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

“iPad is our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iPad creates and defines an entirely new category of devices that will connect users with their apps and content in a much more intimate, intuitive and fun way”

The Hardware
The Apple iPad is about a half-inch thick, 9.56 inches tall, and 7.47 inches wide. The WiFi-only model weighs just 1.5 pounds. It sports a 9.7-inch capacitive touch screen IPS display with a 1024 x 768 pixel resolution. There’s plenty of connectivity as well, with support for WiFi a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 2.1. It is also offered in a 3G flavor for AT&T’s network. It works well with mapping software since it has an assisted GPS module and can also use cellular towers for better accuracy. The unit comes in four storage capacities: 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB flash storage. It runs at 1 GHz on Apple’s own A4 custom-designed processor. Like the iPhone, it of course features an Accelerometer to detect when rotated and an Ambient light sensor to automatically control display brightness. For video formats, it should be able to play just about all the formats that the iPhone and iPod Touch support, but in HD quality. Just like the iPhone OS, it supports display all the office file formats that the email client currently supports. (e.g. jpg, pdf, doc, xls, ppt) There’s no physical keyboard, but rather an on-keyboard that’s apparently large enough to type on with two hands. Apple did demonstrate a special keyboard dock accessory. There’s a built-in non-replaceable battery that Apple claims will offer 10 hours of productivity on a full charge. A regular Apple USB cable charges the device with an AC adapter or with a computer. Other than that, it has a regular 3.5mm headphone jack, speakers, a microphone, but no webcam.

The Apps
The iPad’s OS isn’t the same as the iPhone OS or even Mac OS X. It’s a special version that stands between the two. If anything, it’s more like the iPhone OS. That’s because it can run just about any App that’s currently available for the iPod Touch or iPhone. If you didn’t notice the screen’s quite larger. That means that an iPhone-optimized App won’t fit properly. Apple lets you run the App surrounded by unusually large black border in the center of the screen. If you prefer, there’s a magnify button that doubles the size of the App, however leaving you with a low-resolution program. It doesn’t seem to support multi-tasking or running multiple programs simultaneously. While that might take previous iPhone and iPod Touch owners some getting used to, the built-in programs are fortunately redesigned and well polished. Everything from the Safari web browser to mail client, photo viewer, maps, notes, calendar, contacts, and more have all be optimized for a 9.7-inch display with plenty of new features. Even multimedia support has improved with an improved iTunes browser interface for browsing and purchasing content on the go. The iPod app now has an interface that looks somewhat of a mix between the desktop version of iTunes and the iPhone player. It all seems a bit risky of a play on Apple’s part, however we’ll see how it holds up and if it plays well with customers in sometime.

iBooks
Yes that’s right, Apple did just take a stab at the Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook. The iPad makes for a better device than the iPhone for reading books since it has a larger display. As expected, all books will be available for purchase through a new section in the iTunes Store. Books from both independent and major publishers will be available. Apple demonstrated a “Bookshelf-like” interface for browsing through a collection of downloaded titles.

Notice: Sorry for the delay, we were having some server issues, we’ve updated the content below.

iWork
Apple also ported the famous productivity suite, iWork, over to the iPad’s keyboard-lacking touch-screen interface. Pages, Keynote, and Numbers won’t just be document viewers, but rather will allow creating and modifying documents. And of course, the entire package works seamlessly in a multi-touch environment. It supposedly supports handling Microsoft Office documents as well. Each of the iWork Apps will run you $9.99. It’s hard to tell whether being truly productive and working at a fast pace with solely an on-screen keyboard will be possible.

Pricing
As mentioned previously, the iPad will be available in two versions. The WiFi-only model will be available worldwide in late March at retail price of $499 for the 16GB model, $599 for the 32GB model, and $699 for the 64GB model. The WiFi + 3G model will become available in April at a slightly higher cost: $629 for the 16GB model, $729 for the 32GB model, and $829 for the 64GB model. The 3G version will surprisingly sell without a AT&T contract with two data plans offered. A $15/month plan has a 250MB data transfer cap while $30/month plan offers unlimited data. As a bonus, iPad users will have free access to AT&T’s WiFi hotspots as well if subscribed to a plan.

Links: Apple.com iPad

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!

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

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

Novatel MiFi 2200 Specifications:

• Network: Verizon Wireless CDMA
• Wi-Fi Mode: 802.11b/g
• Security: VPN & WEP/WPA/WPA2
• Size / Weight: 3.5″ x 2.3″ x 0.4″ / 2.05 oz
• Connector: microUSB
• Battery Life: 4 hours use / 40 hours standby

Hardware: 5/5 stars
The MiFi 2220, developed by Novatel, is about the width and height of a business card. It’s 3.5 inches wide, 2.3 inches tall, and just 0.4 inches thick to be exact. While weighing just about 2 ounces, it packs both a CDMA and WiFi antennas inside. There’s a power button on the top that lights up green when it’s on. A microUSB connector, for charging the device, resides besides another green LED indicator that displays WiFi activity. On the bottom, there’s a sliding back door that reveals a battery pack. Other than that there’s not much else to say. It’s light weight and compact enough to take with you.

