I have seen a lot of phones ending up with wrong names and the Samsung Intensity II is one of them. This phone has a full QWERTY keyboard but I would still call it entry level basic handset because of the features that it has to offer. There is nothing ‘intense’ on this handset. Maybe Samsung put in such a name in order to make a good first impression on the customers. The only ‘intense’ feature, in terms of design is the electric color which is quite good. I would recommend this phone to youngsters who are purchasing a handset for the first time. Samsung Intensity II has a 2.2 inches screen with good resolution. It would make no sense to ask for a really high resolution since this is an entry level phone and the screen size is small. The colors look bright and the text is readable too. The unique thing here is the menu interface which has pictures instead of standard list. Some might think this is a bit childish but for me, it makes the phone lively. Samsung  [...]

BlackBerry Torch is selling like hot cakes in the market right now but it is really costly too. The phone is also available unlocked for a price of $550 which is a bit high for a mobile phone. But then the phone has become really popular in the market and hence the manufacturer is trying to take full advantage of it by putting a big price tag. Amazon recently said that this phone will be offered by them for an ultra affordable price of $99 which is dirt cheap. The offer is there only for a day though so you better keep an eye open for when the phone will be offered. If you have the old BlackBerry Bold phone, and if you want to replace it, now is a great time to do it. It is really surprising that BlackBerry Torch has become so famous in the market in such a short period of time. Its claim to fame is that it is the first slider phone from this manufacturer. There is a full QWERTY keyboard hidden beneath the top half and the display has a touch  [...]

When I first saw this phone, I thought it was phone made exclusively for senior citizens. But then I went through it and saw that it had lots useful features. It is a basic phone but doesn’t have those typical boring looks of an entry level handset. This phone doesn’t have a camera but I won’t call this a deal breaker. This phone is made for people who just want to make phone calls and maybe send some text messages. The large font and the big dial pad keys are really cool, they make typing a lot easier. This phone is yours for $39.99 and you will have to sign a two year service agreement with the service provider. I won’t call this phone the perfect entry level gadget – there are some problems with call quality but it is still acceptable. Samsung Haven is 3.92 inches tall, 0.72 inch thick and 2 inches wide. The phone is not that heavy at 3.49 ounces. This handset looks quite attractive with the black pinstripe accents,  [...]

Latest news coming on from T-Mobile is that they are bringing Motorola Charm on August 25 for a price of $74. The company says that the handset is really affordable but we are suspicious about that as the definition of the term ‘affordable’ is different for customers and manufacturers. There were also rumors that the phone will be offered without any contract obligation which is indeed affordable. But later Motorola said that the phone will cost $74.99 with a contract. We think this phone is made for messaging enthusiasts due to the presence of full QWERTY keyboard on the surface. We haven’t got the phone in our labs for review yet but we think the keyboard is pretty good looking at the pictures. The buttons are rectangular and they have the concave design which gives you a good feel on the fingers. We have seen this design on some other messaging phones and the ergonomics are indeed pretty good. There is not much separation between  [...]

Dell Streak was really impressive as a handset; it bought together a mobile phone and a tablet PC. But people did have some complaints about it. The device was slapped a very high price of $549 and it came SIM locked too. A locked phone at such a high price might be unforgivable for some. The phone was covered by AT&T, a service provider that many people like the least mainly because of the way it handled the iPhone’s pre-order. The device came with Android 2.1 which is a dated version of the OS. There is newer and faster version lurking around so why didn’t Dell give it with the Streak? It seems people’s prayers have been answered. Lionel Menchaca, from Dell said that the company will be skipping Android 2.1 and will upgrade the Dell Streak with Froyo, which is faster and more capable OS. Froyo is the codename given to the latest Android version 2.2. We don’t know when Dell  [...]

The pictures of Dell Thunder have leaked on the Internet and the gadget looks really sexy. Our sources have also told us about the specifications of the product. We first heard about this gadget in April and we thought they were just rumors but now the photos have made our belief stronger. The phone has an eight megapixel camera on the back which reiterates that the device is a high end smartphone. I have seen photo quality of eight megapixel camera phones in the past and have been impressed with what they have to offer. These high end cameras will certainly make the phones more costly. The picture quality is better than average five megapixel cameras but I won’t recommend you to dump your digital camera yet. The digi-cams give you a lot of options with regards to photo editing and all this is yet to be seen in a camera phone. The camera can also take videos and that too at an impressive resolution of 720p. Such high quality video is really impressive but again, the quality is not as  [...]

Expansys and Acer have announced the launch of Acer Stream this August. It is a high end smartphone and recommended for both business users and multimedia enthusiasts alike. There are features inside like web browsing, music listening and movie playback. The body is made up of sturdy and resistant materials. The display is 3.7 inches and uses AMOLED technology. It supports 16.7 million colors. You also get a contrast of 2000:1 which is really great in a cell phone display. In a high end cell phone, it is really important that the display has a high resolution because you need a lot of space to work around. For connectivity, there is a 3G which gives 7.2 mbps of download speed. There is also Wi-Fi  and Bluetooth. Thus the phone has all possible connectivity options. If you don’t have access to 3G, you can still stay connected through Wi-Fi. The download speed too is fast enough and you can easily get all your favorite music tracks on the phone really quickly. The fast speed will also  [...]

Built for messaging fanatics (ergo the very apt name of Rambler), the Rambler houses a QWERTY keypad within its clamshell form factor and although the phone isn’t the best idea in a purely ergonomic sense, it is still a pleasing phone aesthetically and packs in decent features to boot. The rule is that messaging phones are sliders are boxier than this, so to hear of one that was designed as a clamshell was puzzling and interesting. These phones are oddities and rarities but the Rambler tries to make the most of this by being rectangular and stretching things out as much as it can. Head-on, it looks reasonably compact but its when you lay it on its side that you realize its girth. This makes holding it within your hand an odd affair since it ends up feeling distinctly out of place thanks to its size and QWERTY keyboard. Like many clamshells, it has a 1.6 inch external display which is colorful and shows the usual indicators such as battery  [...]

The RIM BlackBerry Curve 8330 is a great messaging device but lacks quality in other departments, so don’t look to it if you want a well-rounded device. It is thicker and heavier than its GSM counterpart owing to the 3G chip, but the extra heft in hand was barely noticeable. The Curve 8330 offers a lot of the much-loved features of a BlackBerry, including its tried and tested messaging platform, but the lack of little extras like wi-fi rankles when competing smartphones are quick to readily offer it up. The display is a standard 65k color TFT screen and a resolution of 320x240 pixels. It is equipped with a light sensor that adjusts the backlight depending on ambient light, which is a nice touch and the display is crisp and viewable, although a bit less so under direct sunlight. Like most other BlackBerry’s, this has a trackball located right below the screen and the menu and back buttons have a concave shape and aren’t  [...]

Motorola Debut i856 is the first push to talk iDEN phone in a slider form factor. The phone is pretty basic and don’t expect any high end features from it. The handset is really slim and I will easily fit in to tightest of pants pocket. I am not saying that it is the slimmest phone around but it is definitely slimmer than most of the handsets I have had in my labs for testing. On the front, there is a 2.2 inch color display which is a bit small considering other handsets especially smartphones are having bigger displays. However, this just a mid range phone so I won’t complain much about the smaller screen. There is a shortcut bar having a collection of shortcuts for the applications that you use the most on the phone. For moving through this bar, you just have to press the right and left direction buttons. Beneath the display, there is a navigation array which consists of the four way navigation toggle with OK button in the middle, two soft keys, music and Talk/End  [...]