1-inch 320×480 multi-touch
• Camera: 3.0 Megapixel Camera + Flash
• Music: MP3, WAV, AAC/AAC+
• Video: MPEG4, H.263, H.264
• Memory: 16GB internal, 512MB RAM
• Dimensions: 3.9L x 2.3W x .67D inches
• Battery: 5 hours talk time | 350 hours stand-by
• Wireless: WiFi 802.11 b/g & Bluetooth 2.1+

The Body: 4.5/5 stars
The Palm Pre Plus weighs under five ounces and looks like a smooth glossy black stone. The body has a soft feel and offers a great grip. It’s probably one of the best looking phones I’ve come across recently. It definitely offers a friendly and welcoming feeling compared to devices such as the robotic Droid. There’s a volume rocker, a switch to silence your phone, and a microUSB port on the right side. Accessing the charging/data USB port was easier than on the Palm Pixi, however it needs to be relocated to the bottom. If you are holding your phone to your ear while it’s charging, it’s a nuisance since the cable extends out sideways. I also was cautious each time I tried to open the flap that covers the port since it’s quite flimsy. It is also quite tricky to get the flap open; I found myself using nails to pry it open. I feel that Palm has a secret agenda to get us to buy their Wireless Touchstone Charger by annoying us with the charging port. The back of the phone is a rear “face-plate” that comes pre-enabled for wireless charging unlike on the original Pre. Palm also offers a variety of custom artistic styles for those tired of the all-black look. Although there’s 16GB of on-board storage, which is twice that of the original Pre, there’s still no microSD expansion. The only thing under the rear cover is the interchangeable battery pack. The 3 megapixel camera, a LED flash, and speakers are on the upper rear part of the Palm Pre. The power button and a standard 3.5mm headphone jack are on the top. The front of the phone houses the slide-out QWERTY keyboard, a gesture area, and a 3.1 inch display from bottom to top. I found the curvature of the slide out keyboard aesthetically appealing and comfortable for typing. There’s also a reflective mirror hidden behind the upper portion of the phone that becomes visible when the keyboard is extended. It definitely comes in handy for taking self portraits. I’m still fascinated with how well Palm has reinvented themselves with a new generation of hardware, but it has already been over a year and it’s time for another major release.

Gesture Area: 5/5 stars
Palm made one major cosmetic change to the Pre, they removed the physical touch button and replaced it with a touchpad that’s hidden under the casing. It now looks cleaner and simpler. It, however, almost feels as though they forgot to put something on it. This gesture area is a thin touch-sensitive slit between the display and keyboard. It’s unique and makes using the phone much more intuitive. For example, to move back a page in the browser, just do a quick swipe to the left. The pad illuminates the direction you swiped with a neat little animation. To get back to the home screen, just swipe up. The Pre Plus also lights up the gesture area to indicate that the phone is busy performing a task. It’s definitely a more intuitive take on the simple physical home key that’s prominently featured on the Apple iPhone. It’s a lot more convenient than having to double or triple tap to perform commands.

The Display: 4/5 stars
The Palm Pre Plus’s display looks stunning. The screen seems to reach out at you due to the curvature of the body. It doesn’t appear recessed into the body like the iPhone but rather runs edge-to-edge. The 3.1 inch display is about a half-inch larger than the screen on the Palm Pixi, but still smaller than the Droid and iPhone. The interface offer plenty of space for viewing web pages. It’s still unfortunately nothing compared to the Motorola Droid’s whopping 480×854 pixel display. While the Pixi we reviewed last year only had 18-bits of color, the Pre Plus features 24-bits. Despite the boost, I doubt anyone could point out the difference unless told about it. The multi-touch functionality performed accurately and responsively. It was easy to pinch a webpage with two fingers to zoom out or in. The accelerometer was also very responsive and would kick in quickly to change orientations when rotated. The gesture pad also conveniently changed from the page navigating mode to scrolling. The Sprint Palm Pixi, on the other hand, rarely rotated properly. I should point out that since this phone doesn’t feature an on-screen keyboard, you’ll have to switch back to portrait mode to type. I was also worried that the glossy finish would make reading the screen difficult in direct sunlight or under bright lights, however the ambient light sensor brightens everything up enough so that it’s not much of a problem.

The Keyboard: 3.5/5 stars
When I first saw the Pre Plus, I expected a comfortable keyboard especially since it’s a fairly premium device. However, after a few days of use, I have to say otherwise. Although the four rows of keys are decently sized and spaced out, the keyboard lacks the same tactile feel the Pixi’s keyboard offers. The buttons almost seem sticky and I had a surprisingly difficult time getting accustomed to it. The keys are too flat and don’t offer enough of a click when pressed. Typing messages on the Pre Plus took longer than it did on the Pixi. I had to exert more pressure on each key and take time to ensure an accepted input. It isn’t necessarily hard to type messages, but takes more getting used to than with other phones. It also would have helped if the phone featured a decent virtual auto-correction tool as found on the iPhone and Droid. I feel that Palm should consider revamping or entirely redesigning the keyboard on a future iteration. It’s an essential part of the phone and it’s currently lacking.

Operating System: 4/5 stars
A smartphone’s ability to properly bring a desktop-like experience to a handheld is essential.  One of those important features includes the ability to multi-task. For instance, the Apple iPhone has taken much heat for lacking that ability. Fortunately the Palm Pre Plus breezes through this with webOS 1.3.5.1. In addition, since the Pre Plus sports double the RAM, it can handle running twice as many applications at once. I managed to run nearly 10 apps at once without any issues, however having too many open can take a steep toll on battery life. Even if there’s enough RAM, the CPU will become a bottleneck as it can no longer handle all the processes. Running multiple programs definitely handled better than the Sprint Pixi that easily froze up and wouldn’t even let me make a phone call at times. The home screen, interface, and major components are still pretty much the same as with last year’s webOS. The default calendar, phonebook, contacts, and mail apps are essentially identical. The Synergy feature does an excellent job which I’ll get to in the next section. The web browser does an excellent job of rendering web pages and that’s expected since it’s called the webOS after all. The pinch to zoom works seamlessly which even the North American Motorola Droid doesn’t have yet. It’s still not as great as the iPhone’s Safari Browser, but it’s drastically superior to both Windows Mobile’s IE and BlackBerry’s browser. Moving on, the Google Maps application is wonderful as always, but still isn’t the Google Maps Navigation software found on Android devices that offers turn-by-turn directions. Verizon customers will have to opt to use the VZW Navigator which costs $10/month. A new v5.0 of the GPS software with major changes should become available in a few weeks. As for getting real work done, a built in Document Viewer lets you access Excel, Word, and PowerPoint documents. If you are ready to grab some new programs, the App Catalog has come a long way. There’s a lot more it has to offer, but it’s still far from offering numbers close to the 100,000 in the Apple App Store. Despite that, there’s a great selection of quality applications for everyone to appreciate. The UI is quite intuitive and I still love the idea of being able to “toss” a program up to close it. The home screen could better use the empty space with some sort of widgets as seen on Android devices, but you can at least customize backgrounds unlike the iPhone. Even with improved support for higher quality games, the Palm webOS probably needs some more ground-breaking features such as Synergy to truly take on competition.

Synergy: 5/5 stars
There’s one way to explain Synergy: WOW. It’s just that awesome. The Palm Pre’s webOS offers a single central interface to pull information in from a variety of accounts. These include Google Sync, Facebook, Microsoft Exchange, LinkedIn, and Yahoo. After a single login, my Calendars, Contacts, and Emails started pouring in. I definitely recommend syncing over a fast WiFi connection the first time. Instead of creating havoc with a mess of duplicate contacts and data, the Synergy technology handles it quite well. It merges duplicate contacts without destroying your data. For instance, if you have “Jon Doe” on both Facebook and LinkedIn, it will create a merged contact card. If you happen to make any changes to your contacts, updates are automatically relayed to the server. I was truly glad to see that just about all my Facebook contacts appeared along with profile photos, email addresses, and phone numbers. This was by far the easiest and most convenient way to fetch data. If most of your data is already in the ‘Cloud,’ there no reason to have to deal with manually re-entering data, Bluetooth sync, CSV sheets, or VCards. The next step would be to make this feature more powerful. Adding support for more popular web services and offering a clean way to manually select which contacts to sync would go a long way. Palm has an edge over competitors in this segment and needs to keep running with features like these.

Messaging: 4/5 stars
As for messaging, both the webOS is great. All my emails were setup for delivery with Synergy’s magic. It has great support for Gmail folders and features. When an email arrives, the phone alerts the user with a popup and a notification icon at the bottom of the screen. The same row displays alerts for texts, missed calls, voicemails, calendar appointments, alarms, and more. To dismiss an alert, you can either slide it off to the side to acknowledge that you’ve seen it or click on it to open the respective application. Composing and reply to emails and texts was an easy task. The conversation logs are neatly organized as well. The option to forward items often comes in handy. Copy and paste saves the hassle and time of having to remember and retype things. The only thing that would have improved the experience would have been a better predictive text tool and spell checker that will both speed up typing and correct typos.

Call Quality + Network: 5/5 stars
The Palm Pre performs on par with most smarphone devices. It wasn’t as amazing at eliminating external noises such as the Droid, but still got the job done. I was clearly able to hear the party on the other end and vice versa. I almost always had a decent number of bars throughout the Sacramento and Davis area. Verizon’s network didn’t drop just one call since I had this phone, which was rare in my opinion. I’ve humorously seen the iPhone running on AT&T try and repeatedly fail to make calls from the same areas even though the device reported full signal. I was always able to communicate without issues. I found the ability to call someone by simply starting to type their name while on the home screen a convenient method instead of scrolling through the contact list. There’s a clean list that displays all incoming, outgoing, and missed calls. I also was glad to see that you could delete specific items from the call history, which I can’t do on the iPhone. 3G data reliability was also pretty great, which I’ll get into more details in the Hotspot section. However, if you for some reason can’t fetch a strong signal, you can always opt to use WiFi.

Multimedia: 3.5/5 stars
The Palm Pre Plus streamed videos impressively well from YouTube. I was a bit dissappoitned to find that VCast wasn’t included on this phone. I truly enjoyed having the Sprint TV streaming service available to enjoy ESPN on the Palm Pixi. Considering the price of a data plan, that should definitely be thrown in. I copied some video podcasts and MP4 movies over the device. Some appeared in the video application, but others with certain codecs didn’t. I was further disappointed to find that some files that played just fine on my iPhone didn’t play past a few frames. The video formats are a bit limited at the time and could sure use some improvements. As for music, things were a lot better. Although iTunes sync support is not reliable since Apple keeps disabling support, programs such as Windows Media Player get the job done. If that doesn’t work for you, simply connecting it as a mass storage device with any machine and dragging files onto the device will work just fine. The phone also supports Bluetooth AD2p stereo profiles for devices such as the Jabra Halo, Altec-Lansing BackBeat, or Nokia BT-905. Speaking of music, Pandora worked quite well with this phone. Especially great since I can let it run in the background unlike with the iPhone. I had it connected to my car’s stereo through an AUX jack. It streamed music impressively well without any major pauses for buffering. While it’s still no iPod when it comes to multimedia, it should be able to replace the need for an additional MP3 player for most consumers.

Camera & Camcorder: 3.5/5 stars
The Pre Plus sports a 3.0 megapixel camera, which is a step up from the 2 megapixel camera on the Pixi, but no match versus other smartphones. The phone once again entirely lacks the ability to record videos. A v1.4 webOS update should become available this month that will enable video recording and editing amongst other new features. Getting back to the camera, it fails to impress. I was disappointed to see how long it took for the camera to start up. Once it was up and running, it was actually fairly responsive and the interface was simple, clean, and easy to use. However, it falls flat in terms of custom settings. I was only able to enable, disable, or set the flash to auto. There are no other special effects, filters, resolution settings, or anything else. Browsing through your library of photos was slow to load. Sliding images to the left or right to get to another one would take a moment to render. However, zoom in and out with the pinch gesture was smooth and quick. I was glad to see that I could email, MMS, or upload photos to Facebook right from the gallery. It’s a neat addition, but it’s unfortunate that the camera isn’t better. The colors were decent at best. Bright objects became easily over exposed. Images that aren’t taken in anything less than a brightly  lit area appear grainy. The flash helps with close up head shots in dark settings, but is still not bright enough. Fortunately the turnaround time for snapping each image was fairly quick. But the fact remains, it lacks features even inexpensive or free flip phones have. There’s a lot of work Palm needs to put into this element of the phone.

