The Buyer's Guide to Smartphones.pdf

The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones an Personal Technology eBook contents] [ The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones This content was adapted from Internet.com's SmartPhoneToday Web site and MediaBistro's Mobile Devices Today Web site. Contributors: Michael Gartenberg, Gerry Blackwell, Troy Dreier, Joe Moran, Amy Mayer. 3 6 3 T-Mobile G1 with Google: A Work in Progress Michael Gartenberg Palm Treo Pro: One for Your Short List Michael Gartenberg 8 6 8 Apple iPhone 3G: What's Not to Like? Gerry Blackwell 10 14 Nokia E71: A Thin Communicator Troy Dreier Samsung Instinct: Well Designed and Powerful Joe Moran 10 14 17 20 BlackBerry Curve 8330: Who Needs Anything Else? Gerry Blackwell Verizon XV6900: Small, Svelte & Sweet Amy Mayer 17 20 The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp. 1 [ The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones ] The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones T he year 2008 made more than its share of headlines, good and bad, and lost in the shuffle was the big year for fans of mobile devices. The smartphone market took off in 2008, with a new 3G iPhone, a Google-powered offering from T-Mobile, and a host of new BlackBerry models. Touchscreens were everywhere, video and audio are standard, and you don't have to be an important executive to check e-mail from your phone. Take a look at some of the dozens of devices Internet.com's editors tested in the past year before you buy. …we created this guide for Internet.com members researching mobile devices that keep them in touch wherever they go. “ ” 2 The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp. [ The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones ] T-Mobile G1 with Google: A Work in Progress By Michael Gartenberg B uilt on an open mobile platform and with the backing of Google, T-Mobile's Android-powered G1 was one of the most anticipated phones coming to market this year. Almost as important as the software and the phone itself is the relationship with Google. search bar. There's no way to add or delete pages (as there is with the iPhone) and wallpaper spans each of the pages as if they were a large virtual desktop. You can also create "folders" on screen to better to organize things (but there's no way to re-arrange things once they're inside a folder). The top of the screen is a status bar that can slide down to show you notifications and download status. Overall, I had no problems navigating the device although the UI itself feels less than 100 percent polished. One thing I noticed is that the screen brightness is turned pretty far down. The reason I suspect is battery life. 3G phones are notorious for draining batteries fast and the G1 is no exception. To get the best battery life, (as with the iPhone 3G) you're going to want to keep 3G off when you don't need it and keep that screen turned down. Despite the fact that the device is "open" there's no way at the moment to access the file system and easily add or change things like ringtones. Connecting the device to a PC via USB simply mounts the micro-SD card. Adding things like system ringtones is more than a little bit of a challenge (any MP3 file can be easily made a ringtone, but I don't want my ringtones showing up in my music player. There's a third-party app that lets you get around this but it's not too intuitive). The "with Google" branding isn't just marketing. If you're not a Google customer, forget about using this device. Period. The first thing you need to do is enter your Google account information or sign up for a new one. No Google, no G1 for you. I had no problem signing in and setting up my account. I'll talk about the individual applications later. The G1 is available in black and bronze, and features a nice soft matte finish. The form factor is nice and it feels good in the hand, but it is a little thick when compared with devices like the iPhone, mostly due to the sliding screen that reveals a nice keyboard underneath. The sliding screen reminds me a lot of the Sidekick (and no surprise, Andy Rubin who created the Sidekick is also one of Android's parents). The touch screen is excellent, with a nice response and the text looks sharp and clear. Buttons are easy to press and the UI was easy to navigate. At the bottom of the screen, there's a sliding panel that opens up to reveal installed applications. The screen itself slides, and is broken down into three pages, with the home screen in the middle and "pages" to the left and right. Each page can be customized with your choice of shortcuts to apps and some widgets like a clock or Google 3 Web/E-Mail/IM Web access and e-mail are both critical drivers for con- The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp. [ The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones ] sumer adoption of high-end devices, and the G1 is going to live and die by how well these features work. The good news is they work well, with some limitations. The browser is webkit based (much like Safari on the iPhone, and in fact, renders most iPhone sites well) and it works great over 3G and Wi-Fi. There are settings to keep things formatted for the small screen and onscreen controls for panning and zooming. In short, it's a great mobile Web experience with one issue. There's no way to get any current bookmarks you may have synced over to the