PhoneScoop: LG Chocolate Touch

[0]This is the new LG Chocolate Touch available from Verizon Wireless. Its a, obviously a touch device based on music experience. Chocolate line has always been about providing a good music experience. Has a reasonably good sized display here and on the front we have just three buttons, send and end key and a back key On the left side of the device we have got a microUSB port, volume toggle which feels pretty good, and we have got a voice application key here which also feels pretty good, nothing along the bottom, and on the right side we have got a dedicated camera key here, we have a dedicated music key here, and then we have the lock and unlock key. And on the top of course we have a nice 3.5mm headset jack and on the back you will see the camera. Its really interesting, the design on this camera, the design on the back of this phone. Its actually [1]a mirrored surface, you can see there, with some soft touch patches that gives it a nice grip so its not going to slip out of your hand. As far as the user interface is concerned, lets jump back out to the main screen this is very similar to the user interface we see on other LG touchphones so we have the basic dock on the bottom and you can jump around to the main menu There is the main menu and we have got access to other media shortcuts and things like that. This is customizable, users can add their own stuff here, make it more their own, and of course we have the music button which launches music services, so you can play, you can shop, you can sync, and also there is an FM radio and so there it is, the LG chocolate touch for Verizon Wireless.

Channel: phonescoop

PhoneScoop: Casio Brigade

[0]This is the new Casio G'zOne Brigade. A fully ruggedized phone that has push to talk capabilities. for the Verizon network. Quite frankly, its built like a tank. I mean its huge, its solid, it feels like you could throw it against a brick wall and it would keep on working with no problems. We have got a, you know, small little window out here to provide basic access to some features as well as to see status indicators, messaging and icons and things like that We have got a regular numeric keypad here which feels pretty good The numbers are little bit light on the travel and feedback but the keys are easy enough to find On the left side you can see a number of different buttons here, we have got a dedicated push to talk button, volume toggle, dedicated music key, and a headset jack cover there. Nothing along the right [1]side of the device or the top. On the back however you can see a camera actually with a camera flash and its a opens up sideways to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard as D-pad there on the right, function keys here. This keyboard actually feels excellent. Good travel and feedback on the keys. They have a nice shape to them. They are very easy to find and tell apart from one another. So keypad works great and of course theres a really nice big display so that you can interact with the phone So thats a quick look at the Casio Brigade to be available later this year from Verizon wireless.


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PhoneScoop: Samsung Intrepid

[0]Hey everybody phonescoop here. Today we are going to take a quick spin around the Sprint Intrepid, a new Windows Mobile 6.5 phone from Samsung. And as you can see, we havent unboxed it yet. We thought we'd we thought we'd do the unboxing for you on video. So lets take a look at whats in the box here. For the Intrepid. We'll open it up. And we can see that Samsung has put this kind of loosely here. We have got the phone and underneath we have got lots of goodies here. Looks like we have got a pair of stereo headphones, we have got a data cable, we have got a power cable, and we have got the user guide. So thats what comes in the box of the Samsung Intrepid, Windows Mobile 6.5 Smartphone for Sprint. Lets take a look at the phone itself. Now that we have taken a quick look at whats inside the box, lets take a spin [1]around the Samsung Intrepid itself. You can see its a monoblock QWERTY phone. You have got a full keyboard along the bottom, which I have to say feels pretty good. We have got nice travel and feedback to the keys. They have got a little bit of a rough surface to them, so your fingers are not going to slip