LG Lotus Elite is the successor to the previous Lotus which we saw in 2008. The Elite has the same square design, but it is sleeker than its predecessor. The Lotus Elite has touch-screen external display on the lid, so that you can access most of the functions without opening the phone. A lot of the features are same in the original Lotus and new Elite. LG Lotus Elite costs around $99.99 with two-year agreement from Sprint after mail-in rebate of $50. At CES 2010, the Elite phone had been nominated for “Best of CES” awards in “cell phones” category. The biggest improvement in LG Lotus Elite is its 2.4-inch touch-screen external display, which is big and takes a lot of space on small phone. It has a resolution of 320×240 pixels that supports 262,000 colors. The touch screen is resistive, not capacitive and also it isn’t doesn’t respond quickly like Apple iPhone or Nexus  [...]

Both Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus were unveiled at CES 2010. Palm Pre Plus was not a complete surprise at that moment. The Pre Plus is the better one between these two Palm devices. It features revamped keyboard, more internal storage and RAM, improved feel and look and better speed. Palm Pre Plus is using Verizon as service provider unlike its predecessor Palm Pre for Sprint. The Pre Plus has to face tough competition with Verizon’s various smartphones. The WebOS has also added multitasking capabilities and very easy user-interface that makes Palm Pre Plus a perfect device other than Windows Mobile and Android smartphones. The Pre Plus costs $149.99 with two-year contract from Verizon. This price include $100 mail-in rebate. The Palm has made some changes in the phone design to improve the overall feel and look of the Pre Plus. Palm has removed the center knob that takes to  [...]

96X96 Display is small and unique to show all the information like Caller ID, Time and Date, Battery and Signals, of course. Its external display is monochrome color. Being low resolution, its graphics did not seem to be attractive; however, bright screen makes the menus intuitive. By some formatting like changing wallpaper, greetings and background colors the mobile can be personalized. Dialing Fonts and Menu Fonts can be formatted by changing their size, color and style. The backlighting time can also be changed. The volume rocker is on left spine. Both Charger port and headset jack can be plugged at a single combined socket on right spine.A non-standard jack with combined slot for charger is annoying and we would like Samsung to support 3.5 mm headset jack with separate slot. Great Thing - It has a Speaker Phone. The camera supports VGA which is not liked by most users. For consolation,  [...]

LG gave us two phones before – LG Lotus and LG Rumour 2 and both of them were messaging phones. This time they are out with a phone for people who need a device just for calling and sending text messages. They have also thrown in some advanced features around takes the phone out of the ‘entry level’ category. The main features of the phone include One Click interface courtesy of Sprint, EV-DO REV .0., GPS and 2 mega pixel camera. The display of the handset is rather tiny, it is just two inch big, has a resolution of 240x320 pixels and support for 262,000 colors. Even though the screen is small, it is vibrant and rich with color, the animated icons look very nice. You can change the font size of browser, notepad and messages and also the back light of the screen. You can personalize your phone with lots of wallpapers, alert tones and graphics. We were quite fond of the One  [...]

Sanyo SCP-6760 Incognito from Sprint shares a lot of similarities with Pantech Impact by AT&T like the tiny display and the touch keypads. Both the phones have the same compass box design, and apart from that they have 2 mega pixel cameras, 3G, full QWERTY keyboards, etc. But this phone is a bit different when it comes to performance, we found that this product from Sanyo, has low speaker phone quality and the exterior is a bit more sturdy. You will think that the Incognito has nothing on the outside but when you flick the tiny switch on the sides of the phone; you will get an array of buttons that you normally see in a typical numeric keypad of a phone. These keys are touch sensitive and will give haptic feed back when you press them. The keys are also adequately placed away from each other so there are not much mishits but sometimes the  [...]

Casio G'zOne Rock is water proof cell phone which means you can take this baby with your while swimming or even talk on the phone while taking a shower. But the highlights of the phone have to be the inclusion of features like tidal graph and GPS-enabled compass. The phone has hard plastic all around it and the ports are covered with rubber padding to stop water from going in. This phone can withstand dust, shock, water, extreme temperatures, humidity, high altitude, fog, salt and vibration. The battery compartment is also covered with thick screw to stop water. The phone has a clamshell design which gives way to two displays. The OLED monochrome display gives a resolution of 96X96 pixels and shows time, date, caller ID, signal strength and battery status. There are a few touch sensitive buttons on the lid which can be used for controlling music without opening the phone. The display  [...]

We are not sure why Samsung put in the QWERTY slide out keyboard in the back of the mobile phone. The big screen has a good virtual keyboard plus the phone would have had a bit slimmer. The screen of the Samsung Rogue SCH-U960 is AMOLED which means great video viewing and more battery life since AMOLED screens consume less power as compared to standard LCDs. AMOLEDs are supposed to withstand bright sunlight but we found the screen has not quite clear when you take it out there. But this screen is definitely better performer than standard LCDs. 3.1 inch screen of the Samsung Rogue SCH-U960 gives 480x800 pixel resolution and support for 262,000 colors. The screen lives up to what you expect from AMOLED display and the picture is quite sharp, video viewing was excellent and browsing  [...]