device. This is a glaring omission and needs to be fixed ASAP. The G1 comes with Google, so there are actually two different e-mail clients. One is a standard IMAP/POP app called Email and there's a dedicated Gmail application as well. The Gmail reader syncs directly to your Gmail account and works pretty much like Google's other Gmail clients for devices. Mail is threaded and you can specify which labels you want to sync over the device. Attachments are limited, and while you can "preview" certain file types such as Word documents, PDFs, and Excel spreadsheets, there's no way to download or edit them. That's a huge omission in this day and age. Worse, you can only view attachments in the Gmail app. The Email app will show the file attachments but not let you do much with them. There's also no easy way to cut and paste from within either e-mail app, although certain data types, like phone numbers can be clicked on and copied or dialed. At the moment, there's zero support for Microsoft Exchange sync, so the best you can do is hope your Exchange server is configured to allow IMAP access. My other complaint is that there's no easy way to delete e-mails in list view, something that plagues the first-generation iPhone software. It's too much of pain to tap and hold to delete a large group of mail and I'm amazed that the delete key doesn't delete mail in list view with the keyboard open. (On Google's other Gmail clients the 7 key or "d" key delete mail in list view.) The IM client supports all the usual suspects including AIM and, of course, Google Talk. I had no problems accessing and seeing everyone on my contact lists. I'm glad to see T-Mobile and Google thought to include broad support. 4 Bottom line? Very nice e-mail/Web and IM support, especially if you're a Gmail user. The lack of Exchange support means this isn't a business-class device just yet. The Web browsing experience is great but really needs to sync bookmarks and allow for better organization of them. Personal Information Management One of the biggest advantages of high-end phones is their ability to replace the dedicated PDA (which replaced the day-timer) for keeping track of calendars, contacts, and to-do lists. The G1 has an integrated calendar and contacts, but no to-do app at all (there's at least one free basic one in the app store). The biggest problem is that there's no desktop sync and that's a huge issue. Yes, if you use Google services to manage your calendar and contacts, they will automatically sync to the G1. If you don't use Google, then you're out of luck. Yes, Google does offer some ways to sync Outlook and iCal with the cloud, but that's a pain and in my tests it's often not reliable (especially if you're using Exchange for calendaring). Worse, there's no way to sync desktop contacts at all, they need to be exported and imported online and there's no method for keeping them in sync. While I had no problem (as most of my stuff is stored with Google at the moment) this dependency is going to turn off a lot of folks. Even Danger, which pioneered network sync, realized early on that they needed a desktop sync tool to allow users to get their stuff online. Bottom Line? Functionality is there and all the standard stuff you'd want in calendar and contact apps are present. The biggest issue is sync. If you're not using Google for calendar and contacts, you're going to have to jump through some hoops to make the G1 work well for you. Media and Entertainment After you get beyond the core Internet and productivity functions, consumers are buying devices like G1 for media and entertainment. The iPhone was originally billed as "the best iPod ever made." So how does the G1 stand up? The answer is so-so. The good news is there's dedicated YouTube support via a nice app and Web links to YouTube videos can be The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp. [ The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones ] directed to open the player. The bad news is the video support is limited beyond that. There's a video player in the app store you can add for rudimentary MP4 playback but that's about it. Music doesn't fare much better. The music app does the basics and the basics only (you can't even sort based on genre). Once again, sync to the desktop is an issue. Yes, you can mount your SD card on PC and Mac and manually copy music over, but if you have any reasonably sized music collection that gets old fast. Much as RIM has done, the G1 needs a media sync tool to get content and playlists directly from iTunes and Windows Media player. There's also no dedicated 3.5mm headphone jack, just HTCs media-enabled USB port. Yes, you can get an adapter but one should come in the box (actually it should just have the 3.5mm jack directly on the device). There's a dedicated app for purchasing music directly from Amazon, which is a nice alternative to the iTunes store. Tracks are MP3 formatted, and the purchase process is easy. Like Apple's store, tracks can only be downloaded over Wi-Fi. The G1 could also be a nice game device, although content selection was sparse. Pac-Man is available as a free download and works rather well with the device trackball. It shows what can be done on this device if developers get on board. Bottom Line? I'd be hard pressed to recommend the G1 as an iPod replacement. If you're looking at the G1, be prepared to keep an iPod handy. In fact, the G1 and an iPod