Two Small Reviews
Two gadgets that have made their way here.
The Motorola F3 cell phone (which is not at all a smartphone, rather a "dumbphone"), and the Sony-Ericsson K310A.
If there's one word that might describe the Motorola F3, it's "torture".
Motorola have always made somewhat spartan interfaces, but this piece of "design" stands out.
The tall display only holds two lines of text at six (!) huge characters each.
The user interface has no text labels whatsoever, only icons.
The SMS interface is confusing - there's no history or any cues to the received or sent SMS - only arrow pointers.
There are no programmable keys.
The cursor up/down buttons switch the volume from "off or barely audible" to "somewhat audible and vibrate". Which is the worst design decision possible - it's the last function that could be on the cursor pad: the logical function most phones default to is the call list/address book.
The basic setup features, alarm clock, etc. are all in the main menu, not behind a safe "settings" category. Which ensures the user will keep on misadjusting the clock, ringer volume, and alarm by a wrong click or two (something that happens almost automatically on this phone).
As a special "gift" from Motorola, this seems to be the only phone on this planet that doesn't have a "shift" function. It doesn't distinguish between capital and regular letters. And, of course, with its ogre-oriented display, any SMS message, even the shortest, takes several screens of scrolling. Although, an ogre would be ashamed of using it as even an ogre would have noticed himself being dumbed down.
In summary, this is the worst mobile phone ever created. It might have some kind of value for an elder person with severely impaired vision (the phone also has voice notification), though anyone would instantly notice the awkwardness of the interface that transmits the "ignorance is bliss" mentality of its designers.
The looks, apparently, are intended to fool many unsuspecting people looking for a cheap and functional phone into buying this abomination. The phone has cost Mex. $400 (about 30 Euro), and it was at least 800 pesos too much.
The F3 was meant to replace an old Sendo phone from four years ago, and it is so vastly inferior to the Sendo "streamlined brick", they couldn't even be compared.
Note: Motorola's suggested retail price is US$50, but phone operators subsidise a part of the cost. Mexico is one of the countries where the operators' subsidies cover a major part of a phone's cost.
The Sony-Ericsson K310 is an entry-level multifunctional phone. It has GPRS/CSD connection support, it runs Java, it has a WAP browser and an IMAP/POP3/SMTP mail client. It also has a very simple camera with a 640*480 resolution, a rather full organiser set with even a "code memo" feature (password-protected notebook), a built-in file manager (total storage space is 14.63 MBs), support for playback (and capture) of .3gp video, display of *.bmp-, *.jpg-, *.png- and *.gif- (also animated GIF) files. The tiny speaker is limited in playback of up to 16 KHz only. As the other phones currently manufactured by Sony-Ericsson, this one has a media player, and is seriously limited only by its memory size, and lack of support for any expansion cards. Which really isn't that much of an issue, as just as with any other piece of gear, music players are better kept separate and have their full specialised functionality rather than crammed in a single device with a lot of other functions.
The phone's display is 128 pixels wide, 160 pixels tall, distinguishing 65535 colours.
Perhaps the most nice feature of the phone is its synthesiser. The phone supports MIDI playback and ringtones, and the synthesiser engine sounds as something either with a very tiny wavetable (less than 1 MB), or a fairly advanced FM synthesiser. The percussion instruments (timpani, snares, bass kicks) did have character and sounded solid, but the strings and choir were almost inaudible. What's really lovely is the typical "pluck" synthesised bass 1 that sounds classic-analogue-FM-generated :-)
Decoration-wise it's got support for themes (which can be created with a toolkit downloaded off developer.sonyericsson.com, strangely, and not the main support website), wallpapers and custom ringtones (wave & MP3 format, though supported wave sampling rates are somewhat fancy - it wouldn't play back 22 KHz/16-bit, but it did play 16 KHz/16-bit...),
The connection software that Sony offers for download (which is not on a mini-CD within the phone box) is rather patronising and automatically assumes the user's silly (an attitude which also contributes to the users staying silly and spoiled), and displaying lots of redundant messages of the kind (the phone identification wizard was the funniest, giving a lot of "next" screenfuls stating the obvious - "phone connected", "phone identified" - what for is a "wizard" if the detection's automatic anyway?). It did come with a modem device driver, which is all that was required from it.
The phone can also work as a GPRS-based modem (though apparently only as an analogue-style phone-dial modem, not a "true" GPRS modem). With the current operator's rate of Mex. $12/hour for a national call, this makes an Internet connection available anywhere there is a cell tower (which is pretty much anywhere in the country where there's highway).
The phone came only with its power adapter, and even though its USB cable cost Mex. $460 in a store, a cheap Chinese-made replacement was found quickly enough.
Besides the USB connection, the phone supports IR communication (no Bluetooth).
The phone has a choice of two modes - "phone mode", in which it will work as a modem or as a "slave" phone with the PC's microphone/speakers, and the "storage mode" where it simply connects as another USB storage device.
A certain annoyance of the phone is its DRM capacity, which apparently is extended even to images, not just MP3 files.
Overall, this is a nice phone with some little annoyances (such as additional interface steps where there could have been none, inability to turn off animation and that distracting character hintbar during typing), which is worth all of its price. It could've used some improvements, but it looks like Sony-Ericsson have got it right (very unlike Motorola, whose phones in the same price range had awkward controls and clunky interface).
The Sony-Ericsson K310a has cost Mex$ 1011 (roughly US$ 95 or about 80 Euro) with a local Telefonica operator (an extension of the Spanish telco Telefonica).