WiFi & Mobile Hot Spot: 5/5 stars
This was by far one of my most favorite features. There’s a pre-installed App for Mobile Hotspot that lets you use Verizon 3G network and share it with up to 5 nearby WiFi enabled devices. The App lets you pick a network name (SSID), set a WPA/WPA2 security passphrase, or even leave it as an open network. I put it to the test with a couple of machines including an Asus netbook, Dell Mini, Apple iPhone, and Dell XPS Laptop. Mostly using a single device at a time, speeds were actually quite impressive. After several tests in Northern California (San Jose, Davis, and Sacramento), we found download speeds averaging around 1.1 MB/s and upload at 0.30 MB/s. I also noticed that even if multiple connected computers weren’t necessarily using data at a given instance, speeds did slow down a bit. Also, if you are using the Pre Plus as a WiFi Hotspot, you definitely should find a source of power as the built in battery will drain quickly. And of course with any neat feature comes a price. Enabling the Palm Plus for use as a 3G hotspot costs $40/month. That’s the same cost as it is with other smartphones. But the advantage of the Pre Plus, like a MiFi, internet access isn’t just limited to one device. You can take your iPod Touch, Sony PSP, Nintendo DSi, or any WiFi enabled device online easily.

Conclusion:
The Pre Plus definitely packs a punch and seems appealing until you look at competition. The webOS, Synergy, and the hardware are all great, but it’s definitely a notch down from what both the Motorola Droid and Apple iPhone have to offer. It’s especially in the shadows compared to the Google HTC Nexus One. If you’re a Verizon Wireless customer or planning on switching to their network, the Droid is only $50 more, offers more features, and has the same monthly fees. Although the Droid may not have the ability to host a personal WiFi Hotspot, I doubt many customers will opt to pay the extra $40 each month in addition to a calling + data + texting plans. I should note that the Palm Pre is definitely easier to use and has a friendlier feel, but I truly have a hard time recommending it over the Droid. For example, the Pre Plus requires a $10/month fee for using VZ Navigator, while the Droid has the free Google Navigator. The Palm Pre hasn’t really seen any major changes other than the new gesture pad and doubling the RAM and Flash Storage. It was a unique product and fairly decent device about a year ago when it first launched, but it has definitely begun to look old compared to newer phones. The Pre Plus is really due for a major hardware upgrade along with new cutting edge software features to stay afloat. Plus with a few disadvantages such as a mediocre camera, no voice commands, a slow CPU, and a lacking App Catalog, there’s not much it offers versus other smartphones at nearly the same price range. However I should note that there isn’t anything particularly wrong about the device. It’s a wonderful creation, has a great polish, and does what it’s designed to do but simply can’t stand up against competition. If you simply like the aesthetics, the webOS, or need the hotspot feature, then this phone won’t disappoint.

Buy: $150 for Palm Pre Plus
Links: VerizonWireless.com Palm Pre Plus

BlackBerry Curve 8530 Specifications:

• Provider: Verizon Wireless
• Operating System: BlackBErry v5.0
• Display: 2.5-inch 320×240 pixel TFT LCD
• Camera: 2.0 megapixel camera
• Music: MP3, WMA, AAC/AAC+
• Video: MPEG4, WMV, H.263, H.264
• Memory: 256MB internal + microSD expansion
• Dimensions: 4.29H x 2.36W x .55D inches
• Battery: 270 mins talk time | 252 hours stand-by
• Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.1+ | WiFi b/g

Hardware
At just under four ounces, the Curve is a featherweight both smaller and lighter than an iPhone. With a rubber backing and sturdy frame, the Curve seems rugged at first touch. However, the plastic buttons on the front feel flimsy and take away from the build quality and durability. Instead of pronounced buttons like the ones found on the keyboard, the navigation and media controls are flush with the body of the phone and aren’t the most accessible.

Media keys on the top of the body provide quick access to media player controls. You can pause, play, and skip songs without taking the Curve out of your pocket. These controls can’t be locked, but the strategic location of the buttons on top of the phone might help to prevent accidental song changes. This coupled with the standard 3.5mm headphone jack provides the essentials for a decent media player.

It is clear that RIM did not make the Curve’s screen a top priority. The phone sports a mediocre 2.5 inch, 320×250 pixel display. This is not necessarily terrible, especially when you consider the fact that the iPod Classic has a similar screen size. It will seem a bit pixilated to the keen eye and those accustomed to high definition screens, and the low depth of 65,000 colors does not do much for video quality either. Battery life will suffer from the lack of proximity and light sensors, but this probably isn’t a deal breaker. The Curve’s screen does well in cafés and buses, but you can forget about reading email outside on a particularly sunny day. If you intend to use the phone outdoors more often than indoors, I would find a brighter screen.

• Build Quality – 3/5
• Navigation – 3/5
• Screen – 2/5

Touchpad and Keyboard
The famous trackball is one gripe I have always had with the BlackBerry. The old trackball often failed because dirt, oil, and grime had a tendency to collect on the sensor. RIM recently introduced an optical track pad that takes care of those issues and it’s featured on this phone. The track pad is a vast improvement over the trackball and is easily my favorite feature. It works like a combination between the old trackball and your laptop’s touchpad – just glide your finger over the pad in the direction you want to move the cursor. The web browser is infinitely easier to use because the touch pad allows you to navigate sites with a cursor rather than cycling through clickable items. More importantly, I was able to improve my BrickBreaker score by a couple thousand.

Seasoned veterans of the Curve are some of the fastest mobile typists I’ve encountered, and they swear by this layout. The keyboard has a standard QWERTY layout with 35 backlit keys, similar to the keyboards found on older Curve models. The shape of the keys and a slight bow in the layout make typing on the Curve’s keyboard almost as natural as typing on a full sized keyboard. One downside is the keys are a bit small and will take some getting used to.

• Touchpad – 5/5
• Keyboard – 5/5

Software
The BlackBerry OS has not changed much over the years, with only a few variations from model to model. This makes transitioning from BlackBerry to BlackBerry simple, but those who are new to the interface may have a tough time getting used to it. That’s not to say that a BlackBerry is harder to learn than other phones, but the BlackBerry OS is not nearly as intuitive as some of its competitors such as the Android and iPhone OS. For example, both Android and BlackBerry phones have a configurable central notification area. However, the location of the notification area on the BlackBerry OS isn’t as obvious as on the Android OS.

Although capable of displaying full web pages, the BlackBerry’s browser is seriously lacking in speed. Even on Wi-Fi, pages render much too slow to compete with other smartphones. The Curve’s touch pad, as mentioned before, does make the browser easy to navigate. Adobe mentioned in 2009 that they are working with RIM to incorporate Flash Player into the BlackBerry browser, so we may see an upgraded browser early this year.

As for application availability, BlackBerry has the basics covered with Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, document viewers, and a few useful utilities preloaded. BBM users will have to head to the BlackBerry App World to get the latest BlackBerry Messenger; oddly enough the Curve does not have it loaded out-of-the-box.

• Operating System – 4/5
• Web Browser – 2/5
• Applications – 3/5

Call Quality and Signal
Verizon Wireless customers are probably already familiar with the inability to access the Internet and make phone calls simultaneously on a single device. This impediment has lead to issues with lost email in the past. The BlackBerry Curve 8530 has Wi-Fi in addition to CDMA, so it is possible to make calls and use data simultaneously in areas with WIFI signal. The 8530 also has notable advantages over its GMRS sibling, the Curve 8520, in that it is 3G enabled and has GPS.

The phone’s signal quality is not nearly as good as other Verizon phones. The Motorola Droid, for example, had full 3G bars at my desk, while the Curve could barely muster up a single bar in the same spot. But even with full bars on both ends, the audio quality is just average. It doesn’t filter out background noise well enough to use in busy or loud areas, but in general calls are as clear as on any other cell phone.

A note for Google Voice users: the Google Voice application is currently buggy on this phone. It seems to integrate well with the address book, but your contacts do not sync regularly and outgoing calls are seldom connected successfully.

• Signal Strength – 2/5
• Call Quality – 3/5

Camera and Camcorder
Most of the new BlackBerry models have 3.2 megapixel camera, which seems to be the standard for many manufacturers. The Curve’s, however, is a measly 2.0 megapixel, fixed focus, flash-less camera. Zooming is all digital (up to 5x), so in the end there isn’t much of a zoom function at all. With only 256 megabytes of flash memory to share, the Curve’s camera system was outdated before it even hit store shelves. You will need to insert a MicroSD card to use the video camera function. The phone’s memory is expandable up to 16 gigabytes with a MicroSD card, though some users have reported problems with cards larger than 4 gigabytes.

One thing I will say the camera does well is sharing. In addition to standard MMS and email sharing, the camera software takes advantage of the preloaded social networking apps by allowing you to upload pictures and videos directly to Facebook, MySpace, and Flickr. The sharing features are convenient and fast, and I hope to see more from BlackBerry in this area.

• Camera and Camcorder – 2/5
• Sharing and MMS – 5/5

Navigation
The preloaded BlackBerry Maps application has come through for me in a pinch a few times, although it could use a bit of improvement in terms of speed. It takes far too long to acquire satellites; it can take over a minute to get going, even when outdoors in areas where other Verizon phones have great GPS signal. BlackBerry Maps gives reliable directions, but it lacks voice guidance and features found in turn-by-turn navigators. If you are looking for a navigator with turn-by-turn directions, Google Maps or VZW Maps will have to do. Google Maps is normally a fantastic feature-packed alternative that easily fulfils this role, though it does not seem to use the GPS properly on this phone and gives poor approximations. Either way, the Curve won’t be replacing your Garmin any time soon. If you are looking for a phone that will fulfill that role, Android phones like the Motorola Droid and the Nexus One will impress you with a fantastic navigation interface and a huge screen.

• Navigation – 3/5

Media Player
The media player is surprisingly easy to use. In fact, the interface and workflow is in many ways similar to the iPod’s interface. It does take more effort on the user’s part to manage the library since the phone does not come with software like iTunes. The media player supports a variety of formats, including MP3, WMA9, AMR, AAC, MPEG4, H.263, H.264, and WMV9 audio and video. The 3.5mm headphone jack puts out more than adequate audio quality, considering this is a BlackBerry and not something commonly used as a primary portable music player. The external speaker can be very loud, though music sounds how you might expect it to sound on a phone: a ringtone. While I wouldn’t use the Curve to replace my iPod, RIM is taking huge steps in that direction with other models like the Storm.

• Media Player – 4/5
• Audio Quality – 4/5
• Speakers – 3/5

Battery Life
The Curve’s battery life is disappointingly short. RIM reports a 3G talk time of about 4.5 hours and a standby time of 10.5 days, but I find the latter to be a little unbelievable. I used this unit sparingly on most days and was lucky to go a full 24 hours on one charge. There were days when I could barely squeeze a full 16 hours out of it after a full night of recharging. I expected a short battery life and a daily recharge; most smartphones, even the iPhone and Droid, have notoriously short battery lives. However, I never thought it would run out of juice before I did on such a regular basis.

• Battery Life – 2/5

Conclusion
As a lower-end version of the Bold, some of the Curve’s shortcomings in terms of build quality are expected. Current BlackBerry users, especially those who have owned the Curve, will love the familiarity of the BlackBerry OS and the physical keyboard. Don’t count on the Curve replacing your MP3 player and GPS device, though it will do a great job complementing your current devices. If you frequently take photos and videos with your phone, I recommend checking out the Motorola Droid, which has all the great sharing features found on the Curve but also has a 5.0 megapixel camera with flash for higher quality images. Business users, travelers, and BlackBerry enthusiasts should take a look at the more robust models like the Bold and the Tour. If you are looking for the BlackBerry experience on a budget, you can’t go wrong with the Curve. All nitpicking aside, the 8530 is a decent smartphone and a great addition to the Curve family. If you’re ready to pick to pick one up, it’s available for $50 after signing a new two-year contract with Verizon Wireless.