Setup Process: 3/5 stars
For someone who doesn’t know much about technology, the idea of this device might be confusing. It’s essentially a 3G modem that has a WiFi router built in. So instead of having to connect it to your computer with a cable, it broadcasts a WiFi signal. Just find the access point on your computer, connect, and behold: the internet! Sounds easy right? Unfortunately not. Although our unit was pre-configured since it’s a sample review model, a normal user will have to go through some mess. Unlike phones where you just dial a number to quickly activate, MiFi owners will either need to do it over the internet or at a Verizon Wireless Store. To get it done over the web, you’ll have to download and install some drivers for your computer to recognize the device. Unfortunately that ends up defeating the major selling point of the device: not having to install crappy software.

Features: 5/5 stars
Anyways once you get it activated, there’s a lot this device offers. Just connect to the hotspot and key in the IP address to access the web interface of the device. Just like a standard home Linksys or D-Link router, it offers a panel to change settings. I was able to pick a new SSID, change the security to WPA2, and pick a new pass-phrase. I was quite impressed that such a small device was even capable of offering such options. The local web interface even displays 3G signal strength, data usage, and your IP address and plenty more. Plus since up to 5 of your devices can join in on your network, it even displays the number of connected users. Considering this first model has so many options and capabilities, I’m quite excited to see what’s in stock for a future version.

Network Speed: 5/5 stars
The most important aspect is the data transfer speeds the device offers. To give this a shot I decided to use the SpeedTest.net application on my iPhone to test the speeds when connected to the MiFi over WiFi. Yes, I have Verizon on my iPhone, through WiFi. Speed test recorded throughout the San Francisco Bay Area consistently averaged at about 1200kbps down and 700kbps up. Every time I ran a test on the MiFi, I also tested AT&T’s 3G speed on the iPhone. The results disappointingly averaged at about half of what the MiFi offered: 650kbps down and 250kbps up. I also used the Verizon MiFi to access the internet through my Dell Mini 9 netbook. The speeds were speedy enough to browse most webpages, check emails, or instant message. Streaming rich media such as Hulu or YouTube just isn’t too practical. It works and sometimes well when signal is really strong, but requires waiting for a lot of buffering most of the time. Plus with data caps, I wouldn’t recommend using up precious bites.

Battery Life: 5/5 stars
According to the specifications, Verizon claims four hours of use and 4o hours of standby with the 11mAh battery. After testing for short periods over a period of few weeks, I can agree that the claims are about right. Although the power saving feature, which turns itself off when there’s no activity, is sometimes annoying; it offers plenty of hours for the average user. Plus charging it is as simple as plugging it into either a computer with the included microUSB or a power outlet with the AC Adapter. The device takes about 2.5 hours to replenish and can even be in use while recharging.

Conclusion:
Overall the Verizon MiFi is a new and interesting technology that is simply great. Other than the weird setup process, it makes life on the go truly convenient. Transfer speeds are great. Battery life is probably enough for most users. The only issue comes in with data caps. The plans are just ridiculously overpriced. A 250MB usage plan costs $40/month and a 5GB plan is $60/month. That’s more than what most people pay for unlimited high speed internet at home. And while the hardware lets you easily share internet access with a friend traveling with you, the data caps makes you think again. Other than that issue, the rest is great and I highly recommend it. If you are interested, the device is available for purchase for $99 after a $50 mail-in-rebate with a new 2-year contract.

Deal Alert: Verizon MiFi For Free [with contract]
Links: VerizonWireless.com MiFi

BlackBerry Storm2 Specifications:

• Provider: Verizon Wireless UMTS/HSPA & EDGE/GPRS/GSM
• Displays: SurePress 3.25-inch 360×480 pixels touch screen
• Camera: 3.2 Megapixel Camera w/ Auto-focus & Flash
• Music: MP3, M4A, WMA, & AAC/eAAC/eAAC+
• Video: MPEG4, WMV, H.264
• Memory: 2GB (internal) | 16GB microSD included
• Dimensions: 4.43″ L x 2.45″ W x .55″ D
• Battery: GSM: 5-6 hours talk time | 270-305 hours standby
• Other: Bluetooth 2.1 | 3.5 mm Audio Jack | Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g

The Body: 5/5
The Storm2 is a bit of a heavy phone just like the original Storm, but there are plenty of changes that make it fantastic. For one it simply just looks sharp and feels like an expensive device. The front is completely glossy, the sides are covered with a chrome trim, and the back has a brushed metal look. Instead of having separated physical buttons for the send, menu, back, and end keys, they are all integrated onto the bottom of the SurePress touch screen. The speaker is now located on the bottom portion facing the user for undistorted quality instead of on the back. The voice command key and the micro USB port are on the left side of the phone. From the top to the bottom on the right side, there’s the 3.5mm headphone jack, volume rocker, and the camera shutter. The top of the back side has the 3.2 mega pixel camera and a LED flash right above the plate covering the battery pack, SIM card, and microSD card. The play/pause control and power button that also locks the phone is on the top. Everything is within fingers reach and the grip feels great.

