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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. | ||
Monday, October 08, 2007
My New Phone, The Kyocera M1000 Lingo The Kyocera M1000 Lingo was my unplanned replacement for my old Nokia 6265i. I loved that phone, loved it and lost it.So I decided against the KRZR and another similar Nokia and went back to my old Kyocera ways with the interesting looking Lingo. It was the full keyboard that got me, I use my phone for email quite a bit, and I thought it might really be useful. Is it? Yes, it is. My old phone had a 320x240 display, very nice. This one has 128x128 external, and 160x128 internal, quite a bit less smooth. But I can still use Gmail very well, the font they used in the browser is actually very nice.  For anyone looking at this phone, that's the real selling point. The keyboard. And it is very easy to use even with my fat fingers. It makes all the difference when you just need to get an email out and you're not home and not in the mood for a predictive-text nightmare trying to use correct punctuation.So I got what I wanted out of the phone, and all the normal things work as expected. It has good volume, people can hear me, and the convenience features are all there. I am happy with it. As for the bad points, there are a few, so before you decide to get one, here they are: 1) No removable storage. 2) Ugly. It really is. 3) External screen stays on when the lid is open. 4) Battery life is not stellar. 5) No Mobile Phone Tools (yet) to customize themes or tones. 6) Screen resolution is average. 7) No video recording. I knew all the bad points before buying, and I am still happy I did. The back side of the phone is actually very nice looking, so I always leave it face down. I look forward to the Mobile Phone Tools for it, and I'll buy an extra battery at some point. Anyway, I haven't been buying many gadgets in general lately, so I thought I'd share this one. I am really very happy with the phone, I think it's a revision or two away from being a really great phone, and I'd get another one today if it had better screens, better battery life, and better aesthetics. | ||
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