Buy: FREE BlackBerry Curve with contract
Links: VerizonWireless.com BlackBerry Curve 8530

The Pre Plus also comes with some extra goodies over its predecessor. It now comes with a touch-stone enabled rear cover. You won’t need to spend extra cash if you decided to buy a Touchstone Dock. The phone now has 16GB of internal storage versus the 8GB available on its older sibling still running on the Sprint network. The phone also has double the RAM, meaning more multitasking. The hardware gesture key is now embedded into the casing and is no longer visible, but functions just the same. The Pixi Plus also has some improvements in addition to the new hotspot feature. Yes, if you didn’t guess already, that means the Pixi now has WiFi. It’s also compatible with a variety of designer rear plates that are all compatible with the Touchstone Dock.

Palm Pre Plus:

Palm Pixi Plus:

Both the Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus will hit store shelves and will be available for purchase online starting January 25th, 2010. That’s just 3 days away! The Pre Plus and Pixi Plus will cost you $150 and $99, respectively. That’s, however, after signing a new two-year contract and sending in a $100 mail-in-rebate. Verizon’s also has a new promotion that runs through February that will get you a Palm Pixi Plus for free after a mail-in-rebate if you buy either of the phones first. As you can tell from the gallery of images above, our units just arrived. We’re working quickly on our reviews and hope to have them published before launch. To read our full review, stay tuned. You can subscribe to our RSS Feed or sign up for Email Subscriptions. If you haven’t heard, we’re also on Facebook and Twitter!

Links: VerizonWireless.com | Palm.com
Related: Palm Pixi Sprint Review

Sprint’s Overdrive is the first 4G-powered mobile hotspot. All predecessors from other carriers have only supported 3G networks to date. Sprint’s 4G coverage extends only to 27 markets at this time, but they’ve announced plans to expand to Boston, Huston, New York, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. this year. You can check if you are in the included coverage area here. Fortunately, the Overdrive is entirely backwards compatible with Sprint’s 3G network as well. Although slower, it’s widely available nationwide.

So here’s how it works. Just press the power button and wait a few seconds for the device to turn on, connect to Sprint, and start the local hotspot. The SSID and secure key appears on the display. Just turn on any WiFi enabled device such as a Laptop, Netbook, Sony PSP, Nintendo DSi, Zune, or iPod Touch. (Even works with the iPhone’s Wi-Fi if AT&T’s network is being spotty.) The Overdrive allows up to five simultaneous connections. Portable hotspots, unlike embedded mobile broadband chips and external USB cards, offer the freedom to share internet access with more than a device.

Sprint was kind enough to lend us a 4G mobile broadband card while we were in Las Vegas for CES, one of their 4G markets. Although I’ll leave the details in the full review of the U300 4G card, speeds often reached up to 6MB/s. (Theoretically 10Mb/s!) That’s faster than many home DSL lines and is plenty of bandwidth for streaming music from Pandora, videos from Hulu, and Skype video calls.

Sprint has sent us a sample unit for a full review, but it’s still in transit. However, a couple of unique features worth mentioning now. The Overdrive has a microSD card expansion (16GB max) to create a mini network shared drive for connected devices. The LCD displays active users, signal strength, battery life, and a few more details. Sierra Wireless, the manufacturers of the Overdrive, claims a 150 foot WiFi range. In regards to battery life, it’s expected to last up to 3 hours in use and 36 hours on standby. If you run out of juice, there’s a microUSB cable to recharge the device. The device just hit stores on January 10th and will run you about $99 after signing a two-year contract and sending in a $50 mail-in-rebate.

For more details on this and to read our full review, stay tuned. You can subscribe to our RSS Feed or sign up for Email Subscriptions. If you haven’t heard, we’re also on Facebook and Twitter!

Links: Sprint.com/Overdrive

Palm Pixi Specifications:

• Provider: Sprint
• Operating System: Palm webOS
• Display: 2.63-inch 320×400 multi-touch
• Camera: 2.0 Megapixel Camera + Flash
• Music: MP3, WAV, AAC/AAC+
• Video: MPEG4, H.263, H.264
• Memory: 8GB internal
• Dimensions: 4.37L x 2.17W x .43D inches
• Battery: 5 hours talk time | 350 hours stand-by
• Other: Bluetooth 2.1+ | 3.5 mm Audio Jack

The Body: 4/5 stars
The Pixi weighs only a few ounces, looks thin and sleek. The body has a soft feel and offers a good grip. It’s probably one of the better looking phones I’ve come across. There’s a volume rocker, a switch to silence your phone, and a microUSB port on the right side. Accessing the charging/data USB port was a bit of a nuisance. There’s only a tiny sliver of space between the flap and the body of the phone. Even if I did manage to get it open, it immediately snaps back due to stiffness and the magnetic piece. After about a week of struggling with this, the magnet actually just fell out, now the flap doesn’t even close properly. I think it’s Palm’s plan to get us to buy their Wireless Touchstone charger. The back of the phone is essentially a rear “face-plate.” Palm offers various artistic designs. There’s no microSD expansion and the only thing under the rear cover is the replaceable battery pack. The 2 megapixel camera, flash, and speakers are on the upper rear portion of the back side. The power button and a standard 3.5mm headphone jack are on the top. The front face of the phone sports the QWERTY keyboard, a gesture area, and a 2.6 inch display from bottom to top. Overall, it’s a great design and Palm has truly reinvented themselves with a new generation of hardware. I hope to see more device following this cue.

Gesture Area: 5/5 stars
There’s a thin touch-sensitive slit embedded into body between the display and keyboard. It’s unique and makes using the phone much more intuitive. For example, moving back a page in the browser requires a quick swipe to the left. The pad illuminates the the direction you swiped with a neat little animation right after. To get back to the home screen, just swipe up. The Pixi also lights up the gesture area to indicate that the phone is busy performing a task. It’s definitely a more intuitive innovation that the physical home button the iPhone that needs to be double or triple tapped to perform certain commands.

The Display: 3.5/5 stars
The multi-touch screen performed pretty well for the most part. The screen was fairly responsive and looked beautiful. The 2.63 inch display is about a half inch smaller than the one on the Palm Pre. The interface seems to have scaled well to the 320×400 pixel display without any major drawbacks other than loss of screen estate. While I thought that the interface, text, images, and videos all looked bright and crisp, the display actually has only 18-bits of color versus the 24-bits on the Pre. Keep in mind, if I didn’t learn that from the spec sheet, I probably wouldn’t have known. It looks just fine. The device supports multi-touch gestures such as pinching with two fingers to zoom in or out of an image or web page. I was however disappointed with the accelerometer. It was not exactly responsive. It often didn’t rotate a web page at all. Plus, at other times it would enter the landscape mode when I was holding it vertically. That’s especially a pain since I’ll have to type with the physical keyboard which is facing in another direction. the gesture pad also would change functionality from back and forward page swiping to scrolling. While the display looks great, there’s still a few problems that could be addressed with a future software upgrade.

The Keyboard: 5/5 stars
When I first saw the Pixi, I expected the keyboard to be a pain to use. However, I quickly found out that I shouldn’t have made such a quick judgment. The buttons may seem really small and that’s because they are. But despite that, even with by large thumbs that could easily cover half the keyboard, it took me less than about 10 minutes to get accustomed to it. Everything is well placed and they keys have a nice click feel to them. And of course, they are backlit and light up automatically. (Controlled by the ambient light sensor.) While the phone does lack a good virtual auto-correction feature, I was still able to type text messages and reply to emails with little to no errors. Plus, since the keyboard is hidden with a sliding mechanism as it is with the Palm Pre, the Pixi is actually faster to use in many ways. The keyboard is probably one of my favorite aspects of this device.

Operating System: 4/5 stars
A Smartphone’s ability to multitask seems to be an essential feature. Fortunately the Pixi can, which even the iPhone can not. However it’s not all fun and games. The device’s performance begins to lag and hang when running more than one application at a time. In fact, some even froze and crashed. At times, if I had multiple applications open, I couldn’t even make or receive a call. It got too slow at one point that the phone wouldn’t even recognize my several attempts to end the call even though the visual interface seemed to recognize it. I was at least glad that I liked the home screen interface. I was able to rearrange and customize the 5 default programs listed at the bottom. If you click the expand key, it opens a list of all the available programs. The applications were organized into three categories: downloaded, commonly used, and system applications. Launching anything, for example Sprint TV, the current screen is minimized and the program appears. This is great since I can use the ’swipe up’ gesture to return to the home page. It’s now easy to switch to another running window or launch another program. I also loved how you simply “toss” and application up to close it. There were unfortunately no widgets as found on Android devices, but you could customize the background unlike the iPhone. Asides from the lack of performance, Palm has developed a marvelous webOS and I hope to see major feature additions. Hopefully as early as January ‘10 during their press conference at the Consumer Electronics Show.

Synergy & Messaging: 5/5 stars
Wow. It’s that awesome. The Palm Pixi’s webOS offers one central interface to pull information in from a variety of accounts. These include Google Sync, Facebook, Microsoft Exchange, LinkedIn, and Yahoo. My Calendars, Contacts, and Emails were imported from all of them. Instead of creating havoc with a mess of duplicate contacts and data, the Synergy technology handles it quite well. It merges duplicate contacts without destroying your data. Any changes made on you device are automatically relayed to the server and back onto other devices as well. All my Facebook contacts were pulled in with profile photos, email addresses, and phone numbers. This was by far the easiest and most convenient way I’ve come across to import information. As for messaging, the Palm Pixi has a neat notification system. It alerts you with popups and notification icons for emails, texts, missed calls, and voicemails at the bottom of the display. Clicking on one immediately launches the respective application. Composing and reply to emails was an easy task with a great keyboard. My calendar would even display Facebook Events I had replied to as attending and everything from Google Calendar. Text messages are well organized. Conversation logs are separated by name and date. The option to forward items was a handy feature. You won’t even need to copy and paste. The Palm Profile, which you are required to create, automatically performs backups of you device’s data. If you were to loose or break a device, a one-time login will immediately fetch everything.

Call Quality + Network: 4/5 stars
Although I rarely saw full reception in the Sacramento Area, I almost always had at least a bar or two. Surprisingly, I did not experience any dropped calls. The iPhone hilariously has repeated failed calls even though it reports full signal on AT&T’s network. I was able to hear the person on the other end well and they also reported the same. I can make a call by keying a number or a contact’s name with the keyboard. Although I could browse through the contact list, the first method was much faster. There’s also an on-screen dial pad as well. There’s also a log of incoming, outgoing, and missed calls within the call application. Things were especially easy since all my friend’s names were imported from both Facebook and my personal contact list on Google Contacts. The interface even displayed my contact’s profile picture for incoming calls and during one. Downloading data wasn’t as fast as Verizon’s 3G in our area, but was still consistent. For the most part it was sufficient for what the phone offers. As some one who’s always in areas with WiFi connectivity, the inclusion of that component would have been truly appreciated. Hopefully Palm will take a hint from customer feedback and make that addition.

Multimedia: 5/5 stars
The Palm Pixi streamed videos impressively well from Sprint TV. The application features some live channels including the Disney and NFL channels. There’s also a selection of recorded programs. If you pay extra, there’s always more. The phone also supports the major video formats.The Palm Pixi synced smoothly with both my Ubuntu desktop and my Windows 7 Laptop. I just plugged it in using the modular microUSB cable that doubles by connecting to the AC adapter to charge. It’s simply a mass storage device. Just drag and drop items. Once copied over, it automatically recognizes media. The phone also supports Bluetooth AD2p stereo profiles for devices such as the Jabra Halo or Altec-Lansing BackBeat. Speaking of music, Pandora worked quite well with this phone. I had it connected to my car’s stereo through an AUX jack. It streamed music impressively well without any major pauses for buffering. While it’s still no iPhone when it comes to multimedia, it should cover most entertainment grounds.