all over the place while you are typing Lest you think this is not a touch phone, it actually is. The Samsung Intrepid has a touch screen here, which allows it to interact with the user interface. With either the thumb pad here or with the screen itself which is a nice inclusion for this type of form factor. Lets zoom in a little bit closer inclusion for this type of form factor. Lets zoom in a little bit closer so you can get a little bit of a better sense of the keyboard. You can see some of the contours there and textures. Now we have got a full array of buttons here. We have got our two soft keys, our send and end keys, we have got an OK key. A start menu key, we have got a D-Pad here and [2]a selector switch. On the left side of the phone, we have got a volume toggle here which feels good. It has good travel and feedback. We have got a hatch covering the microUSB port, which is something I am very happy to see on a Samsung phone. Nothing along the bottom. On the right we have got a a whole bunch of things going on. We have got a stylus packed away here in the bottom of the phone, we have got a dedicated camera key here. There is the hard reset button. And we have got a power key here. On the back of the phone you can see we have got a vanity mirror and a 3.2MP camera However there is no flash, this is a speaker for the ringer and such here. On the back. No flash on this camera. And on the top you can see tucked away under here, we have a full 3.5mm headset jack. So thats again, something very nice to see on a Samsung phone. We have got a separate jack for [3]audio and separate jack for data and charging which is something they usually combine into their own proprietary port. So. In sum the hardware feels pretty good. I have to say, its a comfortable phone to hold and I like the way the buttons feel. It feels very well designed and put together. One other thing I will show you on the back of the phone. Here is the slot for the microSD memory card and of course here is a SIM card slot. The SIM card of course will allow this phone to roam on to GSM networks over in Europe. So world phone from Samsung, now lets take a little bit of a look at the Windows Mobile 6.5 on this device. So here is the lock screen on Windows Mobile 6.5. We take this and slide it to the left or right to unlock the home screen. What you can see here is that we use the D-pad we can scroll through all of the things that are on the [4]Windows Mobile 6.5 home screen with the D-pad. And of course we could do the same thing with our thumb here and just scroll through this way. Go to the main menu. We touch up there and we have the phone menu that is available You can see it appear similar to the menu on other Windows Mobile 6.5 phones we looked at. This main menu here is somewhat finger friendly. The icons are definitely big enough to push with your finger. Being a Sprint phone, it is loaded with some Sprint software. We have got their NASCAR application there. You can see a software store here. Another Sprint program here, their navigation application. Sprint music store, all sorts of stuff here We have got the TellMe voice search here in the applications. We have got NFL application, shortcut to Google, the camera, and of course all sorts of different services from sprint. We have got a nice [5]weather service from MSN, the file explorer. Lets take a look in there. You can see here that once you dive down into a submenu this deep into the operating system, it becomes less finger friendly. You can see that it is a little bit smaller, a little bit harder to select some of the stuff with your thumb or finger. Of course thats why they included the stylus. Its a stark admission from Microsoft and Samsung that the phone is not quite finger ready yet. But, you know, its not a bad operating system. It is much more usable than Windows Mobile 6.1 was. We will leave it at that. Its a Windows Mobile 6.5 phone I happen to like this hardware better than some of the other hardware we have seen on Windows Mobile 6.5 phones so far. Its relatively compact, has a very good control, and keys, and of course its available on the Sprint network so you know you have got [6]EVDO 3G data and the ability to roam on GSM networks when traveling overseas as an added bonus. So there you go, the Samsung Intrepid Windows Mobile 6.5 phone for Sprint.


