This is a Blackberry style Android. A Black Droid. Full QWERTY. My first Android phone. It’s actually quite OK, though in hindsight, full screen is better. That’s not the killer though. As useful as this phone is, it has a battery life of like three hours. I always have to keep it plugged in, which means it’s a pretty shitty mobile.
FYI, I’m writing this review in response to Ami Sampath’s piece Cheapest Android Smartphones in Sri Lanka: 10 Androids You Can Buy Below Rs. 34,999/-.
Positives
It looks good, has a full keyboard, and runs Android. The problem, however, is that… wait, positives. OK, functionality. I can listen to my Hype Machine music, streaming, in the car (through a headphone jack cassette adaptor). I can set up a WiFi hotspot, which I’m using right now. The Internet is fast, most apps work great, etc.
Negatives
Battery life. It never lasts a day, is impossible to travel with and constantly needs to be plugged in. If you use the features of the phone at all, it dies. If you don’t it lives, but what a wasted life.
Also, it has a keypad, but the default goes to search, not numbers. To find or dial a number is a painful process. Also, there is no ‘=’ option, which makes coding difficult, but there is one button that switches everything to Arabic. Sigh. Not useful. Oh, and to type numbers, you have to hold down the alt button every single time, it doesn’t stick like a Caps Lock. Also annoying.
QWERTY Vs. Virtual
The reason I bought this phone was for the keypad. In hindsight, however, not necessary. The GMail App doesn’t really fit on the screen, so it’s not great for that. Coding HTML is very difficult and only for emergencies, again because the screen is small. For most apps, including Twitter, that screen real estate is important.
My gripe with smartphones is that they’re too often media consumption devices rather than production (iPad too a bit). A keyboard makes it a bit more production ready, but it’s not worth the trade-off in terms of screen size.
So, would I recommend this device? Nope, but solely based on the battery life. If they just made the pack a bit fatter it would be a fine Black Droid phone. Until then, check out Ami’s reviews of other cheap Androids available in Sri Lanka. It costs about Rs. 28,000. I got it at QTel in Liberty Plaza.
I’m waiting for ice cream sandwich to come out before buying a new phone.
I am waiting for Nexus Prime :) Until then I am using a iPhone 4 I just got. Have a look at this test “Galaxy S II vs iPhone 4S
announcement on 19th
Sounds like the negatives far outweigh the positives. How much did you spend on this thing?
Ami Sampath has left out the Galaxy Ace in his list, because, obviously, it’s more than Rs. 34,999 – but only by about 2K. It’s a very good phone for that price. My only complaint is the battery life, especially when you’re running 3G. But with 2G on, it stays alive for a good six hours, which, to me, is more than adequate.
I bought the Samsung Galaxy Ace recently and apart from the same battery life scenario, I can highly recommend the Ace. Costs around 37K. I was too reluctant to give up on the QWERTY Nokia E71 I had in fear of the Virtual keyboard, but once I switched and got used to it, I regret not switching much earlier.
And for the battery, it’s mainly due to 3G/HSPA usage. Cutting down when not needed seem to save some juice. Using Wi-Fi seem to hold the battery for sometime..
Dili suggested an app on the Market which can be used to save battery. You can find my review on the Ace and Dili’s comments here
http://www.nazly.net/finally-i-have-moved-to-android/
Ah, you’ve mentioned the price. Missed that. Apologies.
I used to have extreme doubts about any supposed “smart phone” that’s priced under 35K simply because I didn’t how hardware that cheap could run the OS properly. But now you do seem to get decent Androids for that price bracket especially if its an outdated version of the OS.
To my mind, still the best price/performance package is the Samsung Galaxy Ace which Nazly, Himal and I have. Battery is a curse. But what saps it is all the wireless tech (i.e. WiFi, 3G, GPS) and the camera flash. If you manage those it’ll last a day without much hassle. There are power management apps for android (I use Juice Defender) that help a lot too.
There is a model called the Samsung Galaxy Gio which I think might be a better deal at ~$200-215, only I’ve never seen it here.
http://www.google.com/nexus/
i’ll be buying one of those come December if they sell without a contract.