Camera & Camcorder: 2/5 stars
The Pixi only has a 2.0 megapixel camera, which isn’t much for a smartphone. The Palm Pre has a 3.2 megapixel camera. The quality was merely decent. Images just seemed weirdly colored. They weren’t crisp or clear. The only option available was for the flash. No special effects, resolution settings, or anything else. The turnaround time for a shot was fortunately pretty quick. Images looked best in well lit situations, even despite the flash offering. I was bummed to find that the webOS doesn’t support video recording. While this isn’t the most expensive smartphone, it lacks features even the nearly free Samsung Reclaim has. There’s a lot of work Palm needs to put into this element of the phone. In my opinion, this was the lowest ranked element of the device. If imaging is important for you, this won’t be the right fit for you.

Battery Life: 4/5 stars
The specifications state about 5 hours of talk time, however I’d say that’s a bit of stretch. Especially if you are someone who’ll be using other features that the phone offers. And if you buy a smartphone, why wouldn’t you? And that’s a good thing. I found myself wanting to use this phone. I would browse the web or try new applications. While there’s a claim of a 350 hour standby, that’s nearly impossible. It might be if you don’t touch your phone at all and have it set not to check for emails or have anything running. But that’s impractical. Though the battery life isn’t as great as a non-Smartphone, it should last through a day just fine. It’s a bit better than what the iPhone offers. It’s especially impressive if you consider how small this phone actually is.

Conclusion:
Palm is definitely back in the game. Both the Palm Pre and Pixi have plenty to offer. It may be under-shadowed by the recent advancements of the Android platform, but I’m sure Palm’s got something in store. The only major drawbacks with this phone would be the exclusion of WiFi and poor Camera. However the hardware, keyboard, webOS, and phone features are all great. It’s definitely a step down from the Palm Pre, but the Pixi is available for a third of the price through many retailers. While that still won’t save you from the necessary data plans, it’s a unique phone that everyone else won’t have. The platform is evolving and it has plenty of potential. A simple software upgrade could give it another boost and that’s something Palm seems to embrace that idea. If you are ready to grab one, it’s available for as low as $25 through Amazon.com for Sprint with a new two-year contract.

Links: Palm.com Pixi | Sprint.com Pixi
Buy: Palm Pixi for $25 on Amazon

Note: I’ll be publishing a review of the Palm Pixi Touchstone Charger Soon!

Verizon Wireless: Motorola Droid

The Motorola Droid is probably the most powerful phone offered through a domestic cell phone carrier. While there may be a few critics, the majority of reviews are favorable about the Droid and tout it as superior to the famous iPhone. While I could go on about the features it sports, here’s a few for starters: Touch Screen, QWERTY Keyboard, WiFi, GPS Navigation, Camera, and plenty more. While that’s my number one choice, if you’re looking for another good alternative on the Verizon Wireless network, check out the HTC Droid Eris. It’s lighter, looks friendlier, and costs a fraction. The Eris will be receiving the Android 2.0 update that the Motorola Droid uses early next year.

Buy: Motorola Droid $150 | HTC Droid Eris $10
Links: Motorola Droid Review | HTC Droid Eris Review

Sprint: Palm Pre

Palm’s device is a fairly new entry into the Smartphone market. After being announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, it made  official debut on Sprint’s network this summer. It runs on Palm’s fresh WebOS that offers multi-tasking, streamlined interface, and organizes your data. There’s even an App Store with a few steps behind the Apple App Store and the Android Marketplace, but still has a good selection. With QWERTY keyboard, WiFi, GPS, and a 3G network, there’s plenty this phone has to offer. If that’s not in your taste, check out the HTC Hero. It was a hard choice deciding between the two, but the HTC Hero was also one of our favorite picks. It also sports all the essential features to make a good Smartphone and will even be getting the Android 2.0 update in the near future.

Buy: Palm Pre $80 | HTC Hero
Links: HTC Hero Review

T-Mobile: myTouch 3G

While T-Mobile is a fairly open network and can accommodate devices such as the iPhone unofficially, they don’t exactly have a best Smartphone. Sure, they offer the HTC Touch Pro2, but that’s not exactly the most ideal device as we pointed out with our review for the Sprint version. While this was a hard call, I would recommend the myTouch 3G. It’s compact, looks good, and has plenty to offer. With a good battery life, 3G network, WiFi, a 3.2 mega pixel camera, and running on the Android OS, it’s definitely a great device. If there’s another device I would recommend, I’d pick the BlackBerry Bold 9700 for business users and the Motorola Cliq if you’re looking for a cheaper Smartphone.

Buy: myTouch 3G $99 | Motorola CLIQ $99

AT&T: Apple iPhone

If I had to choose my favorite smartphone asides from the Motorola Droid, there’s no question it’s the Apple iPhone 3GS. It’s that simple. What’s there the iPhone can’t do? With over 100,000 Apps in the store, you’ll probably never get bored. Despite AT&T scoring last for 3G network quality, there’s always WiFi. With every iPhone supporting software upgrades, it’s fairly future proof. Just keep in mind, rumor has it that a 4th generation iPhone is almost out the door. If security and enterprise features are essential or necessary, the iPhone is probably not the best choice. I’d highly recommend the BlackBerry Bold 9700 as it’s a more traditional business phone. And of course, although not as fancy, it still has a 3.2 mega pixel camera, multimedia player, a web browser, and even an App Store.

Buy: Apple iPhone $200 (16GB) | BlackBerry Bold $0

Unlocked Device: Nokia N900

If there’s a device I’d have to select that isn’t available through any U.S. cell phone carrier, there’s no question that the Nokia N900 is my current pick. In all honesty, I wouldn’t know where to begin with this phone. It seriously has that much to offer. If there’s a feature available on the iPhone or Droid, this phone probably has it or can do it even better. With 3G, WiFi, a slide out keyboard, a 5 megapixel camera (plus another front-facing camera), unrestricted Bluetooth, 32GB of storage, microSD expansion, a Mozilla-based web browser, multitasking, Linux-based Maemo OS, and extensive media file format support, it’s simply a robust device. Unfortunately you won’t get a subsided price when picking one of these up. It’s now goes for about $500 through Amazon.com.

Links: Nokia.com N900 | Skatter Tech N900 Unboxing

This is a part of our ongoing Skatter Tech Holiday Gift Guides.

DVD’s, Books, and Games
Google Goggles picked up results for Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii), Caddyshack (DVD), and The Color Purple by Alice Walker (Book) with ease.

Business Cards
Though the format of the business card I used may have been an issue, I wasn’t able to pull up as much contact information as the example on the app’s website. It found the name and company, but not the phone number or email address, even after a couple of tries.

Logos
In general, logos work really well. The first thing I did when I installed Goggles was take pictures of the numerous empty bottles on my desk; every one of them was found successfully. However, the logo on my sweatshirt did not work, which is pretty disappointing considering the reputation of UC Davis.

Places
Goggles also allows you to identify nearby places using your phone’s GPS and compass. The app displays the names of businesses in the direction you point the camera at the bottom of the screen. In areas where I had good GPS signal, this feature was fairly accurate. This would be really handy for exploring new places, though I imagine you would look pretty silly using this to find the nearest Starbucks.

Conclusion
I had my doubts with this application; it’s not everyday someone invents a Pokédex. The verdict: it works almost as well as advertised and faster than you would expect. After you snap a photo, the analysis generally takes less than ten seconds. If you have a phone with Android 1.6 or later, head to the Android Market on your phone and try out this app. PC World reports that Goggles will reach other platforms, but if you have an iPhone or Blackberry you are out of luck for now.

Links: Google Goggles

The Hardware – 4/5 stars
I was quite interested with the Samsung Moment since I first noticed the large display and the physical slide-out keyboard when it was announced. Initially it does appear to be bulky, but once you get handle it for a bit, it’s not too bad. It’s actually not that bulky and relatively light weight too (5.67 oz.) The Moment is coated with a metallic chrome finish that complements the black trim well. Sliding the phone’s keyboard out feels solid, however it is a bit flimsy when slid-out. The two different pieces wiggle slightly. I’m not sure if it was just my unit, but other slide out devices such as the Motorola Droid didn’t have this issue. On the front face you’ll find a physical Call and End button. There’s also the Home, Menu, and Back keys right above a touch pad. It’s a well appreciated alternative to the trackball found on BlackBerry and HTC devices. The optical joystick registers your finger’s touch just like a regular touch pad. I found it worked well and at times more preferable to use than the touch screen. There is a dedicated button on the right side of the phone that brings up voice recognition as well as the camera. On the left side there’s a volume rocker. I was glad to see a standard 3.5mm headphone jack at the top and a flash included with the camera on back. Overall, the phone is definitely a bit larger than other smart phones, but won’t make much of a difference when carrying it around.

The Display - 3/5 stars
The touch display on the Samsung Moment is a 3.2″ AMOLED (320 x 480) wide-screen. When I first used it, it looks just fine. It’s a bit recessed into the phone’s frame, but isn’t an issue. However, once you compare the display to an iPhone or HTC Hero, you’ll be in shock. The colors on the Moment has a blue tint to it while other phones seem to have much warmer colors. It’s still better looking than the display on Sprint’s most expensive device, the HTC Touch Pro2. The screen was slightly lacking in terms of responsiveness. I often had to flick panels or items slower deliberately for it to detect my command properly. The Android OS interface seems to run a bit smoother (less choppy) on the HTC Hero and the Droid Eris. I don’t know if I can attribute that to a display issue, a software bug, or a processor lacking, but it’s there. To sum things up, the screen just doesn’t have that vibrant spark that you sense when you first look at other cell phone displays.

Slide-Out Keyboard - 4/5 stars
Don’t get me wrong, I love my touch-screen device these days, but I often become frustrated with its shortcomings. I sometimes do yearn for the original speed and feel of that physical keyboard. On the Moment I was pretty satisfied with how texting played out on my fingers. The keys are for the most part well mapped out and placed. It did at first take me a while to get used to the bottom row of keys which were positioned slightly to the left. It doesn’t pose much of a problem but you’ll have to tuck your thumb if you need to hit the ‘Z’ or ‘X’ buttons. The keys are well-sized and offer a bit of an edge over a touch-screen keyboard that sometimes won’t register your keystrokes properly. Plus it’s easier to have the physical feel when multitasking and can’t keep your eye on the device at all times.

Camera & Camcorder - 3/5 stars
Something that was left out and that I was longing for with my current phone is a camera with flash to complement it. To that end, the Samsung Moment does oust my HTC Hero. The Samsung moment sports a 3.2 megapixel camera with auto-focus. I took some outdoor shots with the Moment and the iPhone 3GS. The Moment resulted with brighter images, but the colors were slightly washed out. While the colors weren’t as rich as with the iPhone 3GS, it still looked better overall. Unfortunately the viewfinder isn’t as snappy as the iPhone. When held side by side and panning in different directions, the Moment was clearly a fraction of a second behind. The inclusion of the flash definitely does help with dark shots. The largest problem comes in with the software. It lacks any custom settings or features. The only available options are to enable geo-tagging, choose Hi or Low for Video Quality, and enable Flash. There’s not even an auto setting for the Flash. There’s no custom resolutions for images either. Even cheap camera phones offer some special effects and settings, this phone doesn’t. I should not that, it does allow sharing images with web services, email and MMS. There’s also an image crop feature built in. Overall, there’s still a lot of room for improvement for Samsung to do with a future iteration of this phone.