The Display: 5/5 stars
The original BlackBerry Storm had plenty of issues with the touch screen. For one it was too hard to press and was too slow to type on. The Storm2 features a new SurePress display that supports multi-touch and multi-clicks. The display is much more responsive and feels better. When browsing through applications or typing on a keyboard, you can lay your finger on the screen without worrying about it accepting that as a click. It will simply highlight the item your finger is on until you physically press the display. If you’ve used any other touch screen display such as the iPhone before, this is a very different feel. Although it takes some getting used to, it brings back a bit more of the feel a traditional QWERTY keyboard offered. The accelerometer has also been vastly improved and the display can quickly switch between landscape and portrait for anything including the keyboard. For everything from the home screen, text, images, or videos, the display has excellent colors, is bright, and crisp. Although slightly more difficult to use in direct sunlight, it looks stunning indoors.

The Keyboard: 4/5 stars
Moving on, since the Storm2 doesn’t have a physical keyboard, it offers multiple types of virtual ones. The simplest one is the QWERTY mode that works in both landscape and portrait. It’s a bit too crammed when in portrait, but is the landscape version is the best way to type. The MultiTap method most resembles typing on numeric keypads on old flip phones. It’s slow and tedious, but still works. The most interesting mode is an improved version of SureType which was also present on the original Storm. It pairs two letters on a single key in the portrait view. Without having to double-click to access the second letter, it second guesses the word you are trying to type. And it impressively actually worked most of the time. There’s almost no lag in between key presses and it appearing on the display. I only wish they made the keys for the QWERTY landscape a bit larger since there is some extra screen estate available. Typing isn’t slow either since it can accept two inputs at almost the same time. The original Storm had a delay, since you would have to wait for the screen to pop back up after a click. Plus with an improved auto-correct feature, it’s faster to type as it fixes typos for you. The default dictionary learns new words and names quite quickly. Plus there are plenty of custom settings to adjust tap interval, hover period, and swipe sensitivity to meet your needs. Even though it lacks a real physical keyboard, the Storm2 manages to make typing easy, fast, and even fun.

Operating System & Interface: 4/5 stars
The Storm2 runs on the BlackBerry 5.0 OS. It’s a big improvement over 4.7. For one it’s much snappier and has faster animations and transitions. It’s interface is user-friendly and even looks good. The home screen is completely customizable from choosing backgrounds, to rearranging icons, or even creating folders for group applications. And as with any BlackBerry, you can customize font size, color, and type. The OS also supports multitasking unlike the Apple iPhone and lets you easily switch between running applications by simply holding down the menu button until an Windows-esque ALT-TAB menu appears. The OS is also more open to 3rd party applications than the iPhone. Storm2 owners will be able to fetch new applications from Verizon’s Application Center, through BlackBerry App World, or download one from a web page in the Browser. App World has a great interface and large selection of both free and paid applications. The phone comes pre-loaded with chat clients, social networking programs, and a few others tools. Plus with 256MB of RAM, double of that on the original Storm, everything is faster and more things can be running at once. The only issue I found was with the Web Browser. Despite a fast network and WiFi, it is still slow when it comes to rendering pages. It lacks a tabbed interface and still has issues displaying pages properly. It also lags quite a bit when zooming in or out. And when it comes to applications, there are plenty of good ones available, but many standard BlackBerry apps don’t run so well on the Storm2 since they aren’t designed for a touch screen display. Rather than those issues, the rest of interface and OS has been vastly improved.

Call Quality & Features: 5/5 stars
I don’t think this phone could do any better when it comes to making or receiving calls. The reception was beyond excellent. Call quality was crisp and clear on both ends. And that’s great since the phone aspect is the most important part of this smartphone. I had no dropped calls either. After pressing the send button to launch the phone application, the dialpad appears. It looks elegant and has large keys, making it easy to dial numbers quickly. Getting to either the call history or contacts page is only one click away. The phone even helps “guess” the number while you are typing by cross referencing your address book. During a call, there’s a menu with keys for the speaker, mute, flash, and “add participant” button. The phone also has a proximity sensor which turns off the display when it’s held up to your ear during a call to save battery life and prevent accidental key presses. The voice-dial function has its own dedicated hard key and recognizes names quite accurately even amongst a couple hundred contacts. The Storm2’s new OS also allows accessing other components of the phone during a call including your calendar, email, and browser making life a lot easier.