Touch make a good combination of the best of both mobile platforms. the market because it just wasn't a good enough phone. The good news is the G1 works great as a phone. Reception is fine and the quality over both GSM and 3G networks is great. Unlike the Sidekick, there's no need to flip the phone open to dial thanks to a nice on screen dialer and good integration to the contact app (assuming you can get your contacts on the device). Text messaging worked well and the threaded app kept conversations easy and neat. Bottom Line? The G1 works fine as a phone. It's a little bulky for a voice device, but I had no problems making and receiving calls and text messages. Final Thoughts The G1 is a groundbreaking device, but it's clearly a V1 unit that still needs some polish. Buying into the G1 isn't necessarily about what the device can do today, but rather what's coming tomorrow. As an open platform, we're likely to see a strong embrace by developers interested in unlocking the full potential of the device and addressing the nagging issues, such as lack of proper desktop sync or the ability to work with Office attachments. At $179, with T-Mobile's relatively cheap plans for voice and data, the G1 makes sense as a purchase even for non-early adopters, as long as they are either using or plan to use Google's services. Others might wish to hold off a bit and see how the platform evolves with third-party support and what other Android offerings come to market from other handset vendors. I Phone Quality The hallmark of a phone is, well, how good it works as a phone. Many a high-end device has failed totally in 5 The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp. [ The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones ] Palm Treo Pro: One for Your Short List By Michael Gartenberg hen I looked at the very first Treo back in December of 2001, I said "Treo merges the best of three worlds," and said it was "a near ideal mobile information device that truly delivers on the concept of ubiquitous computing." Back then I pointed out how the Treo merged a 16MB Palm OS-based organizer with a GSM cell phone in "a package only slightly larger than a Motorola StarTac phone." The idea was that with a Blackberry-style keypad and "always on" e-mail, the Treo could replace the hassle of carrying a Blackberry, a cell phone, and Palm organizer with one device that offers the best features of all three. The original device was a breakthrough, and Palm went on to create the 600 and 700 series that brought further enhancements to the line. But lately smaller, thinner and just overall better-looking devices eclipsed the form factor that once looked so sleek and innovative. So while the Treo has supported 3G networks for some time and new revisions of Windows Mobile, it just wasn't aging well. Last week, Palm introduced the new Treo Pro and after carrying it around for a week, it feels like Palm has taken a huge evolutionary step forward. While the device itself isn't as revolutionary as the Treo I tested all those years ago, it offers new elegance and functionality in an excellent form factor. The phone has been greatly slimmed down and feels great in the hand with a glossy black finish that is nice 6 W to look at but smudges easily. It's not quite as thin as the iPhone but easily goes into a shirt pocket or anywhere else you might want to carry a phone. Palm's out-of-box experience is a leap forward and, dare I say, on par with that of Apple's (no surprise since Apple hardware alum Jon Rubinstein is now at Palm). The device has a battery installed; package layers reveal documents in an order that make sense. Palm even skipped the CD. Plug in the Treo Pro for the first time and it will ask you if you want to install ActiveSync or just get to work if it's already there. The packaging is also nice and eco friendly. The Treo Pro runs Windows Mobile Pro 6.1. Palm has tweaked the usability of the device making it much easier to use and one of the best implementations of Windows Mobile I have ever used. Dedicated application keys, one touch access to Wi-Fi, and Palm's signature switch to turn volume off all separate the Treo Pro from other devices on the market. The nav ring also glows when there's voicemail and there's a great screen saver showing time and other info. Once again, it's the attention to little details that make the Treo Pro experience work for me. While you might rarely need it, there is a stylus at the bottom, but it's small, doesn't telescope, and isn't comfortable to use for very long. The screen is excellent, is flush with the body of the phone (which gives it a nice look and feel), and works The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp. [ The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones ] well for both indoor and outdoor use. The keyboard is very good, much better than the Centro's, with larger and better-spaced keys. The bottom row is a little too close to the spacebar for me and I kept hitting space when I was aiming for B or N. It's hard to take advantage of the media-centric features in Windows Mobile without a proper 3.5mm headphone jack, something missing on most Windows Mobile devices. Palm thoughtfully included one on the Treo Pro. Likewise, the Treo Pro charges off of USB and the same USB cable plugs directly into the AC adapter. Nice. Call quality was excellent and I had no problems using the Treo Pro on both AT&T and