There are tons of smartphones out there in the market right now and we as tech enthusiasts drool on all of them. But if you are not tech savy, purchasing a high end smartphone will mean nothing for you. All you need is a handset to make a few calls, click some snaps and maybe listen to music sometimes. It makes no sense to buy a high end smartphone for this. We conducted a survey for this and found that most of the people who own a smartphone don’t use all the features that it has to offer. Some are not even aware that the gadget has specific features. There are lots of varieties when it comes to step down phones. Some come with pretty basic features while some give you a few features like music player and camera put in. Motorola VE440 belongs to this category; it has a different body design. We have never seen this design before in a cell phone. On the body, dedicated buttons for camera and music. All these keys are pretty easy to access. Display The  [...]

We first saw the HTC Evo 4G at CTIA 2010 and since then we were waiting in anticipation for this phone to arrive at our labs since there was so much hype surrounding it. This handset will be available for purchase from June 4th and will be America’s first 4G smartphone. We have high expectations from this phone and it deliver to the promises. This is a good handset but we have a couple of complaints too. Overall, we think that this is the best Smartphone seen to date and is also one of the finest Android phones right now. It is very powerful and is packed with features. 4G promises are delivered quite well. We expected better speeds from 4G but still it lives up to the claim that this technology is better than 3G. Sprint hasn’t rolled out the 4G carpet all over yet, so only a limited number of people will be able to exploit all the features of this phone when it launches in the market. You also have to shell out $10 extra for the mandatory Premium Data add-on. We are not complaining  [...]

This is the first Android phone by LG to hit the American shores. Previous Android devices by the manufacturer came out only in the Asian and European markets. We really liked this phone even though there is nothing spectacular about the feature set. This is because everything has been kept neat and tidy in the phone. The display is pretty good, the slide out keyboard too is good and the performance too lived up to our expectations. The phone comes with Android 2.1, the latest version of the OS. The price is the phone is $99.99 and it comes with two year contract obligation. The phone has a 3.2 megapixel camera along with flash but the quality of images wasn’t as good as we’d expected. There are other features on the phone that will be of great use like stereo Bluetooth, EV-DO Rev. A. and Wi-Fi. Apart from that, we liked the solid design of the phone; the weight contributes a lot to make the phone durable. The phone has a rated battery life of seven and half hours.

Palm Pre Plus is from AT&T and we first saw it in CES 2010. It will be available from May 16 and it doesn’t have tons of surprises inside since this phone is quite similar to the one we had to Verizon model. The software and hardware is pretty much the same and the only difference is that this phone supports services of AT&T. We would have loved if this phone came with some new hardware but AT&T customers here can use the WebOS’s great capabilities. The multitasking abilities too are impressive. The feature set is well rounded and the interface is easy to use. We will call this one of the better phones from AT&T in recent times. Before this, we had Motorola Backflip which didn’t do too well in the market. HTC Tilt2 and LG Expo were also there but those two were targeted at business men. We think this is a great alternative to the iPhone but it is priced a bit high. Cost of this phone is $149.99 and you have to sign a two year contract with the service provider. AT&T  [...]

There are not a lot of cell phones under U.S. Cellular’s repertoire but they are slowly starting to increase these days. Samsung Exec is the latest addition to its collection. This phone is available for $99.95 and you have to sign a two year contract after a mail in rebate of $70. This is a sleek smartphone made for people who message a lot, and it has an excellent keyboard and the multimedia and productivity features too are impressive. The performance of the phone doesn’t suffer due to the extensive feature set and the handset handles applications quite well. We will recommend this phone as an alternative to the RIM BlackBerry Tour 9630. Samsung Acclaim and HTC Desire are hitting the market soon and they these two will compete with this handset so it will be interesting to see what features they have to offer. Both these phones belong to U.S. Cellular and come with Android OS. The feature set is enhanced and there is more power so it will be worth waiting for those phones. Both the  [...]