Nokia haven’t been too busy in the market, it is been a while since they launched a high end phone. If you are a Nokia fan, there is nothing much exciting for you, so you will have to do with these entry level phones like Nokia 2705 Shade. The Nokia 2705 Shade doesn’t have much of a tech drooling from it is a pretty basic phone for calling and sending text messages. This is a clamshell phone, so it has two displays on it, the other one being on the lid. The display on the front has a resolution of 160x128 pixels and has 262,144 colors. The lid display will do everything which you expect from an external display. It has photo caller ID and it is also a view finder for images of self-portrait. The display inside the Nokia 2705 Shade is two inch big and has a resolution of 220x176 pixels and 262,144 colors. The display is a little dull and Nokia could have done better. The display is good and text can be read easily from the screen, but it does sound a bit off color. You can change the font color and font size and also the backlighting time. You can also change the wallpaper, display themes, banners and formats for clocks. The Nokia 2705 Shade opens up to reveal a keyboard, which has keys, lied quite flat on the surface. There is a four way directional button, two soft keys, speakerphone button, a camera button for clicking pictures, call and call end key, the clear key and below these are the numeric keypad buttons. You can assign four short cuts to the applications that you use the most for the four way directional keypad. The keypad is good for typing but it has the cheap plastic feel on it. You won’t complain when typing much in terms of ergonomics but the build quality could have been better. The Nokia 2705 Shade has a generous 1000 memory phone book for storing your contacts. A single entry can take two email addresses and four phone numbers. We were surprised to see lack of room for entries such as company name and address, birthday, notes, etc which most of the Nokia phones are known to posses. Don’t forget the SIM card can store additional 250 contacts. You can pair a contact with a photo and you can also give a unique caller ID to a contact. There are 12 polyphonic ring tones for you to choose from. Other features on the Nokia 2705 Shade include text and multimedia messaging; vibrate mode, calculator, alarm clock, calendar, stopwatch, notepad and world clock. On the sides of the phone there is a 2.5 mm phone jack and port for Micro-USB. There is a 1.3 mega pixel camera on the lid of the Nokia 2705 Shade which takes below average photos. We do understand that this is a basic phone but Nokia could have put at least a 2 mega pixel camera. The highest resolution that the camera can achieve is 1,280x960 and the lowest is 160x120. There are options for camera such as brightness meter, self-timer, three color effects, four white balance modes, three shutter sounds and silent option. The camera is just for clicking pictures and it can’t shoot videos. You can store the photographs that you have shot in the 64 MB internal memory of the phone. The Nokia 2705 Shade doesn’t come with any built in games but you can download some if you want from Verizon. We didn’t try downloading any titles but we think this entry level phone is only for light gamming. Other advanced features on the phone include voice commands and dialing, Verizon chat, USB cable support, voice recorder and POP3 connectivity. You can also use this phone as a modem to connect to the internet and VZ navigator is available but it comes at a price. The Nokia 2705 Shade was tested for call quality and it is acceptable. The phone volume is loud enough and you can hear quite clearly in places with noises in the background. We could the voice clearly and our friends could also hear us quite well. Speaker phone calls were of poor quality as compared to other models. We know that speaker phone attracts a lot of background noise but the quality was pretty bad even after ignoring that. Voice will also distort if you push the volume to the highest level. Nokia says that the 2705 Shade can give five hours of talk time on a single charge and 15 days of stand by time.

Nitty Gritty:

Nokia 2705 Shade is good for people who need a phone just for talking and sending text messages but it doesn’t have any of those high end features. We wouldn’t recommend this camera even in the entry level phone range owing to its poor exteriors. They are very delicate and can break easily if not handled with care.

Samsung has gone back to the days where smart phones were intimidating with lots of keys and looked like some kind of a supercomputer. But the Samsung SCH-220 Code is aimed at business men and not your regular college student so functions and features have been kept in mind and looks have been given second preference. We don’t doubt Samsung’s mobiles as we know they are capable of making world class electronic products. The Samsung SCH-220 Code has a non touch display and it is a little small as compared to what smart phone have these days. The 2.4 inch QVGA display has a resolution of 320x240 pixels. The images and the text of the phone is pretty good but it will be overwhelmed when you use it in bright sunlight. The screen won’t be able to stand bright sunlight. You can change  [...]

The look of the camera will give you a feel that it is touch screen, but it is not. Nokia was always touch screen shy before they launched the xpress music devices. The two inch screen gives you a resolution of 320X240 pixels and supports 16.7 million colors. The graphics look good and the display is quite clear. You can change the font size and color. Below the screen there are just four buttons and the four way navigational button in the middle. The two buttons are the standard ones which go according to what is displayed on the screen, and there are call and call end buttons below them. These four buttons are quite comfortable to use. We have never been fans of a slider phone’s keyboard and this one too is no exception. The keys are shiny and slippery. They are not elevated adequately, back lighting is bright but the number and the alphabets on the buttons are small. On the  [...]