Pixi Back Cover: 3.5/5 stars
The Palm Pixi isn’t compatible with the Touchstone wireless charger out of the box. You’ll actually need to purchase a special rear plate for the phone for it to work. Removing the included rear plate was a tad bit difficult. Outfitting the Pixi with the new one Touchstone-enabled back cover took just a few seconds. It’s a bit frightening at first since you’ll have to be a bit forceful, but it fortunately didn’t break. All the buttons work perfectly with the cover on. There’s cutouts for the camera and all other components. While it seems like a “faceplate,” it is actually completely flush and doesn’t feel like an add-on. The rear cover is studded and actually has a better grip than the original case. The device magnetically latches itself to the charging base and stays firmly in position. The flap covering the microUSB port to directly charge the device was quite annoying. It’s nearly impossible for someone with big hands to get the flap open. Even when I did manage to get it open, it was quite firm and would often snap back into place before i could manage to get the cable connected. The tiny magnets that keep the flap shut actually ended up withering off after a few days of use. If you pick one of these up, I’d suggest sticking to using the Touchstone Charging Dock and avoid using the microUSB cable. However that doesn’t mean Palm excused from this issue. It’s a fairly basic design flaw and should be addressed.

Touchstone Charging Dock: 5/5 stars
The simple design of the Touchstone Dock makes using it very easy and convenient. The charger has some weird suction material on the bottom side that keeps it firmly in place. It’s not sticky, but somehow manages to adhere itself strongly enough onto vertical or even upside down surfaces. The unit actually looks quite sharp as well. It’s a bit on the heavy side, but that shouldn’t be an issue since you’ll probably leave it on your desk at all times. The Dock doesn’t come with a AC adapter. It has a microUSB slot on the back. You’ll have to use the AC adapter and cable that came with the phone. It would have been nice to see an additional one included. While it seems as though you can connect the dock to your computer, you apparently shouldn’t. They do make adapters to use the charger in a car. It’s convenient since the dock will adhere to the dash firmly. For the most part the Touchstone met my expectations. Other cell phones manufacturers should take the hint and roll out devices that do the same.

Functionality: 4.5/5 stars
Now the big question: Does this device even work? The Touchstone uses electromagnetic inductive charging to power to devices wirelessly. From what I’ve seen, recharging the Pixi using the Touchstone or a direct USB cable took the same amount of time. However there was one minor annoyance with the Touchstone. I don’t know if my unit was buggy, but it kept disconnecting and reconnecting at random times. It was simply sitting on its own. No one was moving or fiddling with it. Plus, since it has a sound that beeps, it got quite annoying one night. I had to end up manually muting the volume just to avoid having to hear that sound repeatedly. Nonetheless, the phone still gets charged and the convenience makes purchasing the Touchstone justifiable. It actually feels so fun to do that I almost never forgot to charge my phone. How much simpler could it possibly get? Place the phone on the Touchstone and it charges.

Conclusion:
Although the Touchstone isn’t essential. I do definitely recommend it. I’m saying so because I found the flap that covers the charging port on the Pixi to be just too big of a hassle to deal with. Sure, if you can manage to get it open then just stick to your method. However if you are having issues being able to plug it in. Definitely consider this. It would have been neat to see Palm throw this gizmo in along with the Phone, but it might make the phone rather expensive and people would begin to complain about that. If you are ready to pick one of these up it’s available for around $40 on Amazon. It normally sells for an MSRP of $70. The entire idea is a simple convenience that you’ll never be able to give up once having.

Buy: Palm Touchstone Charger | Palm Pixi Back Cover
Link: Palm Touchstone Technology

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!

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

The Body – 4/5 stars
The BackBeat 903 headphones weigh 34 grams and rest behind the ear when worn. An 8 inch cable connects the two pieces together behind the neck. The ear pieces are slightly adjustable, allowing extending vertically and sniveling horizontally. There are a call and a play buttons on the left and right ear bud, respectively. A volume switch, which also controls track navigation, is under the right ear piece. The power button and standard micro-USB charging port are on the left ear piece.