We have already reviewed Kin One here and the small size of the device did puzzle us a bit. This phone has standard design, but still is targeted only at youngsters. Both these phones give instant access to your favorite friends and you can constantly stay in touch with them through social networking integration. The user experience is also different than standard cell phones. Success of such phones depend largely on their pricing as well as data plans. Verizon Wireless is providing service for this phone and Kin Two was offered at $149.99 along with a two year contract and after $100 mail in rebate. Verizon announced a change in price; Kin Two now costs $99.99 (Kin One’s price, on the other hand, has come down from $79.99 to $49.99). Both these phones require a fee of $29.99 a month for unlimited data plan which is similar to other smartphones from Verizon Wireless. We are skeptical about the success of these phones in the market especially since these handsets are targeted at youngsters  [...]

This phone is not meant for you, it is for your kid. Yes, Kin One and Kin Two are made by Microsoft and are targeted especially at the younger generation. But instead of getting excited we saw a lot of doubts in people’s minds. Windows 7 has been announced and hence we don’t know how these phones will do in the market. Microsoft here reiterates that these tiny babies are made for the younger generations who are crazy about social networking. But this answer is hardly satisfactory. These phones aren’t out in the market yet, they release on 6th May and the service provider will ship it within 48 hours once you preorder it on the Website. The duo will go on sale nationwide on May 13 on all Verizon stores. The cost of Kin One is $79.99 and Kin Two will put you back by $149.99. Both need a two year service agreement and come with $100 mail in rebate. On the downside, there are no options for the monthly data plan. Both these phones need a $29.99 monthly unlimited data plan just like other  [...]

>For: Intuitive display, 3.5 mm phone jack, 3 home screens, 3.2 megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth, GPS Against: Not as good as Samsung Rogue. Photo quality could have been better. The Whiz Kid Speaks: Samsung Reality SCH-u820 is based on CDMA2000 1X technology, it has 128 MB internal memory, phone book capacity is of 1000 entries, downloadable content includes Screensavers, Wallpapers and Ringtones. The 3.2 megapixels camera has the following options for resolutions - 320 x 240, 800 x 480, 1280 x 720, 1920 x 1080, 640 x 480, 1024 x 768, 1600 x 1200, 2048 x 1536. The camera has 9x digital zoom. The screen is three inches big and has a resolution of 240x400 pixels. Supported audio formats are AAC+, MP3, AAC and WMA. The battery of the phone has a rated talk time of 300 minutes and rated standby time is of 300 hours. Razzle Dazzle: Samsung Reality SCH-u820 is 4.23 inches long, 0.65 inches  [...]

Kyocera Laylo M1400 is here to prove that not all cell phones need to be packed with features. Most people don’t use all the features in the handset and hence it makes no sense in buying a high end smart phone if all you are going to do is make calls and send text messages. Kyocera is a big name when it comes to entry level phones particularly with small carriers like MetroPCS. We will recommend this phone because even though it lacks high end features, you can do basic cell phone tasks very well and also the compact design makes the handset easy to carry around. Call quality is the most important thing that you look for when it comes to basic phones. We were glad to see that the quality lived up to our expectations. All this costs $59 and there are no contract obligations. The phone has a slider interfaces which is much better than a candy bar design when it comes to looks. Opening up a slider there is an incoming call always looks stylish. Display The  [...]

These days looks and high end features are more important for manufacturers and they are relentlessly making sexy looking phones with all the oomph in order to put potential customers in to the loop. MetroPCS doesn’t seem to care much though, they are pretty much content with plane jane looks and basic features. But in the recent months, the carrier has tried to diversify itself, it has brought out a couple of touch screen handsets and has announced introduction of 4G service by next year. All this isn’t reflected in LG Lyric MT375 though. It is still a basic handset with a user friendly down to earth design. The call quality of this phone is pretty decent which is what matters the most in such low end phones. The cost of this phone is $139 and there are no contract obligations from the service provider. You get a discount of $25 if you purchase it online. We really liked the phone and its performance. There are a few drawbacks though, the camera doesn’t have flash, for the headset,  [...]