T-Mobile's network (although the Treo Pro only supports 3G on AT&T). Reception was good and on par with other 3G devices I've used such as the Blackberry Bold and HP iPaq 910. One trend on smartphones that I've seen and don't like is the increased loading of apps and services by carri- ers. Many phones are starting to feel like PCs, overloaded with junk apps and trial software that don't add value. Worse, unlike a PC, most pre-installed software can't be removed from phones. Being an unlocked (and therefore not carrier-subsidized) device the Treo Pro is light on pre-installed software. There's a Google Maps along with a trial version of tele-nav (making full use of the GPS and easily removed) along with an offer to install Worldmate (a travel app that I like quite a bit). In short, there's not a lot of junk to clutter or slowdown the device. Bottom line? Palm is back in a big way with the Treo Pro. It's small, sleek, and on par with other high-end Window Mobile devices. If you're in the market for a QWERTY smartphone, the Treo Pro should be on the short list. I 7 The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp. [ The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones ] Apple iPhone 3G: What's Not to Like? By Gerry Blackwell pple's iconic iPhone 3G may be the only mobile device you'll ever need -- heck, the only device, period. (Until Apple comes out with a 4G version, of course.) The new iPhone is available from AT&T for $199 with a two-year voice-data plan ($70 to $130 a month), and from Rogers in Canada for the same price with a threeyear plan ($60 to $115). If you bought the original iPhone last year, the new one offers significant inducements to trade up, especially for enterprise users. Chief among them is broadband-speed Web surfing, downloading, and e-mail on the mobile network -- the new iPhone works on UMTS/HSDPA networks as well as GSM/EDGE, including overseas. If you somehow missed iPhone mania last year, but you're now in the market for an electronic Swiss army knife, this is the deluxe model without a deluxe price. It does everything, and most of it well: voice, e-mail (including push), 3G, and Wi-Fi Web surfing, music, video, 2megapixel still and video photography, GPS navigation. And it features a brilliantly designed touchscreen user interface, the handsdown coolest of any smartphone we've seen. What else is new in the iPhone 3G? Improved sound quality, Apple says. Support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, which means secure 8 A push e-mail, contacts, and calendars for enterprise users. There's also a built-in virtual private network with strong two-factor authentication. And access to scores of new applications written by third-party developers, and available at the wildly popular new Apple AppStore. What's not to like about the new iPhone? In truth, very little, although the non-corporate e-mail experience -- at least in our testing of a Rogers iPhone -- isn't a patch on BlackBerry. The onboard navigation software and GPS is definitely nitpickable. And the absence of a physical keyboard or keypad does present some constraints. Some of these are more than quibbles, but none comes close to being a dealkiller. Let's start with the good, though. The big thing is 3G connectivity. So what does it mean in real life? We tested the iPhone on the Rogers HSDPA network in Canada. A dedicated YouTube application, linked by default from the iPhone home page, was our first testing ground. With a moderately strong connection (three bars of five according to the phone) at off-peak hours, the video was pretty good: motion smooth, audio more or less synched. Images were a little fuzzy but clear enough in most cases to be able to make out what was going on. With The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp. [ The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones ] weaker connections and at peak times, images got fuzzier, but video never hiccupped. YouTube is a good test because the application automatically adjusts video quality according to bandwidth available in order to avoid pauses for rebuffering. When we switched to Wi-Fi connectivity over a home office network with multi-megabit Internet service, video was sharp as a tack -- well, as sharp as it would be on a PC - and smooth as silk. We also tried two online Internet speedometers, one operated by McAfee, the computer security software company, and one operated by DSLreports.com, an online telecom journal. The DSLreports speedometer is designed specifically to measure iPhone 3G performances. (Note: many other online speedometers won't work because they're based on Flash, which is still not available for iPhone, although Adobe says it will be.) Results? In different tests with signal strength, ranging from two to four bars on the phone, and at different times of day and week, we were getting connection speeds from just under 500 Kbps to just under 900 Kbps. That's similar to, or slightly better than, other 3G mobile devices we've tested, and better than some entry-level DSL services. Nothing apparently has changed significantly from the first-gen iPhone Web surfing experience -- other than the speed, that is. The Safari browser worked well in my testing. Double tapping the screen enlarges the image. In most cases, this makes pages with otherwise unreadable small text readable. This is one area where the iPhone (and iPod Touch) touchscreen interface really pays dividends. Scrolling down a long Web page -- or across it if you've enlarged it -- is a simple matter of flicking with your finger up, down, or across the screen. And if you tap the overlapping page icon at the bottom of the Safari screen, which also shows the number of Safari tabs you have open, you get a thumbnail filmstrip of open pages, which you can scroll across using the same flicking motion. 