Comfort – 4/5 stars
The headphones fit and felt a lot better than both the Kensington Wireless Headphones and the Motorola S9. They still don’t come anywhere close to the comfort a traditional pair of ear buds or over-the-ear headphones offer. These tended to slide off quickly with too much physical movement. Even with adjustments, these just wouldn’t work for me if I were to go for a jog, but would work just fine in an office room situation. To give these a second chance, I asked a couple of friends to give them a try. Just about all of them had no complains about the fit and were overwhelmed by the truly wireless headphone technology. In fact, they wanted to buy a pair too.

Headset Functionality – 4/5 stars
Altec Lansing implemented the ability to use these as a Bluetooth Headset as well as streaming music. The built in microphone sounded crystal clear to those on the other end of the phone. I actually found it to sound better than the expensive Andrea BT200 headset that we previously reviewed. The call button ends calls during an active conversation; answers call waiting and can start voice commands. The one feature the BackBeat lacks, that I would have truly appreciated, would be dual pairing. Things would have been a lot more convenient if it allowed me to stay paired to both my phone to answer calls and to my laptop for music. I’ll currently have to re-pair each time I switch between the devices.

Compatibility – 4/5 stars
If you’ve got the fairly new Laptop or Smart Phone sporting Bluetooth 2.1 with stereo profile support, these will probably function just fine. I tested mine with the Dell XPS M1530 Laptop running Windows 7, which paired easily and sounded fairly good. There were occasionally jitters, which wasn’t a big deal. I also attempted to pair it with my Apple iMac, it ended up partially bricking the BackBeat. I had to hold down the power and plug in the charger to reset it. I further went on to test it with the Apple iPhone 3GS, which paired quickly and sounded a whole lot better than music did through my laptop. (It was most likely due to the poor quality of the Bluetooth Module in the XPS.) Even with the latest iPhone 3.1 OS, the previous/next track function doesn’t work due to the lack of the remote control profile support on the device. Hopefully Apple will do something about that soon; it can at least pause and play for now. The remote control function did work with the LG enV Touch and the Samsung Rouge. The bottom line is Altec-Lansing’s technology works; however your device might not support the standard. Before picking these up, read up as to whether your device is compatible with the BackBeat. Altec-Lansing also sells a simple headphone jack to Bluetooth adapter, if you wish to use this with a device that isn’t’ compatible.

Sound Quality – 5/5
Before anyone goes crazy over the rating for this, read this entire paragraph first. As I stated in the intro, these are a step closer to the future, but not yet there. That’s mainly because the sound quality is great, but only great compared to the few Bluetooth Stereo Headphones on the market. These won’t compare with the sound quality offered by Sennheiser, Shure, Ultimate Ears, or V-Moda for the same price. But don’t let that stop you from purchasing these. The average person will probably listen to music from ripped CDs encoded in MP3 or from an online music store such as iTunes or Amazon MP3. With that kept in mind, most will probably not be able to differentiate the quality between a decent pair of headphones and these, especially when fascinated by the freedom offered by the wireless aspect. So yes, for the Bluetooth Headphones I’ve come across so far, these probably one of the best.

Battery Life and Wireless Range – 5/5 stars
I tested these after a full charge. Instead of one unlikely straight drain, I decided to test real life performance. I used it for 30 minutes at a time and turned them off while not in use. I used iTunes to track the songs I had played on my iPhone. When the headphones started beeping to let me know it was at its last throws, I had played back about 5 hours of songs on my phone over the course of two weeks. If you throw in the hour or so of phone calls I may have answered with these, it’s pretty decent. They weren’t too short ranged either. If there are no obstructions such as walls, music kept playing from my iPhone from at least 75 feet or so. In the average household, it can probably make it through a wall or two before quality degrades heavily.

Included Items and Packaging – 4/5 stars
The packaging is minimal and clean. Getting the headphones out was quick. There’s literally nothing included in the box other than the AC Adapter, Bluetooth Headset, and a manual. Which is great due to simplicity. I do wish that Altec Lansing would have thrown in a USB to microUSB cable to allow charging the BackBeat 903 with laptops and USB chargers when a power outlet isn’t available.

