This is not a new phone in our labs, we previously reviewed the RIM BlackBerry Bold 9650 from Sprint. But now we got a Verizon Wireless handset in our labs and thought of doing a separate review since the service provider gave it to us in our labs. There are no drastic changes done to this phone but some subtleties are apparent like Wi-Fi, optical touch pad and more internal memory. We have written this review for Verizon's model only and we will feature on the performance and features by the service provider. If you are looking for a detailed review, check out our Sprint's RIM BlackBerry Bold 9650. Verizon Wireless is selling this phone for $149.99, it comes with a 2 year contract and after $100 mail in rebate. This smartphone now offers world roaming capabilities and you can also unlock the SIM card. The design of the phone makes it comfortable to hold in the hand. There are a few downsides though, the browser is not that good. BlackBerry phones have never been browsers,  [...]

LG Imprint MN240 looks a lot like Kin One with regards to design. Just like LG Remarq, the Imprint has a leaf shaped speaker on the back and the handset's charger too is Energy star rated. MetroPCS, the service provider is not advertising this handset as an eco friendly product. May be that is because Imprint doesn't have soy ink packaging (unlike the Remarq) and the body is not made up of recycled plastic either. The phone has an appealing design and it will certainly go well with youngsters. They always yearn for a compact phone which can be easily placed in to their jeans pocket. Another thing that we liked about the phone was the spacious QWERTY keyboard which makes typing easy. If you are the kind of person who types a lot on cellphones then we will recommend you this handset. Other than that, the LG Imprint also has a music player for listening to tracks while on the move. However, we expected a 3.5 mm headphones jack since it would have let us plug in any standard headphones in to  [...]

Samsung makes a lot of phones just for small service operators like MetroPCS and U.S. Cellular and this latest phone by this company is another example of that. Both this and the Messager II are entry level phones and the design is quite similar to Rant, also by the same company. Rant had a slide out QWERTY keyboard along with external number keypad. But Messager Touch does something different; it has a full sliding keyboard, touch screen coupled with the trademark Samsung TouchWiz feature. The look is sleek as compared to its predecessors. This is a pretty decent phone for people who message a lot. The cost of this handset is $49.99 with mail in rebate and after a two year contract. Samsung Messager Touch SCH-R630 has a 2.6 inch display with resolution of 240x320 pixels and supports 262,000 colors. You can change the dial font size, backlight time, lock screen font color. The phone has a resistive touch screen so don't expect an iPhone like experience on the screen. You will have to press  [...]

This phone was presented as a concept in Mobile World Congress and we are glad it has turned in to a reality now. This device is offered unlocked and it is billed as an entertainment cell phone. The 12.1 megapixel camera is really powerful and we have never seen such advanced photo editing options on any other camera phone. The standard music player is also there for listening to music. In terms of design, this phone has a lot in common with other high end smartphones. We were stunned by the camera options but the picture quality was quite inconsistent. Also, another disappointing feature is that the gadget has a proprietary port for headphones and power adapter. We would have liked a standard 3.5 mm headphone jack for plugging in any standard headphones. This is an excellent multimedia phone but the high price tag of $649 is certainly a turn off. True, you get a lot of camera options but a digi-cam gives you all this for relatively low price. Hence, we won’t recommend purchasing this  [...]

LG Remarq is following the footprints of many cell phone manufacturers who are going green. We first got to see this cell phone at CTIA 2010. It is a messaging phone having a sliding layout and is made up of 19 percent plastic. Apart from that, 87% of its part can be recycled if you want to get rid of it. The manufacturer also says that this handset has low levels of polyvinyl chloride and the brominated flame retardants. The cardboard packaging of this phone is made of recycled material as well. Even the charger of the phone is energy efficient (it comes with Energy Star certification) and people who are sympathetic to mother Earth will drool at all these offerings. The eco friendly features aside, this message centric phone is quite impressive. There is no high-speed EV-DO but you get a 1.3 megapixel camera, microSD card, music player, and speaker phone. There is also quick access to the social networking sites like MySpace, Twitter and Facebook. The phone has a square design and its  [...]