9 Improved Sound Quality? We didn't have a first-generation iPhone to compare, but this one sounds remarkably good, significantly better than the music-playing BlackBerry and Motorola smartphones we've tested recently -- clearer, fuller-bodied, and more realistic. It's similar in quality to an iPod Nano. The included earbuds appear to be standard iPod issue -- i.e., not bad sounding, not great. (We tested sound quality with audiophile headphones.) If you want to jog while listening to tunes on your iPhone, you'll probably have to buy different earbuds -- these ones will fall out unless you have very tiny lugholes. For iPhone users who don't work for a company with a Microsoft Exchange e-mail system, apparently nothing has changed in the e-mail experience. If your company uses Microsoft Exchange, it looks to be fairly simple to set up an Exchange account and receive true push e-mail, which you couldn't do with the first-generation product. We weren't able to test the Exchange functionality, however. In the iPhone's Settings menu, you'll find an option for Fetch New Data, in which you can toggle Push on or off. This allows the phone to support Exchange and other push e-mail services. If Push is set to Off in the Fetch New Data tab, or if the software doesn't support push, the phone uses the schedule you select -- every 15 minutes, every 30 minutes, hourly -- or only retrieves data when you tap the connect button. Only Active Sync mail applications, Apple's Mobile Me, and Yahoo mail work in push mode, according to Apple. But my Rogers POP mail account, which is Yahoo, did not work in push mode. Also, at least with Rogers service, the phone appears to only download headers, at least sometimes. On a few occasions, when we opened a message, the software went back out to the server to get the body, but was unable to get it for some reason. This, we assume, is a Rogers problem and nothing to do with the iPhone mail software. The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp. [ The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones ] The good? Messages look great and are easy to read. Return addresses appear as easy-to-tap buttons in open messages. Setting up the iPhone to receive messages from our POP account was easy. The phone automatically downloaded account information based on e-mail address and password - but then our ISP is, um, Rogers, so that was perhaps no great achievement. And setting up the iPhone to send messages did require a second step: turning on the Rogers SMTP server in the iPhone Account settings, which was not done automatically. We had to contact Rogers to clear up the problem. It's a small thing, but perhaps Apple (or is it Rogers?) should configure the mail settings so that the SMTP server toggle switch is set to on by default, and then give users a warning during set-up that it's on until they turn it off. The bundled Google Maps and routing application works nicely with the built-in GPS. This is not a real-time, turn-by-turn navigation system it's simply a route finder, which is pretty useful on its own. Major navigational software makers such as TomTom and TeleNav have announced full navigational systems for iPhone 3G. We did experience some problems with the routing function. If the software doesn't recognize the street address or place name you've input because you used the wrong format or a variant of a name, it will sometimes find the nearest match and give you directions to the entirely wrong place. We've said little here about the interface or basic functions such as voice and photography, which have apparently changed little or not at all from the first-generation product. The App Store, widely covered in the mainstream media, we'll also pass over, though it's certainly one of the strong inducements to consider iPhone. The number of applications available doesn't rival the number available for Symbian, for example, or Windows Mobile, but iPhone is catching up faster than anyone might have expected. And this is a great, easy-to-use store for buying (or downloading free) applications. The touchscreen interface, also widely covered elsewhere, is obviously a feature that helps put this product into a category by itself. It's simple, elegant, attractive, easy to learn and for the most part works well. The only drawback is the reliance on an onscreen keyboard. Even though the iPhone's virtual keys are larger than the physical keys on a BlackBerry or other keyboard-equipped smartphones, we found it too easy to miss the letter or character we were aiming for. Maybe it just takes more practice. As a phone, the iPhone is excellent. Voice quality, presumably because of superior audio componentry to support the music functions, is the best of any smartphone we've tested recently. And the ability to set up voicemail to automatically appear in e-mail is a very nice feature -- though not unique to iPhone. Bottom line: if you need a smartphone and want one with good music and video playback abilities, this should be