Conclusion
The BackBeat 903 headphones are a unique piece of gadgetry that just about any individual will notice. It truly does stand out. They offer the freedom to easily move away from your desktop or laptop. The technology works, it’s easy to setup, and use. The battery lasts for well over an average day’s use. Plus you can use them to answer calls conveniently. The only drawback would be the audio quality, which still lacks compared to traditional headphones. I enjoyed using these and would definitely recommend these. It’s available now for a fairly reasonable price of $55 through retailers such as Amazon.com.

Buy: BackBeat 903 for $55
Links: AltecLansing.com BackBeat 903

Ever since Apple released the “revolutionary” iPhone, competitors have been trying to imitate and create a better phone. LG has been fairly successful so far. They released the LG Voyager through Verizon Wireless last year, which we reviewed but weren’t too happy with. Fortunately their latest phone, the LG Dare, has surpassed our expectations and can truly be considered an iPhone competitor especially at its price point. It also has plenty of unique features that impressed us.

LG VX9700 Specifications:

• Provider: Verizon Wireless (CDMA 850MHz / 1.9 GHz)
• Form Factor: Full Touch Screen Candy-Bar
• Display: 3 inch, 240×400 pixels, & 262k colors
• Media: MP3, WMA, & AAC(+)
• Imaging: 3.2 mega pixel camera with flash & auto focus
• Connectivity: Bluetooth, GPS, & microUSB
• Others: microSD, ambient light, & accelerometer
• Size / Weight: 4.1″ H x 2.2″ W x 0.5″ D (inches) / 3.8 oz
• Battery Life: 4.7 hours talk time & 360 hours standby
• Price: $200 with a new 2 year agreement

The Body – 5/5 stars
The LG Dare is quite compact and can fit into even a tight pocket. It is actually about 16% smaller in volume than the iPhone 3G. The phone looks quite sleek with a silver trim on the front and a black colored back. Unfortunately since it is a touch screen, it is also prone to attracting finger prints. The front of the phone contains the send, clear, and end buttons in addition to the display. Although not too visible, when looking carefully at certain angles the ambient light sensor can be seen at the top blank portion above the screen. The left side of the phone contains the screen lock button, the microSD card slot, speaker phone key, and the microUSB charger/data port. The volume increase and decrease toggle and the camera/camcorder capture button can be found on the right side. The backside of the phone merely contains the digital camera with flash, the speaker, and a battery cover lid. Finally the 3.5mm standard headphone jack can be found at the top of the phone. Overall the entire design is a success.

Display – 5/5 Stars
In reference to the brightness, contrast, and color representation, the display was top notch. Probably one of the better displays I’ve seen in a while. The Dare’s three inch screen can display images at a max of 240×400 resolution which seemed to fit the needs of the phone just fine. The ambient light sensor is a great addition as it automatically dims the screen when in darker situations and brightens it up in broad daylight. The phone also has a neat sensor which automatically turns of the display during a call when the phone is held up to your face. It immediately turns back on when it gets further away. These two features assist heavily in conserving more battery life whenever possible.

http://skattertech.com/media/2008/07/lg-dare-interface.mp4

User Interface – 5/5 Stars
The LG Dare’s user interface is quite intuitive. The interface seems to have LG Voyager ancestry, however much has improved since then. The sensitivity is just right, however it can be adjusted. The phone’s screen is quite responsive without delay and all transitions are smooth and everything flows smoothly. The home screen features a clock, the date, and two notifications bar. Five items will always available on the bottom of the home screen: messaging, dial pad, menu, address book, and favorites. Although, this quick access bar cannot be modified, shortcuts can be added to the home screen from the shortcut menu. This shortcut menu can be accessed by clicking on the arrow on the main screen. The eleven default items can be customized to show any of the over fifty items in the phone including downloaded applications. The Main Menu displays the standard nine items found on any Verizon Wireless phone: Contacts, Messaging, Recent Calls, My Music, Media Center, Browser, VZ Navigator, V Cast Video, and Settings & Tools. Navigating through just about any part of the phone was simple and self-explanatory. The LG Dare also addresses the issue plaguing many touch screen devices which is the lack of tactile feedback. This phone solves that issue by releasing small vibrations below the screen each time something is clicked. Sound effects can also be enabled to indicate that a command has been accepted. The Dare also automatically locks itself after a certain period of inactivity. The screen can be activated by pressing the unlock key on the side or pressing the unlock button on the screen.