Music, Media and Syncing – 3.5/5 stars
Music playback through the phone’s speakers as well as the standard 3.55mm audio jack both sound great. The jack is protected with a plastic cap cover which I found to be a bit annoying and cheap-looking, nonetheless it’s there. Especially seems like a small complaint, when they finally adopted a standard earphone jack. The Music app that comes with the Moment is fairly basic. There’s no fancy album cover flow features as found on phones like the HTC Hero/Eris. Graphic layout aside, it is easy to navigate through, browsing by albums, artist, and songs. There’s also the standard play all or shuffle all option. Music on the Moment functions well enough and audio quality comes in at an enjoyable level. Being that it is an Android OS phone you have the option of downloading more enticing music apps and services such as Shazam, Pandora, and Last.fm.

User Interface – 3/5 stars
Perhaps I came into this review with the expectation bar set too high , but after using the Samsung Moment’s interface for a few days I began to appreciate the interface on my HTC Hero more. The Sense UI that HTC has customized Android is truly marvelous. On the other hand, the default interface on the Moment is quite bland. The only extra custom widgets are from Sprint and aren’t exactly too attractive. Some even look like 8-bit Nintendo era icons. Well maybe not that bad, but you get my point. There’s just not that WOW factor. That being said the phone does come with some extras. These include an Instant Messaging, Nascar Sprint Cup, NFL Mobile Live, Sprint Navigation, Sprint TV, and a few more. This aspect is quite neat since other Android devices from competing providers don’t include these features by default. I also did all my data syncing with Google this time around. I was able to instantly pull in my Calendar, Contacts, and Email from the ‘cloud’. The Google features worked smoothly.

Battery Life - 3/5 stars
Just like with my current HTC Hero I feel that the Moment is a bit pressed on battery life. The projected 5.5 hours of continuous talk time is a bit ambitious. I felt as though I reached a lot for the charger through my day-to-day tests. I would recommend having most services turned off  when not in use (GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth). This will just mean not checking your email and Facebook updates as often throughout your day. Additionally, I would consider the option of investing a little money in a portable external battery to take with you if you do run a little low on juice. That being said, most smart phones are known for their horrible battery life. The Moment isn’t an exception. Even the famous iPhone 3GS gets rendered useless in no time.

Bottom Line
My initial reaction to the Samsung Moment was definitely positive curiosity. After spending time over my week with it, to be quite honest there were definitely some shortcomings. None that would at all impede the average user who just needs a little bit more control over the features of their phone. The physical keyboard adds a nice functional flair to the phone and will be likely appealing to the heavy texting crowd. I know I voiced my complaint over the interface to be bit a little bit lacking as well as the battery life, but when it works, it does just about everything you want it to do. The display’s colors was a bit odd to get used too, but if you don’t have another device to compare it with, you won’t notice. The Samsung Moment comes packaged with Micro-USB charger, Headphones, and Micro-USB transfer cable and documentation. I would have to say that the Moment is a mid-range Android phone. It certainty isn’t as well designed as the Sprint HTC Hero. Even the Palm Pre offers a lot more for nearly the same price. Speaking of cost, the Samsung Moment will run you about $179 with a new 2-year agreement after a $100 mail-in-rebate.

DEAL: Samsung Moment for $80
Links: Sprint.com Samsung Moment

Faster and More Responsive
Android 2.0 was by no means slow. The update did make some noticeable improvements on speed and stability. Programs open, close, and switch quicker than before.

New “Unlock” Screen
The most obvious change when you first open the Droid is in the “unlock” screen. Though the principle is the same, the interface uses drag-able “tabs” rather than the “wheel” used in 2.0.

Battery Life Increased
This is Verizon’s claim and not my own, however, the phone did last the grueling holiday drive from Sacramento to San Diego with some juice to spare. That includes a solid two hours of music streaming with Pandora and a half hour of using Google Maps Navigation to find my way out of a shady corner of Los Angeles.

Auto Focus Fixed
Some people have reported problems with the Droid’s auto focus ability. The update fixes this and shortens the delay time between shots.

Improved Call Audio
Somehow, Google managed to improve the already impeccable audio during calls. The difference isn’t drastic in my opinion, but I’ll take their word for it.

Speakerphone Fixed
I never ran into this problem before, but when receiving a call on call waiting, the speakerphone turns off. The speakerphone now remains on.

Bluetooth Improvements
The update eliminates the background echo created when using a Bluetooth headset. If you have a car like the Lexus R400h which allows you to transfer contacts via Bluetooth, you are in luck. Android 2.0.1 improved the ability to beam up your phone book with Bluetooth.

Support for Seven-Digit Numbers
You can now send text messages and multimedia messages to seven-digit numbers. Also, you can merge contacts with seven-digit numbers.

Visual Voice Mail Delay Fixed
Verizon Visual Voice Mail provides an interface for your voice mail. It allows you to view caller information and voice mail information for each message without having to deal with the standard “to replay this message, press 7, etc.” New voice mail messages now appear right after they arrive. It used to take a few minutes for the message to show up. WiFi access has also been enabled.

Other Thoughts:
On another note, I’m hoping Google finds a better way to control the audio volume. Right now, there are separate volume levels for calls, ringer, media playback, and navigation.  To adjust the volume, you have to open a corresponding application and then use the buttons on the side of the phone to adjust the volume. For instance, I have to open the media player to change the media playback volume. So, if I’m listening to music at a reasonable level and the navigation decides to scream at me, I have to switch to the navigation application to relieve my ears. I’d like the side buttons to control the master volume have individual volume controls in the notification area. That way when I need to make a “LEFT ON ANDERSEN PARKWAY IN ONE QUARTER MILE!”, I can quickly turn it down.

Support: Droid Update Info
Related: Motorola Droid Review

While the Nokia N900 will be a major hit across Europe and Asia, there’s little chance that it will be able to compete with smart phones in the United States. Despite that, Nokia still has a large fan base across the country and many tech enthusiasts would love to pick one of these up. While I still haven’t heard back from Nokia for a review unit, call me if you’re reading this, you guys can enjoy this high resolution photo gallery. If you want to pick one up, it’s already available for pre-order through Amazon.com. You can also get the N900 through Dell.com for a little cheaper ($440) if you use Bing.com for 20% Cashback.

Links: Nokia USA N900

The Hardware – 4/5 stars
The Droid Eris is one of the best-looking smart phones I’ve come across. It’s definitely looks friendlier than the robotic Motorola Droid and cuter than it’s Sprint sibling the HTC Hero. It has an attractive soft black-coated finish and silver trims on the side. It’s fairly light weight and can slip into just about any pocket. There are four touch sensitive keys below the display: Home, Menu, Back, and Search. The inclusion of physical send and end keys are appreciated. HTC also implemented a special trackball for navigating the interface. It even lights up when notifications are available. There’s a standard 3.5mm headphone jack on the top, a 5 megapixel camera on the back, and a volume rocker on the side. I was slightly disappointed to find that the Eris uses a HTC proprietary USB cable and that microSD expansion slot (8GB card included, supports 16GB card max) was hidden behind the rear plate.

The Display – 4/5 stars
The HTC Eris sports a 3.2 inch capacitive touchscreen display with a 320 x 480 pixel resolution. The display is bright, has great viewing angles, and colors. The ambient light sensor automatically brightens up the display, making it easier to read, when outdoors and dims down the display to save battery life in darker areas. The built in proximity disables accidental inputs during phone calls by locking the display when held to your ear. The UI can also switch to a landscape mode from portrait using the built in accelerometer, but unfortunately only works in one direction. While most people would be quite satisfied with this display, they’ll still be stunned to see detail, quality, and difference in resolution when compared to the Motorola Droid. Despite that, it’s still looks great for the UI, images, web pages, and videos.

Camera & Camcorder – 4/5 stars
The HTC Droid Eris sports a 5 megapixel camera. It supports digital zoom and auto-focus, but unfortunately lacks a built in flash. Max image resolution is 2560 x 1712 pixels. The interface allows customizing the white balance and brightness. The advance settings reveals a self-timer, time stamp, geo-tagging, ISO, and other enhancement features. Launching the camera is a split second faster than the iPhone 3GS. The view finder was quite snappy and more responsive than I had expected. When it comes to capturing images, quality is about on par with the Motorola Droid. Just like most camera phones, the Droid Eris works great outdoors, but faces difficulty in low-light situations. The HTC Eris supports recording videos of any length, only limited by storage space, in a max resolution of 352 x 288 pixels. While the quality was decent, it’s still not a match to the Motorola Droid’s DVD quality recordings.

Music, Media, & Syncing – 5/5 stars
While the Apple iPhone has been known for it’s phenomenal media playback capabilities and an amazing user interface, it’s hard to have high expectations for other devices. The entire Android platform still isn’t entirely on par with Apple iPhone OS, but it gets quite close with the HTC Sense UI. With an included 8GB microSDHC card and support for up to 16GB of expansion, this is definitely a worthy alternative/replacement for a dedicated multimedia player. First off, there’s a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, so no adapters are needed. Syncing music is easy. The power cable is actually modular, it separates from the AC adapter plug, becoming a USB cable. Just plug it into a computer and tell the Eris to mount the microSD card from the notification menu. It immediately becomes a standard mass storage device, much like a USB flash drive. Unfortunately, there’s no official tool to sync music or other media, you’ll have to do it manually. Windows Media Player 12 in Windows 7 was able to work with the Droid Eris quite smoothly. Motorola actually offers a sync tool for their Droid. Once you get the music onto the device, there’s a neat little HTC widget that goes on any of the home screens. It lets you control playback and view album art without launching the player. Since it’s Android, the phone supports playing music through the built in player or through an application such as Pandora in the background while using other applications. The music player interface allows browsing your library by Artists, Albums, Playlists, Songs, Genres, and Composers. The Droid Eris also supports setting songs in your library as a ringtone and purchasing new tracks from the Amazon MP3 music store.

User Interface – 4/5 stars
The Droid Eris by HTC runs on version 1.5 of the Android Operating System. It’s a step behind the Motorola Droid which is running Android 2.0 and even the HTC My Touch 3G running on Android 1.6. The Droid Eris supposedly might get a jump to version 2.0 sometime next month. Despite that, the OS seems to be quite well polished for the most part. Especially with HTC using their Sense UI, the user experience and flow is vastly improved. In fact, I found that I liked the variety of widgets available on the Droid Eris over the flagship Motorola Droid. The only issue I found was occasional lag. Even with a 528MHz processor, 288MB of RAM, and 512MB of ROM, the HTC Eris is still not as snappy as the iPhone 3GS or the Motorola Droid. The messaging tools via both the Gmail App and the Mail client are both impressively powerful and compatible with just about any email service. (IMAP, POP, & Exchange supported) SMS/MMS integration is quite well implemented. It displays contact images and displays an entire conversation history. The Android OS also supports linking contacts to their Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter accounts. Simply clicking on a contact card will display their contact info, their location on a map, conversations with them, their Facebook status updates, their photos from social networks, and call history. It even syncs with Google Contacts and becomes available to modify and add too through a web browser. The on screen keyboard has both landscape and portrait modes with haptic (vibrating) feedback, making it fairly easy to use. While I wouldn’t be able to begin to mention all the amazing Applications available through the Android Marketplace, there are 10,000 of them available. The only thing this phone doesn’t have is the free Google Maps Navigator app with turn-by-turn voice guided directions that was originally available on the Motorola Droid and then became available to other Android v1.6 devices. The learning curve is quick and most customers will love it.

Call Quality – 5/5 stars
Over the week or two I’ve had this phone, I’ve definitely had a better signal and call quality compared to the Apple iPhone. The Verizon Wireless network was by far more superior in terms of signal strength, call quality, and 3G speeds in Northern California compared to AT&T’s network. I had no dropped calls with the Droid Eris, while I often couldn’t even place calls or had to redial multiple times with the iPhone 3GS. Call quality wasn’t anything special, but was clear and reliable. The SpeedTest.net App showed that the the ping time to the same servers with the Droid Eris had a tenth as much of lag over several tests as the iPhone 3GS. The download speeds with both AT&T and Verizon in the same spot at the same time were fairly identical for Download speeds coming in at 1400kbps for the iPhone 3GS and 1500kbps for the Droid Eris. However Upload speeds were quite astonishing, Verizon had a clear win with about 800kbps on average while AT&T struggled with a mere 100kbps. For the most part, the Droid Eris has great hardware and utilizes the excellent Verizon Wireless network seamlessly. If you enable WiFi to connect to a broadband network, things only get even better.