Multimedia: 5/5 stars
The Storm2 still isn’t as great of a media player compared to other devices such as the iPhone, but it’s a step closer. It has 2GB of on-board memory and a 16GB microSD is included for extra storage. I was able to sync my phone using the included microUSB cable with both Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.04 easily. I was able to quickly drop media onto the card and the Storm2 automatically detected and indexed everything immediately. It even played back HD shows that was recored in Media Center 7 after being automatically converted to a compatible format by Windows Media Player. The last phone I reviewed, the Samsung Rouge, had horrible speakers, but the ones on the Storm2 exceeded my expectations. There was barely any distortion even with the volume turned all the way up. The phone allows browsing music by artists, albums, or genres. It even displayed the album artwork that was embedded into my MP3s perfectly. I was also thankful to find that my music could be used as ringtones, which even the iPhone doesn’t allow without going through some roundabouts. Video quality was also excellent, it didn’t jitter or lag as some other phones do. If OpenGL gets thrown into a new OS update in the future, it will make media playback, animations, and transitions much smoother.

3G & WiFi: 5/5 stars
The BlackBerry Storm2 makes excellent use of Verizon’s 3G network. I found it to have faster network speeds and it better signal strength just about everywhere I went compared to the AT&T iPhone another Skatter Tech writer had. Emails, Chat Messages, and other notifications were almost instant. And plus with WiFi thrown in, things get even faster. The WiFi setup is simple and even allows those push button pin setups some new routers support. It’s compatible with the latest WPA2 encryption and corporate security protocols too. I don’t know why RIM hadn’t spent the time to integrate this in the original Storm because there’s no question that WiFi is an essential part of this phone.

Camera & Camcorder: 5/5 stars
The 3.2 megapixel camera takes great pictures up to a max resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels. The phone has a built in LED Flash, auto focus, and image stabilization. With those three features, images looks wonderful. It still shows signs of “graininess” in low light situations, but that’s expected for a device with a small lens. The camera application now loads up in under 2 seconds and can switch from landscape to portrait almost instantly. It’s a vast improvement over the original Storm. The phone also uses the GPS module to Geotag where images are shot. Importing them into programs such as Google Picasa or Apple iPhoto can arrange them on a world map appropriately. There are no image editing capabilities built in by default, but I’m sure some Apps are available for that purpose. Plus with a large 16GB microSD card, I can take plenty of images and record videos only limited by free space at a 480 x 352 pixel resolution. It even allows turning the flash into a flashlight to record video in the dark. There are effects such as black and white, sepia, and a few others included for both images and video recording. To top that off, the phone even supports uploading high resolution images to webs services such as Flickr or Facebook.

Email & Messaging: 4.5/5 stars
After the phone component, email and messaging are probably the second most important aspect of a BlackBerry. And the Storm2 handles that quite well. There are pre-configured settings for services such as Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, and Live Mail included. If you have your own corporate email, there’s even a wizard to walk you through the setup process. If you’ve used a service like Facebook, you know about the news feed. The BlackBerry 5.0 OS has it’s own news feed for everything that’s happening on the phone. This includes everything from missed calls, emails, instant messages, and even Facebook alerts to appear in one centralized location. The only data it didn’t include in the stream for some odd reason is SMS and MMS. There’s even a centralized way to compose a message. And as I mentioned before typing takes some getting used to, but becomes fast. The Storm2 is truly a powerful messaging device and will definitely meet or surpass your needs.

Conclusion:
This is hands down the best phone I’ve ever had. Sure there are plenty of other device such as the Apple iPhone that claim to be the god of smartphones. Even so, the iPhone lacks many business features that the Storm2 offers including a powerful search, a robust email client, security features of all sorts, and finally the freedom to use any application you wish. Plus the Storm2 comes with the Verizon Wireless network that has the best overall coverage in the nation. The phone can make calls in another 220 countries and even has data access in 185 of those. There’s no question that this is one of RIM’s best BlackBerries to date. It’s a night and day difference compared to the software and hardware problems customers faced with the original Storm. I will definitely be disappointed to let go of this phone once this review gets published. If you are a business customer and also want to get in on the touch screen action while not loosing any of the enterprise and corporate features the BlackBerry offers, the Storm2 is for you. Plus with the unique SurePress screen technology, it’s something to show off. And even if you are a college student, it’s got plenty of entertainment features including a great media player, social networking, powerful texting platform, instant messaging, and even a web browser. If you need a new phone the BlackBerry Storm2 is available as of today for $179.99 with a new 2-year contract. If you are an existing customer eligible for upgrade, you should be entitled to another $50 or $100 discount based of your current calling plan.