Messaging (Email, IM, & Text) – 5/5 Stars
Text messaging addicts will not be disappointed by this phone as it supports text, picture, and video messaging. Since the phone has tactile feedback it is much easier to type on this phone than I had expected. The keyboard also turns into a QWERTY layout when the phone is turned sideways thanks to the accelerometer. The keyboard was also quite accurate and the predictive text also helps speed things up. Although nothing beats a real keyboard, this wasn’t as bad as other phones I’ve used. The LG Dare also features Verizon’s Mobile Email client which has built in support for Yahoo! Mail, Windows Live Hotmail, AOL/AIM Mail, and Verizon.net. If you use other services the phone also allows configuring your own POP3/IMAP servers for incoming mail and SMTP for outgoing. (SSL Security Supported!) The phone can automatically check and notify you when immediately when a message reaches your inbox. The client isn’t too great for reading messages with graphics; however is plenty for reading text in emails. Finally the LG Dare also has a built-in instant messaging client that supports the AIM, Windows Live Messenger, and Yahoo! Messenger clients. You can log into all three at once and view your full contact lists. Overall the phone has not forgotten about the messaging side of things even while the emphasis of the phone might be the touch screen.

Web Browser – 5/5 stars
The built in HTML web browser excels just as most other components of this phone has. It begins on the Verizon Wireless Portal offering quick links to news, weather, movies, and more. The homepage can be customized to a site of your choosing. To visit a webpage, just press the WWW button and enter a URL to navigate to any webpage. Just as the keyboard did previously, the entire browser switches over into landscape mode when the phone is rotated. The volume toggle can then be used to zoom into or out of a page. A Full Screen option is available in the menu to allow the webpage to take up the entirety of the screen leaving no wasted space. The back/forward, refresh, home, and other keys will only appear as overlay when in the full screen mode. The major drawback would be the lack of flash, however most simple JavaScript works. And since most people will probably have this question, YouTube does work perfectly. The bookmarks are also a thankful to have feature saving having to retype URL. The only other issue I faced was that links were sometimes hard to click and I would have to zoom in to get to them. Large web pages sometimes are slow to move around, however I would still have to say this is the best browser found on a Verizon Wireless phone.

MicroSD + Syncing – 4/5 stars
The LG Dare supports up to 8GB microSD cards, which is great for those planning to use it as their music playback device. 8GB cards have also come down in price and can be purchased for as low as $30 through some major online retailers. When you connect your phone to your machine using the included microUSB to USB cable, you can enter the data or sync music mode. The data mode will turn the microSD card into a mass storage device so you can add or remove content directly onto it. The sync music mode will allow syncing media with Windows Media Player 11. Unfortunately Vista users will have no choice but to install the horrid VCast Music Manager to get the phone working with WMP11. If files are placed directly into the music folder, the phone will manually re-index them the next time the music player is started. So to put all of that together, the phone can be synced as a media player device, a mass storage device, or by using a microSD card reader.

Speakers + Headphones – 4/5 stars
The LG Dare’s speaker is fairly decent. It isn’t as loud as I hoped when being used as a speakerphone. It does sound decent for music, but I wouldn’t recommend it. It might have been better if they had been able to stuff a set of stereo speakers into the phone. Fortunately one of the big pros of this phone is the fact that it has a standard 3.5mm headphone jack. Those who plan to use this as their music device will have the opportunity to use their standard headphones without having to deal with using messy adapters. The headphones quality is plentiful for most consumers, audiophiles not so much.