Channel: phonescoop

PhoneScoop: Blackberry Storm 2

[0]Hello ladies and gentleman, phonescoop here. What you are taking a look at there is an unopened BlackBerry Storm 2. What we are going to do is unbox it for you and then we will take a quick look at the Storm 2's features and we will also compare it to the original storm. So without further ado, lets dig in. We have got a plain black box here. Not much going on, probably not a final retail box. In fact I am sure its just a sample that they've sent to people in the press such as myself. We will open it up. And we can see the Storm 2 is in there. Not very securely fastened. Resting there. We have got a little cardboard piece here. And we have got a charger in this box. We have got a USB cable, and we have got stereo headphones. So not bad, you know, definitely [1]have seen more accessories come in a box. There is not even a user manual in here. So this is definitely not a final consumer box. So not a whole lot going on with that. So since there is not a lot of interesting things in the box, lets take a look at the phone itself. There it is, the Storm 2 from Research in Motion. Lets dive in and see what its all about. At first glance, the Storm 2 looks almost identical to the original Storm. Almost nearly as same in shape, layout, configuration, size and weight. We have got, you know, similarly placed buttons in hardware, and basically you can see for yourself, the similarities are pretty stark. But concentrating on the Storm 2, you can see that the entire front panel is now one large button. There is no [2]separation here between the buttons along the bottom. These are four distinct keys on the face of the glass. The capacitive screen there. Taking a look at the rest of the phone you can see on the left here we have got just a application key. This key is actually a little bit mushy but it has a rubber top to it. So its easily found with your thumb. We have the microUSB port there. Nothing along the bottom. On the right we have got several different keys Got a user definable application key here. You can use this to launch the camera, to launch the email program pretty much whatever you want. And we have got a volume toggle here This also feels a little bit mushy but again its coated in rubber and is easy to find with your thumb. On the back, you can see we have the 3.2MP camera as well as a flash to help [3]make for better picture taking. And a little bit difficult to see in the top, but to sort of switch things around. Looks like the power key is here now. Before it was on the front face of the phone. My guess is this doubles as a power and lock key and we have got the ever present silent switch to turn off the ringer. When you have got an incoming call. And as with the original we will peel this back, and you can see we have got a SIM card here for use in GSM networks overseas and the slot for the microSD card goes there. So this is pretty similar to the original in most respects. With just some subtle changes. And of course, you will notice the different accents. You got silver on the original and black on the new one. And you know, like, the buttons here are silver and the buttons here are black, but otherwise you know for all intents and purposes it looks almost identical. Oh and of course I forgot to mention [4]the 3.5mm headset jack on the top right of the phone for your stereo headset listening pleasure. So now that we have taken a quick scan at the hardware, lets dive in and see if RIM made any changes to the software on the Storm 2. So after playing with the Storm 2 for just a few moments off camera, I can say immediately and without any doubt that it is a far superior product to the original Storm that was released back in November of 2008. Perhaps the most noticeable and biggest improvement is just the regular performance of the device how it reacts. You can see instantaneous reaction to my finger as I move across it and make selections and try to interact with the phone. We have also got some nice animations, for you know, opening applications. And you can just see it, it is just blazing fast Responds really well to my thumb and the way I touch. [5]Now of course this screen still is a sheer press screen. There are four actuators under this screen compared to the single actuator that was under the screen on the original Storm And that makes it more responsive to presses and better able to localize where you are exactly pressing on the screen itself. So for example, we will type a message, we will type a new message to myself here. And you can see, as I brought this up, that it is the shared press style QWERTY keyboard. You know, we have already send two messages here. I am going to just quickly type up another one. And you can see how well the Storm responds to typing compared to the original. So, there it figured out phonescoop pretty well. There I got it right. You know, I typed, this is a [6]much better phone than the original. And of course, if you want to interact with the full QWERTY, you can just turn sideways, and it works just the same. And hitting the return key will send off the email. You know, you can type this way too So this is how you will type in landscape mode. So, yeah, OK, so I made one mistake but otherwise not bad at all. We have got smileys here that we can dump in there. We can put in anything we want, and off it goes. The typing experience, I cant stress enough, is vastly, vastly improved. Compared to the original Storm. The screen itself doesnt need to travel as far for each successive click, and because of that your thumbs get less tired when typing And of course you could see how quickly it reacts to be [7]turned on its side, and it reacts almost instantly. With the other Storm, the original Storm you sometimes had to wait up to 5 seconds for the thing to react. You know, we got the same access to all the media here. Media player looks about the same, you got songs, you have got videos, looks like they loaded some trailers in there. Back out to the main screen we will jump into the main menu. We have got all typical controls and Verizon applications here. They have preloaded Slacker it looks like and VCast Rhapsody, VCast Song ID, My Verizon which is an account controlling program. Its own mapping program, thats not Google Maps there. They have got VZ Navigator here of course. Instant messaging, all here, you have got Windows, Yahoo, Google, AIM and Blackberry messenger. And of course you have got the camera. Downloads is where anything you grab from the BlackBerry apps will go. You can see some preloaded applications. Of course these are productivity based applications [8]Word To Go, Sheet To Go, Slide To Go, so you can interact with Word documents and you know, its got some games on there and thats it. Its much much better device. There is no other way to say it. Its easy to use. It reacts as it is supposed to. And it feels better designed, more well thought out, and more refined when compared to the original Storm. So the Storm 2, available from Verizon wireless, packing 3G, GSM for roaming on European networks, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, and a much better operating system. Storm 2, Verizon wireless, there it is folks.


