Well I had the phone for just over two weeks, so here are my final thoughts.
- Very sleek design
- Light
- Nice display
- Maps look good
- Good camera with flash
- Easy to use OS
- Not good on vodafone Pay as you go
- Annoying keypad
- GPS doesn’t work indoors (most GPS units don’t)
- No wi-fi
My experience with the phone wasn’t the best, I only had a free vodafone SIM handy to try, no matter what I tried I could’nt get it to connect to the internet, which severly limited my ability to use the Maps, luckily you can download maps from your PC and transfer them to the phone via usb.
The map app did look pretty impressive, a nice 3D globe is displayed, and you can zoom down to the Earth like a normal virtual globe, of course it did keep popping up a warning that it couldn’t establish a data connection (dumb vodafone), but the maps looked pretty accurate and had a pseudo 3D view like many in-car sat navs. The phone also has a cool built in compass which is handy when walking, it can use either plain or assisted GPS which is nice too.
The slide out keypad was a nightmare though, my fingers aren’t chunky but even I couldn’t easily press the top row of 3 keys, the main bulk of the phone just gets in the way, also I find glossy keypads annoying as your fingers easily slide off them.
All in all its a good phone with great mapping features, if you have 3G I am sure it will work great, if you use pay as you go forget it, if built in wi-fi had been added the phone would probably have worked pretty well for navigating on foot or in town even on oay as you go. I would also have liked a touch screen, navigating the maps would have been made much easier, and the slide out keypad wouldn’t be needed.
Next up a new trial phone from womworld, the N85 which I am very excited about, it has built in wi-fi and an OLED screen!