« Home
Not announcements - real, available gadgets and gizmos. If you read about it here, you can buy it. Probably.
|
Compare Prices on Gadgets at Spot Cost |
Site SearchPrevious Posts
» Intriguing 8GB Insignia Pilot Bluetooth Player - $100
| |
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Samsung Messager vs. Kyocera Lingo -- No Contest Well, I'm stuck with it, and yeah it looks better than the Lingo, but how is the Messager in daily use?First I'll cover the nice stuff. The Messager has a nice interface and a nice chassis. It is better looking all around. And it was easy to add my own ringtones either via HTTP or vie MMS message. So far so good. Call quality? Very nice. The reason I picked it up in the first place was that my Lingo was dropping calls, probably because of repeated drops over time. The Messager is a tri-band phone that will supposedly be able to take advantage of a larger call area. Nice.  Unfortunately, the fun ended there. In literally every other way I use the phone, my cheaper, uglier, chintzier Kyocera Lingo blows the Messager away-1) The Keyboard: The Lingo's keyboard is simply better laid out, and faster to type with in both SMS and email. The selector buttons are at the bottom of the keyboard instead of lined up with the screen, the arrow buttons are way down in the bottom right where it's tougher to access by touch, and the shift and function keys work like a shift-lock, requiring repeated presses before and after punctuation. Parens are at least 3 screens of menus away, the comma requires the function key, and instead of centering the keyboard it skews left as you go down. Also, no Enter key that I can find for typing emails. The Lingo keyboard, while cheap looking and squeaky, is separated into halves and is just easier to use in every situation. 2) The Apps and Internet: The Messager can't use the Internet or Java apps without sliding the keyboard open. What? Why? I could check Gmail on my Lingo in the regular phone position, yes, while driving. And now even if I can eventually get the Java Gmail working, I have to slide out the keyboard to use it. Stupid. 3. Browser: I've set it a number of times, and nothing I do can keep the service provide home page from launching every time I start up the browser. OK fine. At least it'll open the last page I had open, like the Lingo? Nope. So the browser startup, before I can interact with it, takes probably a minute longer than the Lingo did. The Lingo immediately showed whatever I last had open. From there I can at least request what I need, instead of waiting for something I definitely don't. So since I can't return my Samsung Messager, I am going to hang my hat on what it does have. Good call quality, a MicroSD slot, and a nice-looing (not working) interface. Oh, and I can set ringtones for each caller, which I will do. Gotta make myself not feel like an idiot, but I do miss my crappy looking little gold Kyocera Lingo. Maybe they'll make a sequel and this Messager will break. Labels: keyboard, lingo, messager, phones
» At 12:41 AM,
I have yet to decide how I like this phone--I'm stuck with it and mostly happy, I suppose--but the lack of any way to start a new line of text is a crucial error that I can only hope Samsung will correct in a firmware update. | ||
| © Gadgetize.com All Rights Reserved. Besides, there's nada to copy. | ||
Gadget Saving
» Froogle - Shopping Search
|
Tags / Labels |
|
Gadgetize: Samsung Messager vs. Kyocera Lingo -- No Contest