Channel: phonescoop

PhoneScoop: Motorola Droid

[0]Hey everybody, PhoneScoop here, taking a look at the new Motorola Droid. The first Android phone for the Verizon wireless network. We are going to unbox it for you here, and take you through the device so you can get an idea for what its like. Pull the lid off and you can see the device is already falling out on the floor. Here it is right here Very simple styling here, we got black on black. We got soft touch surfaces, metal surfaces, plastic surfaces, feels very good. And what else is in the box. We have got just a charger and a data cable and thats it. Charger and data cable. No other extra accessories are in the box. So thats kind of, kind of annoying but thats what it is I guess. So here it is, lets peel of the stickers and take a look. So you can see the Droid is a very large screen. 3.7" high resolution 854 [1]pixels by 480, pretty impressive. And you have got four touch capacitive buttons here. that provide haptic feedback when you press them. Then this little ledge here which is actually reserved for the RF radios and antennas and such. On the left side we got a microUSB port. Nothing along the bottom. On the right we got a dedicated camera key. A volume toggle. And on the top you will see a 3.5mm headset port. As well as the power and lock key. On the back we will zoom in a little bit here 5MP camera which has image stabilization, autofocus and flash. And can shoot DVD quality video which not many phones can claim to do. Of course its a slider and we have got a full QWERTY keyboard here. The keyboard feels OK. Its a little on the flat side and the keys dont have very good definition I would prefer there to be more definition on this keyboard and its also, you know, a straight up and down keyboard. Its not offset, offset keyboards are a little bit easier to use. We spoke [2]to Motorola's engineers and they said it was a space issue because they wanted to be able to include the navigation pad and that prohibited them from using an offset keyboard. But still it works OK. Travel and feedback is not bad. So lets turn the phone on and give you a look at the user interface. So now we have had a chance to fire up the phone and lets hit the lock key. Here is the basic lock screen and you can see, you can go either way with this little dial pad. You can put it to the right unlock or the left to silence it if you get an incoming call for example, and dialing it over here brings up the basic home screen. Now because this is a Android with Google phone it runs the basic configuration of Android. So you have got one home screen here and one to the right and one to the left. And there are no additional screens, you know, the Motorola CLIQ for example has five home screens. So these buttons here are [3]capacitive buttons and they provide haptic feedback. Whats really nice is they require just a slightly different amount of pressure than the screen itself. The screen here is very responsive This is a little bit less responsive and that, it terms of usability, actually it is a better thing. So you wont accidentally push any of these buttons when you mean to just grab the bottom of the phone. So for example, push the menu button there and the menu will pop up there. You can see it if I zoom in a little bit. Get rid of the menu. Of course it has the same home screen, and menu system that any basic Android phone comes with. And whats interesting is that they have done some neat things with the contacts application. The contacts application which is part of Android 2.0 supports a lot of Facebook APIs so you can integrate your Facebook applications with the phone's applications and merge contacts on the device itself. Since we dont have [4]any data loaded on this particular device we cant show you that. Its hard to show you just how amazing the screen is. The screen is simply phenomenal Google maps application, which offers turn by turn navigation and direction guidance which is a really neat thing to have on this device. We have also got car home, which is a user interface specific for cars. And actually they will be offering a dock for this device that will go into your car. And you know, this is a good user interface to use in a car because its very easy to tell what you are doing with your fingers and you can just very simply push any of these buttons and get what you need. And of course you can just go home quite simply if you tap the button there. The camera offers improved features. You can see launch time was much faster there and you can see the user interface is definitely different [5]You got a nice little switch that will take it from camera mode to video mode and back There is the keys, we are going to settings here. And you see, brand new user interface. Its a half screen, set a full screen, and they got a lot of different settings to adjust here Flash, scene, white balance, color effect and so on. So nice that the camera software has been updated So that is a quick take on the Motorola Droid. PhoneScoop will be offering a more in depth report in the coming days. So Motorola Droid for the Verizon wireless network. Verizon's first Android phone, and there it is.


Channel: phonescoop

PhoneScoop: Palm Pre Contacts

[0]Here is a quick demonstration on how the contacts application works on the Palm Pre. Contacts are found here. Pressing the button will oepn up your main contact list which you can see here Facebook pictures are automatically integrated into the contacts application. We will do a search for Rich Brome from Phonescoop. And you could see all the Richs pop up here. You can see Rich's picture pop up there. Scrolling through it works just as it does on the iPhone and lets see if we can find something thats worth opening up Lets do Amtrak. So Amtrak is here. We will open up the contact and you can see a little bit of what the contact looks like. We can link it to more profiles. Amtrak happens to be in my GMail account. If Amtrak were a buddy of mine on Facebook [1]I could link that profile here so you could see the Facebook data in the application as well. And editing is easy as pushing a button. And adding information. So you are done. You save it, you can also go in here to perform edits. Set them as a speed dial add them to the launcher, which means basically shortcut, and basic controls for the contact application. We will close out of that. Close out of Amtrak, go back to the main view. And you can see thats the contacts application on the Palm Pre.

Channel: phonescoop

PhoneScoop: Palm Pre Email and SMS

[0]Here is a video about email and messaging on the Palm Pre. Email is located right here on the home screen. You press it and any email accounts that you have assigned to the device will show up. Go into the inbox. You will see a list of all your emails here. Lets say we want to read one. Push the button, excuse me, press the screen. The Pre does show full HTML emails which look nice. If you need to zoom in to see something you just double tap and it will do that. If you want to respond, reply to all, forward, trash it those or all, all the easy things to do. Swiping back here will take you back to the main menu. One To write a new email press here, it will show a new email screen. You can type in an email address here, subject here, body of the text there. If you want to add an attachment just press the paper clip there. You can add pictures, you can add videos, you can add [1]music and/or ringtones, and you can add documents. Emails there. Quite easy to do. Press it and it will automatically attach itself to the email. You can see there it is. If I had put in an address, I'd hit the little airplane and it would be on its merry way. So thats email. We'll take a quick look at messaging. Messaging is, lumps everything into conversations. So you can see its threaded messaging. I have had a conversation with Rich, and you can see it again, it incorporates this Facebook picture and we can scroll up and down here. If you want to enter text or just enter it there. Send it. It will send. Rich just got a nice nonsensical message from me. And if you wanted to do something like add a picture you could do that quite easily here. So that is the [2]SMS tool. That is messaging on the Palm Pre.


Channel: phonescoop