Nokia 7205 Intrigue’s contact book can take 500 entries which is a bit small. Normally these phones take 1000 entries. A single entry can store multiple phone numbers and e-mail addresses. You can make groups of your friends and attach photos too. There are 25 ringtones to choose from and you can download more. The handset has a flip design but the external display doesn’t support photo caller ID.

Basic features on the Nokia 7205 Intrigue include speakerphone, notepad, world clock, stopwatch, alarm clock, calculator, multimedia and text messaging and vibrate mode. There are a few advanced features like stereo Bluetooth, support for Verizon Chaperone and VZ Navigator, Web-based POP3 e-mail, voice memory recorder, and voice commands. There is visual voice mail from Verizon but you will have to pay a monthly fee of $2.99.

The Nokia 7205 Intrigue has a two megapixel camera with five options for resolutions. The highest is 1,600×1,200 pixels and the lowest is 160×120. You get options like flash, 4x digital zoom, self-timer, four shutter sounds (no silent option), three effects for color, and white balance and brightness controls. The camcorder mode shoots in resolution of 176×144 pixels. Editing options here include white balance and brightness controls, digital zoom and flash. You cannot record videos more than 40 seconds.

Photo quality is OK but there is not much to expect from a low end camera like this. I say some image noise and the flash could have been brighter. Video quality too was average. The internal storage on the phone is just 150 MB and the external card slot can take up to eight GB cards. Getting pics from the phone is very easy. You have two options – Bluetooth and MMS. You can also upload the pics directly to any blog or a Verizon album.

Nokia 7205 Intrigue has plenty of alert tones, banners, display themes and wallpapers to choose from. You can download more ring tones from WAP 2.0 wireless Web browser. There are no games here but you can download them from Verizon. This phone has rated talk time of five hours and the standby time is 11 days. In my lab tests, the battery lasted for a little more than five and half hours.

The phone is very stylish and the coolest thing about it is the light pipe which runs on the lid. The light blinks when you get a call and this adds to the aesthetic appeal of the phone. This light pipe surrounds the camera lens too.  Being a flip type phone, there is an external display on the lid which is very small. It just shows the time and date and is not visible when the backlighting is off. Characters on the external display are very small and not easy to read. To switch it on, you just have to press the volume rocker button. I wish the screen was a bit bigger, I was expecting the numeric caller ID too. The external display is also hard to see in direct sunlight.

The internal display of the Kyocera Neo E1100 is a bit smaller but not a deal breaker in an entry level phone like this. The colors are vibrant and the screen too looks bright enough. Reading text on the screen is easy. One thing I really liked on the phone was the ‘info’ feature for the menu items. Select this and you will get tiny boxes which explain the feature to you. It is great for someone who hasn’t used a mobile phone before.

The navigation array of the Kyocera Neo E1100 is made up of two soft buttons, Send-End keys, back button, speakerphone button, and the traditional four way navigation button with OK button in the middle. These lie flat on the surface and hence you have to press a bit hard. Underneath this, there is the numeric keypad and these buttons too are flat on the surface. There are ridges around the buttons and I won’t recommend this cell phone to people who message a lot.

Kyocera Neo E1100 has a 1.3 megapixel camera and the photo quality is pretty mediocre. But I won’t complain about it here because this is an entry level phone. The manufacturer could have at least put a two megapixel camera. The photos are usable just for photo caller ID and nothing else. Other features on the phone include voice activated dialing, Bluetooth, speakerphone, etc.

Voice quality of the Kyocera Neo E1100 is fine but I wish the volume was a bit louder. You won’t be able to talk clearly in environments with lots of noises. For the speakerphone, I had to keep the handset close to my mouth while speaking or else my friends couldn’t hear me. This phone is made just for people who want to make calls and nothing else. There are no high end features here at all.

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 Intensity II’s navigation array is a bit cramped. The keys are located at a close distance and hence I had a lot of mishits during the lab tests. The array is made up of two soft buttons, speaker phone button, four way navigation key with OK button in the center, cancel button, speaker phone key and the regular send/end buttons. All the keys, except for the send/end ones are a bit small.

On the bottom, there is the numeric keyboard and the buttons here have a diagonal slant which makes typing easy. The keys are not cramped and hence I didn’t have many mishits. On the back, there is a 1.3 megapixel camera which takes pretty low end photos. I would recommend using this camera just for taking photo caller ID pictures are nothing else. The camera also has a mirror on the side for taking self portrait images.

For music enthusiast, the Samsung Intensity II has Vcast music with Rhapsody but you will have to download the music from your computer first and then transfer it to your mobile phone. Songs cannot be downloaded directly to the cell phone which is kinda bummer. Other goodies include turn by turn navigation, Bing search app, and voice command too.

Finally, I tested the Samsung Intensity II for call quality. It is good but there were some moment of weakness. I expected the call quality to be really good since it is a basic phone and such entry level handsets are used mostly for calling purposes only. This phone comes in two color options – deep gray and metallic blue. I got the latter model in my labs for reviewing. The cost of this phone is $49.99 after a $50 mail in rebate and you have to sign a two year agreement with Verizon Wireless, the service provider.

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 screen interface. The slider design is not the only highlight of the phone. BlackBerry Torch also comes with a new OS, called the OS 6 and the company says the new product comes with a lot of improvements as compared to the previous versions. The interface is really good and there is also something called universal search function now. It will be interesting to see if the browser will be improved or not because it has been one of the weakest points of this company.

We won’t say that the handset is perfect. There are a few problems. People are saying that the device gets really sluggish sometimes and this will certainly irritate people who lack patience. The screen doesn’t have a high resolution as compared to the high end smartphones that you get in the market.

