LG Shine
| |
The Shine is a lovely phone. It’s smart and stylish, it feels as durable as a rock and is packed full of features. Did I mention it looks great? The stainless steel finish and reflective screen is just gorgeous and I love it, even though I’m not a personal fan of slider phones.
Too bad then that the keypad and buttons weren’t implemented well. It’s a huge disappointment because it detracts from the experience. The jog dial ignores fast movement, while its flanking keys are difficult to press. The number pad buttons aren’t well separated making it easy to mash surrounding keys at a time.
The lack of a memory card slot is also unfortunate, but 512 megabytes is still a huge amount of space whichever way you look at it. Add the two megapixel auto-focus camera, the precise 2.2 inch QVGA screen, the fast HSDPA download support and music streaming capable Bluetooth and you can’t argue that the Shine is very well equipped for a phone that has its focus on design.
Samsung SGH-A701
|  |
One of the first handsets to support Telstra's new Next-G HSDPA network, the Samsung A701 is an impressive device. Highlights of the A701 are the 2mpx digital camera, 24MB of internal memory and microSD card support, large 2.3" LCD display, and Bluetooth with A2DP profile support.
Compatible with the 850MHz HSDPA network, the A701 offers amazing call quality (thanks to the larger amount of bandwidth available), and is capable of data speeds up to 1.8Mbps. The handset is also capable of making and receiving video calls with the dedicated forward-facing VGA camera.
The large 2.3" LCD display has a 240 x 320 pixel resolution, and can display up to 262,144 colours. Because of the clam shell form factor there's an additional 65k colour display on the front of the handset, at 96 x 96 pixels.
One of the only drawbacks of the A701 is the lack of microSD memory card in the sales package. Many users will find that 24MB just isn't enough, especially when downloading music files, videos, and other large files via the HSDPA network.
Sony Ericsson K800i
|  |
The Sony Ericsson K800i is an amazing handset - there's really no two ways about it! The first Cyber-Shot camera-phone from Sony Ericsson, the K800i has a 3.2mpx digital camera, large QVGA display, Memory Stick Micro (M2) memory card support, tri-band 2G GSM and UTMS 3G connectivity and a host of other features.
Also, the K800i has definite eye-candy factor. The black case looks stunning and from the back it looks like a real digital camera... wait, it almost is! The quality of this camera has really got to be seen to be believed.
The K800i is on the larger side for a handset (in both size and weight), but over time you really get used to the size. The only other issues I had with the handset was that the UI was a little on the slow side in some areas and that the keypad material which was a little too soft/rubbery for my liking.
Nokia 6300
|  |
The Nokia 6300 has a high-end 16.7 million colour TFT LCD, 2mpx digital camera, fast Series 40 user interface, microSD memory card support, and Bluetooth and USB connectivity. All this and more is enclosed in an attractive stainless steel case.
I recently reviewed the 6300 and absolutely loved it. Although it is a mid-range handset, it has several features that set it out from the crowd – the major one being the 16.7 million colour TFT LCD @ 240 x 320 pixels. The 6300 is only handset in our top 5 phones that does have a display of this quality!
The Series 40 user interface definitely deserves a mention, as it is fast, responsive, and not to mention easy to use. Additional features include an FM stereo radio, tri-band GSM network compatibility, and SMS/EMS, MMS, and e-mail messaging.
At just over the $400 price tag, the Nokia 6300 is an affordable handset with top-notch functionality.