near the top of your list of products to explore further. It's not perfect -- no product is -- but it comes closer than most. And it has that Apple design extra, that je ne sais qua that turns the iPhone into something very pleasing. I 10 The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp. [ The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones ] Nokia E71: A Thin Communicator By Troy Dreier T he Nokia E71 is an all-purpose communication phone with perfect junior executive looks: professional enough for the boardroom, sleek enough for the evening. It's thin and solid and elegant, and it feels just right in the hand. Thin phones are nothing new, but the size and shape here feels ideal: it's got enough heft to register as a serious communication tool, but it's skinny enough to slide into a jeans pocket. While we love the external design, we never warmed up to the Symbian OS 9.2, Series 60 3.1 edition inside. Using it was never difficult, but poor organization turned simple jobs into multi-step chores, and hid too many options behind confusing menus. The E71 is a 3G phone that works with the 850/1900MHz bands in the U.S. It works with both AT&T and T-Mobile service, although you'll only get HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) support with AT&T. ings. The phone is also equipped with Bluetooth 2.0 +EDR, with profiles for stereo headsets and file transfer, among others. No U.S. carriers currently offer the E71, so you're going to have to pay a premium if you want it. An unlocked E71 currently sells for $459 online. The E71 makes a good comparison to another popular junior executive phone: The BlackBerry Pearl 8120. But where the Pearl feels a little slight in the hand, the E71 feels solid and substantial. Where the Pearl offers a compact keyboard with two letters on every key, the E71 offers a full QWERTY keyboard. The screen measures 2.4 inches diagonally with a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels. Beneath the screen you'll find a standard configuration of buttons, with two soft keys near the screen, call and end call buttons below them, and a clickable direction pad in the middle. Four appspecific buttons sit on either side of the direction pad, bringing you to the home screen, calendar, contact list, and message center in one tap. The keyboard is quite small, and typing was occasionally a challenge for our large fingers. We were forced to type slowly and focus on hitting the right keys. The number pad shares space on the center keys, which is fine but we wish the numbers were marked in a brighter way to make them easier to see. Its left side holds covered ports for the microSD and We tested the phone in the New York area and found that call quality was high, with no dropped calls, but data service was uneven. While the phone mostly showed 3G access, not 3.5G, we occasionally got GRPS or EGPRS data connections. Page downloads could be as quick as on a cable modem or surprisingly pokey. The phone measures 4.5 x 2.2 x 0.4 inches and weighs 4.4 ounces. The battery is rated for 4.5 hours of talk time or 480 hours of standby. With moderate use, we were able to easily go days between charg11 The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp. [ The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones micro USB ports. The top holds a power button, while the right side holds buttons for volume control and voice recording. This is also where you'll find the 2.5mm headphone port. That's one of the trade-offs of owning a thin phone and it means you can't use headphones or earbuds that have the more common 3.5mm plug. The bottom holds the power port. On the back you'll find the lens for the 3.2 megapixel camera, as well as a flash and a self-portrait mirror. The E71 runs Symbian OS 9.2, Series 60 3.1 edition, and offers the usual organization and communication applications, including messaging (text and e-mail), a Web browser, music and video playback, and a radio (when using the included headphones, which act as an antenna). Office tools include the QuickOffice suite, notes, Adobe PDF, and a unit converter. We liked that the phone can switch between two homepages with the on-screen Switch Mode icon, surfacing tools you'll need at work or at play. We found that the operating system was the phone's biggest hindrance, as it made accomplishing simple tasks a challenge (and sometimes an impossibility). To give one example: setting up and customizing a mailbox took too many steps, and we only had the option of downloading headers automatically, not the entire messages. That means we had to wait 30 seconds every time we clicked on a new e-mail, which was a pain. The e-mail app also doesn't synch your mailbox, so old messages stay there even after you delete them on your computer's mail, an annoyance that the Sidekick also suffers from. Plus, automated e-mail checking stopped working halfway through our testing. We were forced to delete the mailbox and start again. The phone also includes GPS, which works both by receiving info from GPS location data from satellites and by checking for nearby Wi-Fi networks. We found it especially slow to get our position. While you can rely on it for area maps, you'll need to pay extra if you want genuine turn-by-turn directions. That service sets you back $13.96 per month or $125.77 per year. Phone service was always strong in our testing, Nokia N810 Internet Tablet: ] Big on