Touch screen is basically a high end or smart phone phenomenon but that doesn’t mean it cannot be offered on midrange phones. Samsung Sleek is an excellent example of this. It is more of a messaging phone made for social networking freaks. You have a full sized QWERTY keyboard for typing out those lengthy messages and the touch screen display too is good. The handset gives basic multimedia features like music player and 1.3 mega pixel camera. Apart from that, there are no advanced features on this cell phone. If you are looking for a mid range multimedia phone, this device will fit the bill perfectly. This gadget is yours for $79.99 and Sprint asks you to sign a two year contract. The 2.6 inch QVG display of the phone has a resolution of 240x320 pixels with 262k color support. You can adjust the screen’s touch sensitivity, brightness, and backlight time. This is not a capacitive display so you will need to press a bit harder. But the experience was still good and there  [...]

Palm Pixi Plus is a toned down sibling to the powerful and bigger Palm Pre Plus. It is from AT&T and will be available in the market from June 6. The manufacturer gave us this phone in our labs for review just days before its release. This phone is also available from Verizon Wireless and the handset is not powerful. The cost of this phone is $49.99 and you have to sign a two year contract with the service provider. For this price, we liked the feature set that I had to offer and we would recommend this phone to people who are purchasing a smartphone for the first time. This is an entry level smartphone and it has all the goodies that you’d expect in such a device like GPS, Bluetooth, 3G and Wi-Fi. Don’t forget the benefits that you are going to get from the great Palm WebOS. The camera is now equipped with video recording capabilities and you can also edit them easily. There are a few downsides though. For instance, the phone is sluggish sometimes. The keyboard and display is quite  [...]

Samsung has made lots of touch screen phones featuring full sized QWERTY keyboards and not all of them have been successful in the market. Before this, we got the Samsung Glyde (also by Verizon) and it came with lots of drawbacks. We also got the Samsung Impression from AT&T in our labs for review and that phone was a bit better. Samsung Rogue SCH-U960 is better than the two aforementioned devices. It has a touch screen along with QWERTY keyboard but apart from that, you will love the gorgeous AMOLED touch screen. There are other goodies in the phone like voice dialing and 3.5 mm headphones jack. It also has lots of high end features like EV-DO Rev. A, full HTML browser along with Flash Lite support, GPS, etc. This phone costs $99.99 and you have to sign a two year contract after $100 mail in rebate. This means the phone is quite affordable. But this phone needs a data plan and you need to play separately for that, 75MB/month plan costs $19.99 and 25 MB/month plan costs $9.99.

Microsoft has already announced the release of Windows 7 but it is still manufacturing Windows 6.5 phones aggressively. The latest example of this is LG Fathom. It run on Windows 6.5.3 and is one of the few smartphones from Verizon Wireless to have CDMA/GSM dual chipsets. You can put in an international SIM card when you are traveling out of US. We weren’t that impressed with the resistive touch screen but the slide out QWERTY keyboard is quite good. The phone has some good features and we are really tempted by this phone even though there is Windows 7 lurking around. This handset is available for $149.99 and you have to sign a two year contract after $100 mail in rebate. We also liked the solid construction of the handset. The QWERTY keyboard is quite roomy and the display too is bright. Other goodies on the device include Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth. On the flipside, performance of the phone was a bit sluggish, especially with the accelerometer. The handset, as a whole, is quite bulky  [...]

Last summer, RIM and Sprint promised us Wi-Fi enabled BlackBerry Tour and here they are with RIM BlackBerry Bold 9650. The Tour has been dropped from the name but this phone still is a better device than Tour, it now has Wi-Fi and the onboard memory is also doubled. You favorites like compact QWERTY design and world roaming capabilities are still there. This is definitely not the most cutting edge or exciting smartphone that is out there in the market but it is definitely a good choice especially for globetrotters. This phone will put you back with $199.99 and you have to sign a two year contract with the service provider after $100 mail in rebate.  This phone has a lot in common with Tour and we are not just talking about the looks or design. The internal features too are a lot similar. One thing that we would like the change here is the Web browser. It is very clunky. BlackBerry’s biggest weak point is its browser. There might have been changes done to over the years but it is still  [...]