The Motorola F3 cell phone (which is not at all a smartphone, rather a "dumbphone"), and the Sony-Ericsson K310A.
If there's one word that might describe the Motorola F3, it's "torture".
Motorola have always made somewhat spartan interfaces, but this piece of "design" stands out.
The tall display only holds two lines of text at six (!) huge characters each.
The user interface has no text labels whatsoever, only icons.
The SMS interface is confusing - there's no history or any cues to the received or sent SMS - only arrow pointers.
There are no programmable keys.
The cursor up/down buttons switch the volume from "off or barely audible" to "somewhat audible and vibrate". Which is the worst design decision possible - it's the last function that could be on the cursor pad: the logical function most phones default to is the call list/address book.
The basic setup features, alarm clock, etc. are all in the main menu, not behind a safe "settings" category. Which ensures the user will keep on misadjusting the clock, ringer volume, and alarm by a wrong click or two (something that happens almost automatically on this phone).
As a special "gift" from Motorola, this seems to be the only phone on this planet that doesn't have a "shift" function. It doesn't distinguish between capital and regular letters. And, of course, with its ogre-oriented display, any SMS message, even the shortest, takes several screens of scrolling. Although, an ogre would be ashamed of using it as even an ogre would have noticed himself being dumbed down.
In summary, this is the worst mobile phone ever created. It might have some kind of value for an elder person with severely impaired vision (the phone also has voice notification), though anyone would instantly notice the awkwardness of the interface that transmits the "ignorance is bliss" mentality of its designers.
The looks, apparently, are intended to fool many unsuspecting people looking for a cheap and functional phone into buying this abomination. The phone has cost Mex. $400 (about 30 Euro), and it was at least 800 pesos too much.
The F3 was meant to replace an old Sendo phone from four years ago, and it is so vastly inferior to the Sendo "streamlined brick", they couldn't even be compared.
Note: Motorola's suggested retail price is US$50, but phone operators subsidise a part of the cost. Mexico is one of the countries where the operators' subsidies cover a major part of a phone's cost.
The Sony-Ericsson K310 is an entry-level multifunctional phone. It has GPRS/CSD connection support, it runs Java, it has a WAP browser and an IMAP/POP3/SMTP mail client. It also has a very simple camera with a 640*480 resolution, a rather full organiser set with even a "code memo" feature (password-protected notebook), a built-in file manager (total storage space is 14.63 MBs), support for playback (and capture) of .3gp video, display of *.bmp-, *.jpg-, *.png- and *.gif- (also animated GIF) files. The tiny speaker is limited in playback of up to 16 KHz only. As the other phones currently manufactured by Sony-Ericsson, this one has a media player, and is seriously limited only by its memory size, and lack of support for any expansion cards. Which really isn't that much of an issue, as just as with any other piece of gear, music players are better kept separate and have their full specialised functionality rather than crammed in a single device with a lot of other functions.
The phone's display is 128 pixels wide, 160 pixels tall, distinguishing 65535 colours.
Perhaps the most nice feature of the phone is its synthesiser. The phone supports MIDI playback and ringtones, and the synthesiser engine sounds as something either with a very tiny wavetable (less than 1 MB), or a fairly advanced FM synthesiser. The percussion instruments (timpani, snares, bass kicks) did have character and sounded solid, but the strings and choir were almost inaudible. What's really lovely is the typical "pluck" synthesised bass 1 that sounds classic-analogue-FM-generated :-)
Decoration-wise it's got support for themes (which can be created with a toolkit downloaded off developer.sonyericsson.com, strangely, and not the main support website), wallpapers and custom ringtones (wave & MP3 format, though supported wave sampling rates are somewhat fancy - it wouldn't play back 22 KHz/16-bit, but it did play 16 KHz/16-bit...),
The connection software that Sony offers for download (which is not on a mini-CD within the phone box) is rather patronising and automatically assumes the user's silly (an attitude which also contributes to the users staying silly and spoiled), and displaying lots of redundant messages of the kind (the phone identification wizard was the funniest, giving a lot of "next" screenfuls stating the obvious - "phone connected", "phone identified" - what for is a "wizard" if the detection's automatic anyway?). It did come with a modem device driver, which is all that was required from it.
The phone can also work as a GPRS-based modem (though apparently only as an analogue-style phone-dial modem, not a "true" GPRS modem). With the current operator's rate of Mex. $12/hour for a national call, this makes an Internet connection available anywhere there is a cell tower (which is pretty much anywhere in the country where there's highway).
The phone came only with its power adapter, and even though its USB cable cost Mex. $460 in a store, a cheap Chinese-made replacement was found quickly enough.
Besides the USB connection, the phone supports IR communication (no Bluetooth).
The phone has a choice of two modes - "phone mode", in which it will work as a modem or as a "slave" phone with the PC's microphone/speakers, and the "storage mode" where it simply connects as another USB storage device.
A certain annoyance of the phone is its DRM capacity, which apparently is extended even to images, not just MP3 files.
Overall, this is a nice phone with some little annoyances (such as additional interface steps where there could have been none, inability to turn off animation and that distracting character hintbar during typing), which is worth all of its price. It could've used some improvements, but it looks like Sony-Ericsson have got it right (very unlike Motorola, whose phones in the same price range had awkward controls and clunky interface).
The Sony-Ericsson K310a has cost Mex$ 1011 (roughly US$ 95 or about 80 Euro) with a local Telefonica operator (an extension of the Spanish telco Telefonica).