Links: VerizonWireless.com Storm 2 | BlackBerry.com Storm 2

As you may be aware by now, all of us here at Skatter Tech strongly recommend buying a protective case for your phones and other expensive gadgets.  Spending a couple bucks is well worth the investment.  Today I’ve reviews of two new cases for the iPhone 3G and 3GS by OtterBox. The Commuter and the Commuter TL are both are quite similar, but have a few differences, keep reading to find out which one’s right for you.

Installation – 5/5 stars
Some cases that I’ve come across have been a pain to install. For example the Griffin Wave even ended-up scratching my iPhone. Both the Commuter and Commuter TL are truly easy to install. It took less than a minute to place my iPhone into the silicone sleeve then attach the hard case onto it. I was a little worried that the silicone might tear when the plastic portion was going on, but it went on just fine with some caution. OtterBox also includes a screen protector with both the Commuter and the Commuter TL. It’s a decent screen protector, but it does slightly reduce the screen’s sensitivity.

Protection & Usability – 4/5 stars
The OtterBox Commuter and Commuter TL cases offer great protection all around the phone. Unlike most cases, both offer protection of the power button, dock connection, volume control buttons, and the headphone jack. The only parts which are left open are the silent switch, the speaker, the microphone, and the camera. Adding a cover for the dock connector was a great idea since it almost always gathers dust and lint. Unfortunately that also means that your iPhone won’t fit into any docks while this case is on. Doing the same for the headphone jack was great idea as well, but will definitely take two hands to get the headphone cable in. I found that the volume and power buttons were even easier to use since they bulged out even more. The ringer switch was the only one that was a bit difficult to use since the case around it was a bit too thick. For the most part, both cases are functional.

There are a couple of differences between the two models. The Commuter has a cutout for the Apple logo which reduces protection, but the Commuter TL covers it with a plastic window. The Commuter’s hard case extends onto the side of the device for additional protection, while the Commuter TL only goes from the top to the bottom on the back side. The Commuter has a solid colored hard plastic shell while the Commuter TL has a transparent one. Although I would have appreciated protection over the Logo on the Commuter and protection on the sides for the Commuter TL, they are still some of the most rugged cases I’ve used. Plus they don’t look bad either.

Verdict
Overall the OtterBox Commuter and OtterBox Commuter TL are both now my favorite cases. Unfortunately each one has one flaw in protection such as the huge hole on the back or no hard case to cover the sides, but they both are still great choices. The Commuter is only available in Black, but the Commuter TL is now offered in Black Blue, Green, Pink, Red, White and Yellow. If you are looking for a case, I’d definitely recommend picking up one of these. The Commuter and Commuter TL are available for purchase now for about $35 and $30, respectively.

Buy: OtterBox Commuter Cases for $20-$30
Links: OtterBox.com Commuter | TL

Installation – 4/5 stars
Some cases I’ve come across have been quite a pain to install. Placing the iPhone 3GS into the OtterBox Impact Case takes just a few seconds. The silicone case easily stretches to let the device slide in. The Screen Protector wasn’t too difficult to install. Just clean the screen with a microfiber cloth first, then wipe it down with the cloth they provide to clear off any lint.I aligned and placed the screen protector onto the display from the top to bottom. A few large air pockets got caught in between, but they weren’t to difficult to push out with the included “application card.” Afterward just peel off the remaining layer.

Screen Protector – 4/5 stars
It’s quite tricky to find the right type of screen protector for touch screen devices. Although the included OtterBox screen protector looks clean once installed and is a welcome inclusion with the case, it has a few issues. First, visibility of the display is slightly reduced. Second, some of the touch screen’s sensitivity and responsiveness is lost. Third, it doesn’t feel too great on the finger either. We can say for sure it’s better than leaving your screen unprotected, however there are better iPhone screen protectors available. But considering the price of the entire package, it’s reasonable. In the end, you need something that will be durable enough to prevent scratches while being still sensitive enough to use. And that’s exactly what you get.

Protection & Usability – 4/5 stars
The Impact Case protects just about the entire iPhone 3GS. The touch screen display is of course left open. OtterBox also made a poor choice to design a circle cutout for the Apple Logo on the back of the device. I personally thing it looks horrible and just makes room for another vulnerability. Other than those openings, there’s also small incisions made for the dock connector, speakers, the ringer switch, the headphone jack, the earpiece, ambient light sensor, and camera. The volume rocker, power button, and home key are all functional while in the case. One issue was the usability of the home button. In the beginning it was quite easy to press, however after a few days of use, the case covering that portion began to become thinner making it more difficult to click. If there was a small bulge over that area as there is with other buttons covered by the case, that might help. The thickness on the sides of the case were a bit too thin as well. They might be useful to prevent scratching the bezel of the phone from scratches, but not from shock absorption. The silicone is extra thick around the top/bottom ends of the case and is designed in that fashion for a purpose. Those two areas obtrude enough that they would be the first part of the device to touch the ground during a fall. As implied by the name of the product, the case is designed help reduce the impact the iPhone 3G faces if it were to be dropped. And after handling it for a couple days, I definitely feel it will do a good job at what it was intended to do!