Media Playback – 4.5/5 Stars
The LG Dare supports playback of MP3, WMA, AAC, and AAC+. Verizon recently made a deal with Rhapsody, so music purchased there is completely compatible as well. Controls are fairly intuitive to use. The touch screen makes navigating through songs quite simple. The library can be browsed by a full song list, custom playlists, artists, genres, or albums. The phone also contains preset equalizers. Album art is displayed while playing back music. LG has hilariously included a cover flow type of view when the phone is turned sideways. It doesn’t look too good or function too well, so I would just stick with the standard view. The best part of the Music Playback component is probably the fact that player can be turned into a background process. This way you can begin to browse the web, email, chat, or even send messages while listening to music. Overall this is probably the best music player I have seen on a Verizon Wireless phone to date. As for video playback, although I didn’t have a chance to test it, according to the specifications it supports playback of WMV, MP4, 3GP, and 3G2.

Digital Camera & Camcorder – 4/5 stars
The LG Dare has a Kreuznach 3.2 mega pixel camera which also doubles as a camcorder. Photos can be captured at a maximum resolution of 2048×1536 pixels, while videos can be recorded at a maximum resolution of 640×480. The camera allows for many different options such as a self timer, white balance, face detection, multi-shot, panorama, slit, and frame shot types, and a variety of scene modes. LG has also implemented face detection to focus on people in a shot. The camera allows manually setting the ISO, for those who are interested. The camera also launches within a second unlike most other phones that take a while to startup the application. The Dare’s camera is quite a strong point of the phone as it even includes built-in flash and auto focus. The camcorder offers plenty of neat features including a high frame rate option which will record video in slow motion.

Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR – 5/5 stars
Bluetooth pairing is unbelievably easy; the phone gives instructions as to how you need to go about pairing the phone. The instructions are simple and easy enough for any person to understand how to do it. It automatically pairs itself with the Bluetooth headset once you have completed the steps, no need to enter a password or anything, very convenient. The Dare fully supports use of stereo Bluetooth headsets, which is welcome addition that the iPhone lacks. The phone also supports sharing calendar events, contacts, or printing photos to a printer, although most probably won’t ever use them.

GPS VZ Navigator – 5/5 Stars
The VZ Navigator has become the strongest point of Verizon Wireless phones in recent times and is also a strong point of this phone. The software allows getting voice turn-by-turn directions and even is aware of traffic congestion. It now also has an improved local search that can find movie timings, gas stations, local events and much more. Just like the browser, the app runs in landscape mode when the phone is turned sideways. The GPS was accurately able to find my location just about anytime I tested it.

Extras – 5/5 stars
One small feature which I loved was the power supply that was included with the phone. Instead of providing an addition data cable, the power supply is actually a USB cable in disguise. The cable can be unplugged from the head and can be plugged into a USB port to charge or sync data. No other hardware is included with the phone. As for the software the Dare has voice commands, a basic calculator, tip calculator, a powerful calendar, alarm clock, stopwatch, world clock, notepad, voice recorder, and a drawing pad. I also wanted to mention that the Notifications bar is an actual menu on this phone instead of just being meaningless indicators. When clicked on, information about missed calls, messages, and events will be displayed. The extra components were also though through carefully.

Conclusions
The LG Dare is the best Verizon Wireless phone I have yet to review. I would have to highly recommend this phone for those interested in a new device. It has been well throughout and is a very worthy competitor to the iPhone. Although it may lack the huge application store that Apple offers, there’s still plenty to keep you busy. Everything from the large touch screen display, the camera, the browser, and music player are all solid. The reception was one of the better ones I have seen as well. The phone is available for purchase already through Verizon Wireless stores and online. The LG Dare will cost $200 with a new two year contract. Those of you who are eligible for upgrade should be able to get an addition $50-100 knocked off the price based off your current calling plan.

Links: Verizon Wireless – LG Dare
Buy Now: LG Dare for $137 with New 2-YR Contract (via Amazon)