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, dark gray exterior, and black muted interior. The side are grooved and this makes it really comfortable to grip the phone when it is next to your ears. There are spines which make it quite easy to open the phone. On the handset’s right, there is a microUSB charging port and on the left, you have the volume rocker along with the 2.5 mm headphones jack.

External display of the Samsung Haven is 1.07 inches big and you get time in large letters. Along with that, it also shows you the battery life and signal strength. Long press of the volume rocker fades the display. The internal screen is 2.2 inches big and you get a resolution of 176×220 pixels with support for 65,000 colors. The font is big enough and I didn’t have any problems reading it. This font can be further enlarged. The display shows you the time, phone number, and date. You can also customize the backlight time, banner, and wallpaper.

Samsung Haven has shortcut buttons on the surface of the phone for voice mail, voice command and photo gallery. Having a photo gallery button doesn’t make much sense on a handset like this where there is no camera. I really liked the dial pad and navigation array since they are quite big and hence easy to press. The backlighting on the buttons too is bright enough. The four way navigation pad has an OK button in the middle and it is surrounded by two soft keys. There is also a 911 emergency call button and a discrete speakerphone key. Finally, you have the standard Clear, End and Send keys. Typing on the numbered keypad was comfortable because of their domed shape; they gave nice and bouncy feedback. The ‘5’ key has two tiny bumps which make it easy to understand the location of other buttons by feel.

Finally, I tested the Samsung Haven for call quality and found that it was mostly fine but occasionally, there was an echo. The voices were loud enough; I could still talk to my friends comfortably in spite of the echo. Speaker phone quality is really impressive, it was strong and clear for most part.

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 the keys but that won’t be a problem because the buttons look big enough. There are also separate buttons for messaging, camera, search function on the bottom which can come in handy while using the phone. The space bar is also big enough and you won’t have many problems while typing.

The screen seems to be a bit small which won’t go well with people who love watching videos on their cell phones. You still have enough room for working with all your documents. Below the screen, there are three touch sensitive buttons but we don’t know what they are for. Motorola Charm also has a three megapixel camera which should give you decent quality photos. That is all we can tell you about the device right now. We will do a full review of it when the manufacturer’s sends it in our labs for review.

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 will start shipping the Streaks with updated OS but we are very much glad to hear this piece of news. Dell Streak is one of the latest tablets to hit the market and these gadgets are now trying to share the limelight that the iPad is getting. The Streak has plenty of goodies like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and 3G. It gives an excellent blend of a phone and a tablet PC with the features that it has to offer. There is also a camera for taking photos and it can record videos as well.

The Dell Streak is far from perfect though, the battery life is really small and Apple’s iPad wins by a big margin. The touch screen keyboard is not the best we have ever seen and your fingers will certainly feel the fatigue if you type for too long on this gadget. The music quality too could have been better.

The Dell Thunder will be powered by a 1,400 mAh lithium ion battery and we hope that it is really powerful. A phone with such powerful features will need a powerful battery. We are not asking for much but the battery must be able to keep the phone alive for one and half or two days. We don’t mind charging the phone after that but a day long battery life is not enough in today’s world. The battery is also removable so you can carry a spare one, in case you run out of battery juice. The screen resolution is rumored to be 800×480 pixels which is really big and will give you plenty of real estate to work around with.

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 make Web browsing a memorable experience.

The high end smartphone also features are step up camera which lets you record 720p HD videos. For music playback, the phone has powerful bass and crystal clear sound quality. Other goodies on the Acer Stream include a five mega pixel camera, geotagging, integrated GPS, microSD card slot and HDMI port. There are three types of keyboards along with a revamped contacts list and a smart dialer. With all these features, you can launch your favorite apps in just one touch and easily switch between them. Customizing the phone is really easy and you get fine graphics and smooth animation on the handset.

The cost of this phone is £399 at Expansys.

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 and signal strength plus the date and time. This also acts as a means to see Caller ID easily and if you look just above this little display you’ll notice the camera lens sitting quietly. If you’re particularly narcissistic, you can use the external display as a viewfinder to take your own photographs. Located on the left are the volume rockers, external speakers and MiniUSB charger jack, while to the right you will find the voice command key and 2.5mm headset jack.

The hinge on the Rambler is sturdy, maybe too sturdy. It makes one handed operation a bit impossible unless you’re the Hulk but it does click into place nicely which is a sign of quality craftsmanship. The larger 2.2 inch display is located on the inside of the phone but the display itself lets it down with a 65k color display offering an underwhelming 176×220-pixel resolution. With so many new mobile interfaces out in the wild, this iteration of Motorola’s interface seems Jurassic with chunky text and dated graphics greeting your every move. It’s a stark reminder of how different this phone is from the more intelligent of Motorola’s breed. Navigation is done by the usual soft key plus a four way directional keypad with an oversized central key. If you so wish, you can the directional keypad to four shortcuts of your choice.

The keypad is well stocked with options, but it’s all laid together so tight as to make it seem akin to Sardines in a tin can, which brings us to the QWERTY keypad. The keys are nicely raised but the overwhelming feeling is that the keyboard is just a bit low on space due to the slim body of the phone and this carries on to the keys itself, too narrow for almost anyone with human fingers unless you slow down typing considerably. There’s no issues with dialing, but text entry is impaired and given the fact this is a messaging phone, that comes as a disappointment.

The 1.3 Megapixel camera too shows its age, and it may have settings such as a self-timer, picture frames, brightness and white balance presets, but it is of no use when picture quality is sub-par. Colors were faded and tired and video didn’t perform much better, with size limited to four lengths: 2 minutes, 5 minutes, fitting it to memory, or fitting it to an MMS. There’s no card slot available, so you’re limited to the phone’s 256MB memory limit. All in all, the Rambler offers up some good features but is let down by poor ergonomics and a disappointing camera.