Battery Life – 4/5 stars
Most smart phones have fairly poor battery life since they are often running applications and constantly using cellular networks to check for email and retrieve other bits of data. The HTC Droid Eris has a replaceable 1300mAh lithium ion battery which can handle up to 5 hours of talk time or at least a week on standby. In reality those numbers were significantly less due to constant fiddling with the phone to use the browser, listen to music, reply to emails, or utilize any of the phone’s variety of features. Most customers will actually see about 3 hours of talk time and about 3 days worth of standby, which isn’t a bad thing. It just means you’re using your phone.

Bottom Line
I was quite impressed and satisfied with the Droid Eris for Verizon Wireless just as we were with the HTC Hero on Sprint. It’s got all the goods needed to be a good smartphone from the Android operating system, a touch screen, a good camera, WiFi, and a App store. There’s plenty of features to keep you entertained, informed, and busy at all times. The HTC Sense UI takes the personalization and customizations features to a whole new level which customers will appreciate. It’s also cheapest Android device on the market costing just $99 after a $100 mail-in-rebate and signing a new 2-year contract. A data plan is required. If you are looking for a new entry level smartphone and don’t want to spend too much, this is definitely the best one out there.

Buy: Droid Eris on Amazon for $99
Links: HTC Droid Eris – VerizonWireless.com

After downloading Trillian from the App Store, users are prompted to login with either an existing Trillian Astra Account or to register for a new one. As I’m a existing Trillian Pro customer, I typed in my information and it immediately logged me into my AIM, MSN, and Yahoo! chat accounts, displaying all my contacts. There’s even an option to sign in as invisible. The home screen displays your username, avatar, status, connections, and the contacts directly below. Users will have the ability to add new contacts for any chat protocol, pick a nickname, and even a place them in a group while on the go. The search function also makes it easy to look through large buddy lists. The Favorites Page makes it easy to access contacts you chat with most often without having to scroll or search through the entire list.

The Active Chats page lists all the conversations currently in progress. Clicking on any conversation will open a tabbed chat interface. There’s an easy side-to-side scroll for switching through different conversations quickly. While I was disappointed to see that there was no landscape mode, I was glad to find that clicking on the “More” button offered the ability to view the user’s information, buzz the contact, and even send a photo. According to the support forums, a landscape mode has been developed, but wasn’t included. It might be thrown into a future update.

Overall I was quite satisfied with the the App. It was quite responsive and was easy to use. Since the iPhone doesn’t support running background Apps, Trillian supports Push Notifications. Once logged in, if you exit the App you’ll be able to continue to receive notifications each time you receive an instant message. Clicking on the App will return you the conversation without loosing any messages. Plus if you’re a user of the Desktop version, it instantly synchronizes data between both. The addition of a contact, a rename, or  anything else on either iPhone or the Desktop Client will be relayed to the other. It also supports remaining logged into Astra, AIM, and XMPP accounts on both devices at once. I would like to see chat history and support for other services also included for Yahoo! and Windows Live Messenger. The other feature Trillian for the iPhone lacked was support for Facebook Chat. While the Facebook iPhone App allows chat, it would still be nice to see it offered within Trillian as it’s a centralized location. Plus, it would be convenient with Push Notifications already supported.

If you’re interested, it’s available for download now from the iTunes App Store. While it would have been neat to see Cerulean Studios offer paid Trillian Pro customers the iPhone App for free, if you’re a heavy chat users like me, the $5 price isn’t too bad. It’s currently listed as the #1 paid application in the social networking section at the time of publishing this article. If you only chat occasionally, you will probably survive just fine with the free AIM or Yahoo! Messenger App or even IM+ Lite. However as a long-time Trillian fan, I couldn’t resist paying a bit to get the same experience on my iPhone.

Links: Trillian for iPhone on iTunes

The Body – 3/5 stars
HTC kept the front Touch Pro2 clean and simple. There’s a large 3.6 inch resistive touch screen, a touch zoom strip, and physical keys for Send, End, Start Menu, and Back on front. Along the sides, there’s a completely flush volume toggle button. A slot to store the stylus for the display is in the bottom right hand corner of the device. The proprietary USB charging port is right besides a standard 3.5mm headphone jack on the bottom. It also supports up to 32GB microSD expansion, but no card is included, which is a bit dissapointing. If I had to describe this phone with a quote, it would be: “Business in the front, party in the back.” While not describing a mullet for once, the clean-cut front is offset by an odd array of square perforations on the back surrounding the camera and an oddly placed microphone button. Although these perforations may be able to collect dust, they’re actually openings for the fairly respectable built-in speaker. There’s a full-sized QWERTY keyboard that slides out from under the display. Once extended, the screen can actually prop up at an angle, similar to a laptop. Although it is a neat way place on a flat surface to watch Sprint TV, I felt as though it just made the entire mechanism weaker was quite awkward to use when held. I also should mention this phone is huge. It’s thicker and weighs more than just about any smartphone I’ve come across. It’s at least 0.2 inches thicker than the HTC Eris and weighs about 2 ounces more than the HTC Hero. While there’s a demographic that’s needs this type of a phone, I would imagine that most consumers would prefer carrying a more compact device.

The Keyboard – 4/5 stars
The QWERTY keyboard has large buttons which have a “papery” feel. For some this means comfort, for others it may come off as cheap. While the 5 rows of keys were well spaced out, it would have been nice for them to have a more positive “click” when typing. While most phones have an on-screen indicator for Caps Lock and Function modifiers, the Touch Pro2 had real LED indicators as found on traditional keyboards. There’s also a sensor that turns on the back lighting when dark.

Speakers & Headphones – 4/5 stars
In regards to speakers and all things audio, the HTC Touch Pro2 does not disappoint. With decent reception, all calls sounded clear with through the earpiece. It was difficult to use this phone in even moderately loud areas as audio gets drowned out since the ear piece volume doesn’t get loud enough. It would be preferable to have a louder earpiece that needs to be turned down than having to struggle at max volume. Fortunately the speaker on the back is excellent. It’s just as clear a the earpiece, but the speaker-phone mode gets pretty loud. It’s not just for phone calls, but quality was quite impressive for both listening to music and watching Sprint TV. While it may not be the best for audiophiles like me, lacking punchy lows and articulate highs, the average business user won’t even notice.

The Display – 3/5 stars
As with any smartphone these days, the most notable feature is the display. The HTC Touch Pro2 sports a 480×800 pixel WVGA (Wide-VGA) resistive touch screen. Resistive touch screens utilize  layers of conductive material that registers inputs when pressed with either a finger or stylus. Unfortunately this is now a fairly old technology and is quite frankly being replaced by more advance multi-touch capacitive display technologies such as the one on the Sprint HTC Hero. Some people living in colder areas often prefer styluses since capacitive displays, such as the one found on the iPhone, will not work when wearing gloves. The downside of the Touch Pro2’s display includes needing to figure out how hard to press on the display, lack of multi-touch, and it can get activated and accept inputs while in your pocket. The phone ended up accidentally dialing a few of my contacts. Despite that, it was still quite accurate and I rarely missed an item or key when put to use.

Operating System – 2/5 stars
The HTC Touch Pro2 runs on Windows Mobile 6.1. The most recent version of Windows Mobile, 6.5, just missed being available for this phone by a few months. The use of Windows Mobile is also the reason the phone uses a resistive display rather than a capacitive one. It just doesn’t support it yet. For the most part the operating system can adequately handle all of the HTC Touch Pro2’s features, but it’s far from being the fastest or most efficient mobile operating systems out there. It’s just too hard to even begin to explain how much further and advance competing operating systems such as Google’s Android, Apple’s iPhone OS, and Palm’s WebOS are. While HTC has added a beautiful TouchFLO 3D interface to overlay the outdated Windows Mobile interface, you still run into those menus and pages. It’s often sluggish to respond when switching through menus, opening programs, and even performing general tasks. It’s simply not as initiative as the next generations of mobile operating systems that are now available. HTC’s hardware is great as we’ve seen on the Hero and Sprint’s network is fairly reliable, it’s the outdated software that’s holding this device back. No one want’s to look at or use “Windows 98″-esque menus.

Sprint TV – 5/5 stars
One feature Sprint touts with this phone is their popular Sprint TV application. It offers numerous channels from Disney to motorcycle racing. It should have something for just about everyone. There’s even live TV for the major channels and full length episodes for primetime shows. To enable Sprint TV, you must first, annoyingly, disconnect from Wi-Fi networks. It only works with Sprint’s 3G network. I can’t possibly imagine why both can’t work in coexistence, but I’ll blame it on the Windows Mobile OS. Despite that, Sprint TV was quite impressive. Even with low reception, I had a crisp and clear image and smooth audio. While AT&T and Verizon are in a war over 3G coverage area, I should note that Sprint’s 3G network is also impressively quite fast. Plus, I’m eager to test their new 4G network.

Wi-Fi & Web Browser – 2/5 stars
I faced issues a couple of times logging into a secured WiFi network that requires authentication through a browser. After several repeated attempts, it finally worked. Once connected, signal strength was quite strong. However it was a bit of a painful process compared to other smartphones that will have you connected in a click or two. I was also unimpressed with the built in browser. It’s behind in several ways: speed, compatibility, and navigation. It takes longer to render pages than on other devices. Even once rendered, it has issues displaying many web pages that work just fine on the browsers on the iPhone, Droid, and Palm. Navigating wasn’t much easier. With out the increasingly popular pinch-to-zoom function, you’ll need to resort to using the touch sensitive strip below the display. Scrolling through pages was not as snappy as other mobile browsers either.

The Camera – 2/5 stars
Should you ever need to use your James Bond-like reflexes to whip out the HTC Touch Pro2’s camera to snap a license plate number, you’re better off not even trying. It takes way too long to load. And even when you’re in the viewfinder mode, it’s still laggy. While the HTC Eris’s 5 megapixel camera performed impressively well, the HTC Touch Pro2’s 3.2 megapixel camera looked about as clear as a 1 megapixel camera on my ancient Audiovox phone. Even with auto-focus, capturing a quality image of an object only a yard away proved difficult. Seeing how far camera technology has progressed, the results of this camera was quite disappointing. While it can record video, I won’t bother explaining that.

Messaging – 4/5 stars
Text messaging and email both worked smoothly on the HTC Touch Pro2. Email was easy to set up and updated itself as scheduled. POP, IMAP, and MS Exchange are supported. Emails are displayed as physical envelopes and are neat to interact with. Replying to messages was easy, but switching between messages required a bit of fidgeting with the touchscreen or the help of the stylus. Text messaging are displayed in a thread format continuing off of the last message sent in the conversation. While it didn’t offer great interface that the HTC Hero does, the HTC Touch Pro2 did prove functional.

GPS Navigation – 0/5
If you are looking for a device to replace a traditional car mounted or built-in navigation system, the HTC Touch Pro2 isn’t the answer. Although the HTC Touch Pro2 advertises GPS Navigation, it’s far from delivering it reasonably. I tried to get the GPS to locate my position, but just about every attempt failed even after trying from many different areas. I repeatedly saw a “Signal reception is poor, please go outside and stand still.” Even if it connected, I wouldn’t be standing still when driving. While the Touch Pro2 repeatedly had issues, the Google Maps app on the HTC Hero worked perfectly in the same locations at the same time. Compared to the navigator on the Motorola Droid which has voice commands, voice-guided turn-by-turn directions, satellite/street views, traffic data, and much more, this phone seems like it’s in the stone age.

Battery Life & Charging – 4/5 stars
The battery life on the HTC Touch Pro2 proved to last about a day and a half with normal use. I would make  some calls, read some emails, send a few texts, load some web pages and show off the Sprint TV on average. This is about average for a smartphone, nothing impressive. Once you receive the low battery notification, you have about 10 minutes before the phone powers itself off. The devices claims about 6 hours of talk time and it sounds about right. Standby is apparently 11 days, but even with slight use, you won’t get nearly as much. You need to charge the phone with the included USB cable. I liked the modular feature since it can connect either to your computer or the port on the AC adapter. I do wish HTC used a miniUSB or now standard microUSB port instead.