Verdict – 4/5 stars
Overall the Impact Case, deserves to be well noted and considered when looking to purchase a new case for your Apple iPhone. The case OtterBox provided us was white, which didn’t go along so well with my Black iPhone. OtterBox offers the case in black as well, so no need to worry. I would recommend sticking with a matching color. In the end, the bottom line is how well it protects your device. The OtterBox Impact Case will go a long way to saving your device from total destruction in the event of a collision. It’s available for purchase at a reasonable price of $19 directly from OtterBox’s website.

Buy: OtterBox Impact Case for iPhone 3G/3GS

Griffin Wave package is composed of a few pieces: back and front pieces which snap together and a screen protector. The first thing I did was attempt to install the screen protector. Immediate reaction: horrible. It was a bit too thick of a plastic which reduced sensitivity, made the screen more difficult to see, and wouldn’t even stay on properly. I hilariously found that the thin sheet of plastic that protects the screen protector while in the packaging to function better.

The next issue that hit was actually getting the case on. The design is a bit flawed due to the way the rear and front piece latch together. Getting them to snap is difficult and I found myself slightly fearful of either breaking the case or scratching my iPhone with the sharp edges of the Wave Case. Once you manage to get it on, it stays on fairly well. The main concern I had then was the overly unprotected area near the volume keys, where a large portion of the iPhone’s body was left exposed.

Finally the case wears too quickly and poorly. When purchased the plastic has a “smoked” or “frosted” look. However after just a week or so of use, that opaque look started to literally shed off. The case scratched too easily making it look like it had gone through years of use.

I find it a bit difficult recommending this for the price tag of $25. There are plenty of other cases available for a similar price, some of which we’ll be reviewing in the coming weeks, which will function a whole lot better. On the other hand if you manage to grab the case for $7.99 including tax and shipping as I managed to from Griffin’s own website, I think that might be an acceptable price. Use the code GRIFFINRTMN09 on “Step 2: Billing & Payment” of Check Out, not any earlier.

Links: Griffin Technology – Wave Case (use code mentioned above)
Buy on Amazon: Griffin Wave for $16

Sony VAIO P Series Specs:

• Processor: 1.33GHz Intel Atom
• Hard Drive: 60GB HDD, 64GB SSD, or 128GB SSD
• Memory: 2GB 533MHz DDR2
• Operating System: Windows Vista Home Basic
• Graphics: Intel GMA 500
• Built-in Webcam & Microphone: Yes
• Keyboard / Mouse: Reduced Standard / Pointer
• Display: 8-inch 1600 x 768 LED
• Wireless: WiFi b/g/n & Bluetooth 2.1 & WWAN
• Expansion Slot: Memory Stick & SD Card slots
• Audio: Speakers and 1 Headphone Jack
• Ports: 2x USB 2.0 & Expansion I/O Connector

My initial response on first glancing over the specifications might have been that a lot of it was quite impressive. Although Sony’s PR folks were quite serious about not advertising it as a netbook, we’ll still call it one since it has a Atom Processor. Although the starting price might set it far away from other “netbooks,” but I’ll get to that later. First off, this is probably one of the few portable laptops I’ve come across that doesn’t have a crappy resolution. Sony managed to squeeze 1600×768 pixels into a 8-inch wide screen display. It’s great for those with decent vision, however will be a pain for many to see. And yes, I do know that text size can be changed in a second. But point being made, for those who can see, is the ability to view more content on the display than any other netbook. In fact the most common resolution for a 13-inch laptop is still 1280×800. Next, the SSD options offer plenty of storage space for multimedia. The P Series sports WiFi 802.11n, Bluetooth, and optional 3G Mobile Broadband through Verizon Wireless. The large spacious keyboard makes typing easier than on many other portables.

The most unique feature is probably the built in GPS module which functions independently of 3G card, so no service is required. Your laptop now functions as a turn-by-turn navigator and applications such as Google Earth should be able to pinpoint your exact location. The other neat feature is the “instant OS” which borrows the UI from the PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 3. It allows quick access to music, movies, photos, and a web browser without needing to start up Windows Vista.

Sony claims a 4 hour battery life with the standard capacity battery and a 8 hour capacity with the extended battery. Units will be available in red, green, blue, white, and black. Sony is now taking pre-orders on SonyStyle.com. Pricing starts at $900 for the lowest-end model. It will become available in retail stores next month. We will be getting a unit in a few weeks, so check back for an in-depth review!