Bottom Line:
Overall the HTC Touch Pro2 is a great phone for business users. It has many of the features to be a mobile office in your pocket. The most important aspect, calls sounded great and signal strength was stronger than on other Sprint devices. The build quality is fairly good and the QWERTY keyboard is useful for composing messages. It’s still nowhere as intuitive or “fun” of a device compared to competing smartphones, but that’s mainly due to Windows Mobile 6.1 being truly outdated. The HTC Touch Pro2 also has the largest touch screen Sprint offers. I wouldn’t recommend this phone to just anyone. It will run you nearly $349 with a new two-year contract, making it the most expensive phone Sprint currently offers. It’s not for average dad, mom, or student. They will find the HTC Hero a much more pleasurable device. However for business users, it’s probably one of the best phones out there.

Links: Sprint.com HTC Touch Pro2

While you are waiting for the review of the Droid Eris to go live, please feel free to subscribe to our RSS Feed or sign up for Email Subscriptions. If you haven’t heard, we’re also on Facebook and Twitter!

UPDATE: Droid Eris Review is here!

Body Design: 4/5 stars
Keeping with the environmental theme, the Samsung Reclaim is available to customers in two colors: “Ocean Blue” and “Earth Green”. Although the colors are quite bright and standout, it has a nice glossy feel and texture. Plus, it stands out and is a nice change from the standard black and silver trimmed phones that most phones have today. The Reclaim has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, which is great for texting. Although they keys were somewhat narrow and cramped, it should be fine after some getting used to. There are dedicated left/right soft keys and send/end buttons. A speakerphone key, okay, and back key are also included. The large size and color almost reminded me of Fisher Price toys, but they are solid and comfortable. There’s also a volume rocker and a camera shutter key on the side. I was also truly surprised to see a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, which even some smartphones launched earlier this year didn’t offer. There’s also a standard microSD card expansion and an micro USB port concealed under a plastic cover. Other than that, sliding out the keyboard reveals a 2 megapixel camera on the back. The device is fairly compact to fit into just about any pocket.

Display and Interface: 4/5 stars
The Samsung Reclaim sports a 2.6-inch QVGA 320×240 pixel display. Although the colors and graphics aren’t stunning, it’s appropriate for a phone in this price range. The phone uses Sprint’s fairly new “One Click” user interface. Everything is controlled by the directional pad and text entry with the slide-out QWERTY keyboard. The UI is well polished, fairly responsive, and even has an “eco-friendly theme” incorporated. It’s fast to navigate, easy to use, and you’ll find the usual array of address book, calendar, world/alarm clock, calculator, memo, and stopwatch programs. Furthermore, there is even a chat client (AIM, Live, Yahoo), Facebook, MySpace, and a Mobile Email client. Although the Web Browser isn’t anything to get excited about, staying informed and even updating Twitter statuses is painless.

Camera: 3/5 stars
I didn’t expect too much out of the Reclaim’s camera when I picked it up. The quality is mediocre, images lacked color and were a bit blurred even with a steady hand. I did like the dedicated capture key on the side, which was convenient. The max capture resolution is 1600 x 1200 pixels. Fortunately, the user interface was quite impressive. It has plenty of options including self-timers, brightness setting, custom tones, night shot, and a few other fun features. The phone surprisingly also offered the ability to share images by uploading Facebook or Flickr as well as MMS. The Reclaim can also capture videos, however quality isn’t any better than taking photos. A newer iteration could use a few improvements.

Music Playback & Sync: 3.5/5 stars
The multimedia features were quite impressive for a phone in this price range. With a standard headphone jack and microSD expansion, this can easily be turned into a fairly decent MP3 player. Although the included card was unfortunately only 512MB, picking up a 8GB microSD is just $20. The phone supports playback of most major formats (MP3, AAC, & WMA) including support for Amazon MP3 and iTunes Plus Tracks. Transferring media over is quite simple with a micro USB cable, which I wish Sprint had included with the packaging. The Samsung Reclaim also has access to Sprint’s Music Store. It’s also compatible with Stereo Bluetooth Headsets such as the Jabra Halo.

Phone Calls + Texting: 4/5 stars
The most important feature of any phone is making calls. The Samsung Reclaim fell a bit short compared to other devices with slightly worse signal strength. Despite that it didn’t lack on quality for the most part. The person on the other end could hear me just fine. The speaker phone was a bit choppy at times. The phone battery can last through about 6 hours worth of calls with a full charge. When not in use, it should last at least 2-3 days on standby. Plus, with a full QWERTY keyboard messaging others is quite a snap. It was quick to send text messages and even using the instant messaging features.

Environmental Benefits: 5/5 stars
If I wasn’t told this was a recycled phone, I wouldn’t have known. The build quality is pretty impressive and it’s actually better than many other phones in this price range. If there’s a way to get people to “Go Green,” this is one of those. While most eco-friendly devices are over priced or lack on features, the Samsung Reclaim doesn’t linger on either. Sprint has taken the initiative to cut down on technology wastes in the next several ears. Along with Samsung, they managed to manufacture a device from bio-plastic, making the phone 80% recyclable. Even the packaging is entirely recycled materials and the printed ink is from soy-based materials. Although cell phone chargers don’t consume much power, Samsung even emphasized on the Energy Star approved AC Adapter. The phone is also pre-loaded with a number of links to Guides to living a healthy eco-friendly lifestyle. Sprint also donates a few dollars of the proceeds made with each sale to programs that help benefit the environment.

Bottom Line:
While most people are caught up in the smartphone trend, devices and initiatives such as these are often overlooked. Non-smartphones such as this Samsung Reclaim still account for the vast majority of mobile phone market share. The price is probably the best part. It’s available for just $49 with a new two-year contract. It’s probably even free if you are eligible for an upgrade. This phone has just about all the features an expensive top of the line device had just a year or two ago. I wouldn’t recommend this phone for Business or tech savvy customers, however it’s beyond excellent for students, those on a budget, or those looking for an environmentally friendly device. The Reclaim doesn’t sacrifice any important features. I would definitely love to see Sprint push this initiative further and apply it to even the smartphones that are becoming increasingly popular. If you are looking for a new device to make calls, text, and even to listen to music, definitely take a look at Sprint’s Samsung Reclaim.

Deal: Samsung Reclaim for FREE
Links: Sprint.com – Samsung Reclaim

After grabbing the Delivery Status Touch from the iTunes App Store, it’s quite easy to start using. Just tap the Edit button, and click the ‘+’ icon to add a new item to track. Just about every major domestic delivery service I’ve used was listed and there are quite a few international ones as well. There’s even tracking tools for Amazon, Apple, and Google Checkout orders. Once you choose the service, you’ll have to key in the tracking number and pick a name. Fortunately since the iPhone now has copy and paste, it’s quite simple to grab the code from an email and enter it into this App. Although it might be overkill, I would truly be impressed if they added Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for use with the Camera. I would love to be able to just take a snap of the tracking number on a sheet of paper.

The home screen will display a list of the active packages you are tracking. You can manually sort them or have it automatically organized by delivery dates. Each item updates each time the App is started and will display the number of days until delivery besides each app. There’s also a one-line message of the latest status provided by the carrier and the estimated delivery date. Once delivered, the countdown will be replaced with a check mark. The items are also color coded by each company’s most prominent color. You can click on an item for further details. The map link will display the last known location of the package and your current GPS location. The entire Delivery Status Touch App has a landscape mode and there’s even a Junecloud web page to sync tracking numbers. The application is quite responsive, well polished, and easy to use. The only feature that’s missing that I would love to see in a future version is Push Notifications for deliveries, exceptions, or even progress updates.

There’s plenty of ways to track packages on the iPhone, however none are as well designed as this. If you rarely track packages, you can probably survive just fine using email updates and using the browser to check on packages. On the other hand if you are always have a number of shipments going in and out, this is an excellent tool to stay organized. It’s available for just $3 from the iTunes App Store.

Buy: Launch iTunes App Store
Links: Junecloud.com Delivery Status Touch

It all starts with the hardware. It’s shocking. With a 600MHz processor and 1GB of RAM, the phone resembles the configuration of a high end laptop just about 10 years ago. The 3.5 inch display packs 800 x 480 pixels, just a bit short of what the Droid offers. But it’s also has 32GB of on-board flash memory and even offers 16GB microSDHC card expansion. There’s also a 5 megapixel camera with a Carl Zeiss lens, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, HSPA 10Mbps, a FM Transmitter, and a microUSB data port.

As for the software, which has recently been a trending topic in regards to smart phones, the Nokia N900 runs on Maemo 5. If you haven’t heard of it, that’s because it’s fairly new. It’s a Linux-based open source OS and it deviates from using Symbian, which is found on just about every other Nokia phone. And of course, it’s quite powerful with multi-tasking, a Mozilla-based browser that supports Flash and AJAX, multi-protocol instant messaging, VoIP Skype support, and a consolidated all-in-one contact manager.

That’s just touching the surface of what this phone has to offer. An unlocked version of the Nokia N900 is already up for Pre-Orders on Amazon for $559. While I try get in contact with Nokia for a review unit, please enjoy some product shots of the phone that were included in the official press kit:

Pre-Order: Nokia N900 for $559
Links: Nokia.com N900

On another note, Verizon Wireless also announced the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8530. Unlike the clickable touch-screen the Storm2 features (see our review), it has traditional form factor with a physical QWERTY keyboard. Unlike older BlackBerry phones, this one does away with the trackball, replacing it with a touch-sensitive trackpad. And for some quick specs for this phone, it’s packed with WiFi, 3G, GPS, 2 megapixel camera, and mainly a lot of business/enterprise features. The Curve 9530 will be available on November 20th for $99 after a $100 rebate and signing a 2-year contract.

We will be getting a hold of both of these phones in the coming days and will be publishing full reviews shortly after. In the meantime, to be the first to read our reviews, subscribe to our RSS Feed, sign up for Email Subscriptions, or find us on Facebook or Twitter!

If there is anything you should take from that last paragraph, it should be that I am hypercritical when it comes to reviewing smart phones because I have yet to experience the recipe for a so-called “iPhone-Killer”. So when I say that the Motorola Droid is my new favorite phone, you can take me seriously. Yes, yes, all of the smart phones in this generation do just about everything short of cooking for you. But the Droid just does it better with Motorola’s feature-packed hardware, Android’s new open source operating system, and Verizon’s high quality network. I’ll explain.

The Hardware
This phone is built like a tank. It weighs about an ounce more than the iPhone, but the extra weight just makes the Droid feel like it’s expensive and has a lot to offer rather than just a heavy burden. I was initially concerned about the sliding mechanism for the keyboard, which is often the first to break on phones with a similar form factor. However, this isn’t the case. The Droid is far from flimsy. Although the phone doesn’t sit flush on a flat surface; the shape of the back elevates the phone just enough so that it doesn’t vibrate off of a table or let the camera get scratched. The lip below the screen didn’t seem to serve any purpose, but I soon realized that it houses the microphone and helps the user to tell the speaker from the microphone.

I only have a few small complaints. My first complaint is with the external buttons. Don’t get me wrong, all three power, volume, and camera keys work fine, but they sit loosely in the frame, which feels as though it takes away from the quality of the build. My second complaint is with the battery compartment cover. It slides off rather easily. It even came off once when I pulled it out of a tight pocket in my backpack. I suppose that’s better than not being able to take it off at all, but it’s something to keep in mind if you like your jeans extra tight.

• Overall Quality – 5/5
• Mechanical Parts – 5/5
• External Buttons – 4/5

The Display
Measuring 3.7 inches and 480 x 854 pixel resolution, the Droid’s touch-screen display is beautiful, bright, enormous, and knocks competitor’s displays out of the park. The screen is both larger than the one found on the iPhone and also has over two times screen resolution. That means it can easily fit and render websites normally designed for computers. Plus, it’s large enough of a resolution to playback DVD quality movies. It’s also accurate and sensitive enough to register touches properly. Like all glossy touch screen phones, the screen tends to get covered with fingerprints and smudges, but it’s nothing your t-shirt can’t fix.

• Size – 5/5
• Resolution – 5/5
• Brightness – 5/5
• Quality – 5/5

The Keyboard
The Droid offers both a physical keyboard and an on-screen keyboard to suit your taste. The on-screen keyboard works perfectly in both horizontal and landscape modes. A key press results in both a sound and/or haptic (vibration) feedback. In fact, the on-screen keyboard is almost the same as the iPhone’s, so it should be an easy transition for those used to Apple’s keyboard.

The physical keyboard is pretty standard. The buttons are square and the keys become illuminated when it’s dark. There’s nothing incredibly special or annoying about it. The only issue is the layout. Rather than having slightly offset keys as found on standard keyboards, everything is aligned in a perfect grid. However, just like any other phone, you get used to what you have after a day of use. I shouldn’t understate the keyboard. Many smart phone owners are first time buyers who are accustomed to the traditional click and feel of physical keyboards. The Droid wouldn’t have been as interesting of a phone if it didn’t have one.

One major drawback to the keyboards is the lack of language interchangeability. Android does not offer native on-the-fly language switching. There are a few applications on the Android Marketplace that will do this for you, and something may be in the works for future upgrades, but I’m disappointed that the Droid can’t handle more languages than I can out of the box.

• On-Screen Keyboard – 5/5
• Physical Keyboard – 4/5
• Language Options – 2/5

The Interface
The touch screen interface is flawless, responsive, and frequently used, which makes the Droid extremely intuitive. Surprisingly the Droid lacks multi-touch gestures, while the European version, called the Milestone, offers it. I can’t imagine why they left this out, but hopefully it can get fixed with a future software update. But even without that, the Droid is just as easy to get along with. I felt that the double-tab to zoom command was easier than the pinch-to-zoom since it can be done with just one finger.

There are four touch-sensitive spots below the screen: back, menu, home, and search. The interface controls for nearly every application stay in an orderly manner, so the touch sensitive keys work perfectly everywhere. My favorite by far is search, which looks through both your phone and Google. Thanks to the Droid’s ability to multitask, this feature can be used at just about any time without losing your work. For example, say you are in a call with a friend and need to find the address of a restaurant. Just hit search and type in the name of the restaurant. If the information is not already saved in your address book, it will search Google and display results while remaining on the line.

• Multitasking – 5/5
• Touch Interface – 5/5

Voice Recognition
Android’s voice recognition engine is unparalleled and works with almost everything. That includes slang and even thick accents; “Call Kreestan” works just as well as “Call Kristen”. Android was even able to recognize my French and (bad) Spanish without changing any settings. “Direcciones al gymnasio” (Spanish for “directions to the gym”) gave me a list of nearby gyms while my locale was still set to English. Unfortunately, it doesn’t allow using this feature to dictate text messages, but if it did I would image it would work better than the Samsung Rogue. With laws prohibiting texting while driving, it would be a great idea to let you speak your texts through a hands free device.

• Voice Recognition – 5/5

Phone Calls
With all the other stunning aspects of the Droid, it’s quite easy to lose sight of its primary function: a phone. The Droid does not fall short in this category. Calls are as clear as ever and the microphone intelligently cancels out background noises. During one particular call, a caravan of buses passed by not three feet away from me, and the person on the other end didn’t even notice. Until I mentioned the busses to see if anything was heard, the caller thought I was in a quiet room. Signal strength was strong just about anywhere I went in Northern California and I didn’t face any dropped calls. And as I’ve mentioned before, it’s easy to multitask while on the phone. You can add callers, look up contacts, search for information – the only thing you can’t do while on the phone is use the microphone.

• Call Quality – 5/5
• Signal Strength – 5/5

The Android Roadtrip
The Motorola Droid’s features integrate incredibly well with its operating system, Android 2.0, so it’s hard to talk about one without the other. I decided the best way to really discover the capabilities of both by taking the phone on the road and use the Droid for everything and really push it to the limit.

We had no idea where we were going, but we knew what route we wanted to take, so we packed a lunch, hopped in the car, plugged the Droid into the stereo, and created a station for The Kills on Pandora.

Navigation
The Motorola Droid on Verizon is the first device to feature Google Maps Navigation. It’s a completely free service that offers 3D maps with voice guided turn-by-turn directions. The VZ Navigator available on most Verizon Wireless phones costs an additional $10 a month for use. A decent turn-by-turn direction App on the iPhone sells for a one time fee of nearly $80-$100. On the other hand Google Maps Navigation is entire free and is offers a lot more.

Our journey through Sacramento was a familiar one. Kristen (my lovely driver) and I were feeling the familiar drone of the autopilot set in, and decided that a caffeine fix was necessary. The Droid features a “Car Home” mode, which offers quick access to on-the-road navigation features. I hit Quick Search and asked for “directions to Starbucks”. The voice recognition registered all the terms successfully and gave me directions to a Starbucks right off of the highway in Folsom. The navigator showed us a Google Street View of our destination, so it was easy to point out where it was upon arrival. If I had the official dashboard mount, the Droid could have easily replaced my current GPS.

The drive through El Dorado National Forest is beautiful. There were lots of trees and mountains that probably should have thrown off the GPS or at least our streaming soundtrack, but both remained strong. We lost GPS signal once while weaving through mountain roads, but that lasted less than five seconds, and the only reason we noticed was because the navigation voice started to give us alternative directions. After seeing a couple small rivers running along side the highway, we had the urge to go find a waterfall. With the GPS and Pandora still running, I searched for “nearby waterfalls”. The browser remained fast even while driving through a forest with the other programs running in the background. I was given results relative to our location – our new destination was Vikingsholm in South Lake Tahoe.

• Navigation Interface – 5/5
• Accuracy of Directions – 5/5
• GPS Accuracy – 5/5

Camera & Camcorder
The Droid sports a 5-megapixel camera. It produces images with a maximum resolution of 2592 x 1936 pixels. The scenic road through El Dorado was a perfect place to give the camera a shot. With 16GB of memory on the included Micro-SD card, I wasn’t afraid to keep snapping. The camera took some great shots, though I did find that the automatic stabilization function needed the camera to remain still for a few extra seconds to work properly. The digital zoom produced some pretty grainy pictures, as expected. The flash kicked in at appropriate times and improved pictures taken in darker environments. Plus the geo-tagging feature marked coordinates of where those photos were snapped. With a program such as Google Picasa or Apple iPhoto, you can easily import and view your photo library on a visual map.

The Droid’s large screen is great for reviewing photos and videos, though I was most impressed when I played back the captured videos on my laptop. Videos are shot at an impressive 720×480 pixel resolution at 24 FPS. The quality was excellent and it didn’t jitter at all. Android also supports sending images and videos via MMS, email, or uploading to services such as Facebook and YouTube. The Droid’s camera won’t be replacing a traditional camera anytime soon, but it’s a big step up from other camera phones.

• Photo Quality – 5/5
• Video Quality – 5/5
• Camera Interface – 5/5
• Media Sharing – 5/5

Notification System
Android has a centralized notification system to keep track of the things happening on the phone. By simply dragging down the top toolbar, you can view alerts for new emails, texts, missed calls, finished downloads, calendar reminders, and voicemail. On the other hand, the iPhone simply places a number above Apps that have an alert, but that requires swiping through multiple pages to check on them. The BlackBerry Storm2 probably has the most similar ability with its built in news feed. Simply organizing those updates into one place makes thing easy and responding to those alerts is just a single click away. The system also provides a simple interface to access applications that are running in the background. For example, it will show what song it playing on Pandora. It’s definitely going to be hard to go back to other systems after giving this a shot.

• Notification System – 5/5

Speakers & Headphones
The Droid uses a standard 3.5mm audio jack and has no problem putting out high quality sound. It sounded just as good as my iPod Touch. But using headphones on this trip would have been selfish, so I cranked up the volume of the external speakers so that Kristen could listen in. The speaker’s sound quality was absolutely fantastic; they sounded better than my three-year-old Macbook’s speakers! The speakers would not put out much bass, but surprisingly they did not garble the rest of the audio. From ten yards away with a river running in the background, Kristen was able to clearly comprehend Jack White’s lyrics.

• Speaker Quality – 5/5
• Headphones – 5/5

Media Player
While listening to Pandora, I came across a song I really liked by the White Stripes. I clicked on the “Buy” button in the menu and it took me straight to the song’s page on the Amazon MP3 store. I bought the song and opened up Music for an encore. The purchased song was added into my music library with the existing songs from the White Stripes album. Although the phone’s media player offers all the basic functionalities such as browsing by Artist, Album, Genre, or Songs it does have a few issues. For example, you can’t view all the songs by a single Artist, but rather have to jump back and forth through the Albums by that Artist one at a time. Edit: The media player does allow you to view all songs by a single artist, but it was a little tricky to figure out how (touch and hold the desired artist, select “Play”, and hit the “Playlist” button to view all songs). It’s a well developed player and includes Album Art, a shuffle and a repeat feature. Although it could use a few tweaks, it’s a completely viable alternative to purchasing a dedicated MP3 player.

• Music Player – 4/5

Syncing
Before my road trip, I manually copied a few hundred songs from my computer to the phone with the included Micro-USB cable. The phone appeared as a mass storage device and didn’t require any software. Android automatically recognized the music and other content. Although people despise the bloated iTunes software, it offers an easy syncing relationship between a computer and an iPhone/iPod. Unfortunately, neither Motorola nor Verizon suggest nor include a tool to manage your media. Edit: Scratch that, Motorola just released a tool called Media Link which easily lets you manage music, photos, and videos. Computer geeks will find a solution that suites their needs, but others will be left in confusion.

• Library Management – 4/5

Battery Life
The battery was at about 75% when we left Davis. After four hours of multitasking, the Droid was just about finished with a little bit of juice left to take a few pictures, exceeding my expectations completely. The official specs claim 6.4 hours of 3G talk time and about 11 days of standby.

As we headed to the car to start our trip home, after four hours of heavy multitasking, the Droid gave me a low battery notification. It wasn’t just a standard, single-line message; it brought up a panel that displayed the power consumption of each running application. Right at the top of the list were my power hungry applications. I knew where we were going, so with 5% battery left, I closed all applications and put the Droid on standby. It stayed on for another hour, which was both unexpected and impressive, though I would recommend purchasing a car charge if trips like these are a regular occurrence. It only took about three hours to completely charge the phone once we got home.

• Battery Life – 4/5
• Power Management – 5/5

The Bottom Line
So that brings us to the big question, “Would you recommend the Motorola Droid over the Apple iPhone?” Yes and No. In terms of technical specs, yes the Droid is better. Yes, the Droid does have more features. And yes, I would absolutely recommend that you check it out, but in the end it is a matter of preference. I don’t believe the Droid will be the mythical “iPhone-Killer”, but there’s a good chance the Android platform will. For example the HTC Hero which we reviewed last week and the upcoming Samsung Moment on Sprint both run on the Android platform. This means all the same set of applications downloaded through the Android Market, similar to the iTunes App Store, will run on any of those devices. Unless Apple drops a bomb in the near future with some major changes to the hardware and opens up the software, Android has a clear shot to take out the iPhone.

If you’re convinced and ready to buy a Motorola Droid, it’s going to hit Verizon Wireless stores this Friday, November 6th, 2009. Due to high demand, Verizon is opening all it’s stores earlier than normal at 7 AM. It’s not that expensive either considering the powerful camera, GPS Navigator, and 16GB MP3 player it packs inside. It will only set you back about $199 after signing a new 2-year contract and sending in a $100 mail-in-rebate. If you’re an existing customer who’s eligible for an upgrade, you should be entitled to an additional $50 or $100 discount based of the price of your current calling plan.

Links: VerizonWireless.com Motorola Droid

Note: This review was edited by Sahas Katta.