Links: Sony Style P Series

Nokia N95 8GB Specifications:

• Type: WCDMA 850/1900 + WiFi
• Display: 2.8-inch with 320×240 resolution
• Form Factor: Two-Way Slider
• Battery Life: 5 hours talk & 12 days standby
• Main Camera: 5 megapixel w/ flash & auto-focus
• Storage: Built-in 8GB Flash Memory
• Special: WiFi, GPS, 2nd Camera, Home Network
• Other: Bluetooth and Standard Headphone Jack
• Dimensions: 3.9″H x 2.09″W x 0.83″D
• Price: $550 – $650 for an Unlocked Version

The Body – 4/5 stars
From looking at the images, you’ve probably realized that this isn’t exactly the best looking phone. It’s a bit bulky and definitely doesn’t look attractive. Keep in mind the reason you are probably purchasing this phone is for it’s features. On the front of the phone you’ll find the large 2.8-inch display with four-way controls, send/end buttons, the left/right soft keys, and a couple other short cuts. Above the screen is the secondary camera with its flash for video conferencing and self-portraits. Sliding the screen up will reveal a numeric keypad while sliding it in the opposite direction will reveal multimedia controls. The power button can be found on the top of the phone while the mini-USB and charging connections are on the bottom. A standard 3.5mm headphone jack can be found on the left side of the phone besides an infrared transmitter. A volume toggle, media button, and camera key are all on the right side. The 5 mega pixel camera is on the back above the battery compartment which also holds the SIM card.

The Screen – 5/5 stars
The N95’s 2.8-inch screen can only display at a maximum of 320×240 pixels, but is extremely bright and sharp. Just about anything displayed on the screen such as the menus, photos, or videos all look wonderful. The screen also looks great out doors and glare isn’t as bad as it is on other phones. And for those of you wondering if the screen is touch capable, it isn’t. Although I felt it would have been neat for such a large, the control system is fairly easy to use once you get a hang of them.

User Interface – 5/5 stars
For a first-time user of the Symbian OS it took a little bit of time figuring out how everything in the phone work. But once you learn the general stuff, everything becomes quite easy. Just about every place you want to go in the phone such as the phone book, email, or browser are all individual applications. You can open them up and close them when you are done. Running too many at once can slow down or possibly crash the phone. Most of the apps have a similar layout. The left soft key just about always brings up a context menu of options to perform including quitting. The four-way pad is to browse through the menus and the center button is usually the ‘Enter’ key. The home screen is also quite informative as it displays shortcuts to the phone book, email, web browser, clocks, and camera. It also will show alerts, upcoming calendar events, connected access points, the time, signal strength, and battery life. Overall I loved it a whole lot more than the Windows Mobile OS which I dreaded to use on the HTC XV6800.

Office Suite – 5/5 stars
I also discovered that the Nokia N95 had a built in Office Suite with support for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDFs. I was able to quickly transfer a couple of documents onto the internal storage device with a USB cable then view them on the phone. Although the formatting on some them got distorted and others were slow to load, it would indeed be quite need to have these document views on a phone. To create new documents or modify current ones, you’ll have to buy the full $70 QuickOffice Suite. As for email, the phone supports the IMAP, POP3, and SMTP protocols. The interface is neat and easy to use. Push email is also supported by using the widely popular corporate Microsoft Exchange Server.

Digital Cameras – 5/5 stars
The Nokia N95 8GB has a 5 megapixel camera, which is the most powerful camera I have used on a phone. I only wish it had some optical zoom, which it didn’t. It does have a digital zoom, however this means quality is lost the further you zoom in. The phone takes photos quite instantly, however I noticed some lag when it tries to auto-focus and when saving the photos to the memory. The built-in LED flash is also quite bright and can easily make photos taken in under lit places a whole lot better. The quality of the photos themselves were pretty darn good. The colors looked natural in outdoor situations while the images were well focused and sharp. I was shocked to see how many options the camera settings offered. There were 6 scene modes including an Auto and a Custom option. The Flash can be turned off, always on, or set to reduce red-eye. There’s a self timer to take group photos. A burst mode to continuously take photos is available in addition to an option to take photos at a set time interval until the space runs out. The color tone, white balance, sharpness, contrast, and ISO can all be customized as well. Moving on to the .3 mega pixel camera on the front, it is plentiful for video conferencing since too much bandwidth can’t be transfered anyways. The quality is incomparable to the camera on the back and barley any customization settings are offered for the secondary camera.

Multimedia Playback – 5/5 stars
Once again, the N95 beat my expectations regarding music, video, and photo management. Starting with music, I was able to immediately start syncing my DRM-Free Mp3s in Windows Media Player 11 with the Nokia N95 without any additional software. I was also able to manually drop music onto the phone’s mass storage device and the files were also automatically recognized if placed in the right folders. The phone supports playback of AAC, MP3, and WMA files. I loved the music player interface as it was quite powerful and allowed me to browse by Songs, Artists, Albums, Genres, and Composers. Browsing through was quick and smooth without any hiccups. And with a 3.5mm headphone jack I was able to use my own Shure SE210 earphones. The built in FM radio was also a neat addition in case you get bored listening to your 8GB of music! To make things even better the phone also has a built in podcasting client. I was quickly able to download and start listening to the latest episode of TWiT through my WiFi network. (Can also use 3G data network!) Moving onto Video, the phone runs Real Player which has an excellent 3GP and MP4 decoder turn it into a great portable media player. I was also able to playback iPod Formated movie trailers and even DiggNation episodes without needing to re-encode the content into a special format. Everything worked as it things should without any horrible twists.

Speakers & Headphones – 5/5 stars
The Nokia N95 has a set of stereo speakers which was the best that I had seen on a mobile phone. The quality was clear and crisp. Even with the volume turned up to the max, it remained clear without beginning to crack like most phones do. The audio playback quality through the headphones was excellent. I wasn’t able to tell apart it apart from when playing the same song on my iPod Nano.

N-Gage Games – 4/5 stars
I had a chance to play some demo games available on the phone and the quality was quite impressive. The graphics was much better than I had expected a mobile phone to have the power to handle. The games are by no means as good as those on the Sony PlayStation Portable, but are much better than games available for most mobile phones. The games seemed a bit pricey, but it’s still a plus that they are available for purchase and that the phone can handle and support playing them.

Phone Functions – 5/5 stars
The phone comes with all the standard functions of most phones on the market. These features include an excellent phone book with pretty much no capacity limit, speaker phone, conference calling, bluetooth headset with stereo support, speed dial, voice commands, text messaging, email, calendar, calculator, notepad, voice recorder, and more! With a 3G Network, Bluetooth 2.0, GPS, and WiFi (b/g) the phone is almost always connected to something. Despite this it has a impressively powerful battery and manages it’s power saving quite well with the ambient light sensor. The phone had better signal in most locations versus the phone I usually carry. Call quality was pretty clear and crisp. WiFi signal strength was quite strong as well. The Bluetooth in the phone supports more profiles than any phone I have ever used meaning that it should connect to just about any device you can think of. The phone also supports the new DLNA media sharing protocol so once I connected my phone to my home network, I was able to access music, photos, and videos on the phone from my laptop and even my Sony PlayStation 3.

Web Browser – 5/5 stars
The N95 features an impressively powerful web browser. Sometimes web pages took a bit long to render, but in general they rendered a whole lot better than on most phones I have seen. I still feel the iPhone’s Safari browser is superior to this one in most aspects. However the N95 topples the iPhone’s browser in some aspects such as supports for the Flash player. This means YouTube and a whole slew of other streaming videos can be viewed from within the browser. The browser works by accessing either a WiFi access point or using the Cell Phone network, both of which functioned well.

GPS and Maps – 5/5 stars
The phone has a built in GPS which can be utilized for many different purposes. The N95 allows locating yourself on a map, getting directions, looking for points of interest near by, and much more. I didn’t have a chance to test the turn-by-turn directions, but I would expect it to work as advertised. The phone also has a cool feature to tracking your jogging and it takes it to a whole new level by recording pace, distance, time, altitude, speed, and steps taken. (Displays pretty-looking data graphs too!)

Included Items – 5/5 stars
The Nokia N95 comes with a couple accessories in addition to the power supply. Nokia includes a USB cable for data transfer and syncing media. A pair of headphones and a small wired controller to control music playback. The phone is also capable of video output using the included composite cables. Other than that Nokia provides a CD with some software, a couple of manuals, and a quick start guide. For the price that this phone goes for, I wish they would have also thrown in a case.

Conclusion
Overall the Nokia N95 is now one of my personal favorite phones. It is definitely not for everyone and most people will probably never get to using even half the features it offers. But for those who are looking for a high end smart phone, the N95 8GB will not be a disappointment. The only thing I felt that this phone lacked and that I should mention is the fact that it lacks a microSD expansion. Although it has 8GB of on board flash storage, it would have still been a nice addition. The phone offers more battery life talk time than most phones. With a powerful office tools and media playback tools the phone covers just about all grounds. The only downside might just be the high price of $600. The phone is currently not available through any service providers in the United States. However that doesn’t mean it won’t work here. You can just go ahead and purchase the North American version from a site such as Amazon. And for service, you can sign up to a calling and data plan from AT&T and insert the SIM card you receive.

Links: Nokia N95 8GB (nokia.com)
Purchase: Unlocked Nokia N95 8GB (US) – $580