Communications Options W By Troy Dreier hile the value of an Internet Tablet may be lost on you, it's becoming a lot easier to understand its value as Nokia's N810 takes over where the N800 left off. Smaller than a notebook, yet bulkier than a cell phone, the N810 weighs 7.2 ounces and measures 2.8 x 5 x 0.5 inches. That makes it too large for pocket travel yet easy to throw in any bag. The N810 works alongside your phone, since it can connect via Bluetooth. Think of it as a communication tool that picks up where your phone leaves off. Design Not a device for writing long documents or crunching numbers, the N810 is better for e-mailing, video chatting, and messaging. The biggest change with the N810 is the addition of a slide-out keyboard. Give the screen a slight nudge with either thumb and it slides up, revealing a QWERTY keyboard underneath. The keys are larger than you'd find on a smartphone, and we found using them to type instant messages and e-mails perfectly easy. You'll find a clickable direction pad to the left of the keys, as well as a menu button for calling up the pulldown menu in any application. continued 12 The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp. [ The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones ] although we found the data transfer rate to be unreliable. We liked that the text-to-speech service, which can read aloud messages and more, could also read aloud the names of callers as long as they're in the phone's address book. The voice is robotic, and it's fun and creepy to hear it announce callers. If you're taken by the camera's boast of a 3.2 megapixel lens, think again. The megapixel race isn't doing consumers any good, as manufacturers often squeeze more pixels into the same space but reduce their effectiveness to grab light. Photos from the E71 were a little grainy and dim. There are plenty of 2 megapixel phone cameras out there that take better pictures. You'll get a couple helpful extras in the box, including a USB cord for transferring items to and from a PC, a set of stereo earbuds with a compact microphone, and a handsome slip case (handsome, but not as useful as a belt clip). The E71 doesn't deliver any knockout features for its price, but it's loaded with communications options and it's extremely comfortable to use. If you're a fan of the Symbian OS, this could be the model for you. I The N810 offers a 4.1-inch diagonal QVGA touch screen, which is big and bright in use. Viewing Web pages through the included browser is a lot easier than with a smartphone. While pages don't display at full width, they're sharp and clear. Even better, the browser displays Flash, so you don't feel like you're compromising by browsing on the N810. There are two keys just to the left of the screen -- one for toggling between open applications and one for going back to the previous screen -- and above those sits the camera lens, which is perfect for making video calls. Skype is even included with the bundled software, so you don't need to install it. The top includes buttons for going full screen, changing the volume, powering on the device, and locking the controls, while the right side holds power and headphone jacks. With so many controls around the edges, it's easy to press one when you didn't mean to. The bottom holds a foldout kickstand, so that you can prop it up while you use it. There's a miniSD slot for holding up to an 8GB card, but you'll need to fold the kickstand out to access it. The N810 runs Nokia's Internet Tablet 2008 operating system, which is Linux-based, and features a simple, customizable desktop and organization system that puts Windows Mobile to shame. Finding your way around is easy, even for new users, and the selection of Internet, e-mail, chat, and VoIP software ensures that you'll have a lot to do. There are even a few games for when you have some downtime. The only thing missing is a calendar app. We'd love to see one that syncs with popular desktop software. One warning, though: the packaging talks up the N810's GPS abilities, but doesn't mention the extra cost. Using the included Wayfinder Navigator application to get when you're going costs an extra $130 for a three-year subscription. If you're serious about staying in touch while you travel and you're looking for a more convenient way to do it, check out the Nokia N810. It's smaller and cheaper than a notebook, yet big on communications options. The N810 lists for $439. I Software 13 The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp. [ The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones ] Samsung Instinct: Well Designed and Powerful By Joe Moran new smartphone recently debuted with much fanfare. Perhaps you've heard of it -- it's sleek and stylish, has a black finish with a huge touch screen, and starts with the letter "I"? Actually, we're not talking about the latest iPhone, but rather its would-be competitor, the Samsung Instinct. Sprint Nextel is hoping the Instinct (which it has exclusive U.S. rights to, at least for now) will pique the interest of anyone jonesing for an iPhone or similar device, and early reports of heavy demand indicate that it's getting a lot of attention. The Instinct was described as a potential iPhone killer leading up to its launch, and Sprint isn't subtle about making the comparison, at least to the first-gen iPhone. While the Instinct's not an iPhone killer, or even necessarily an iPhone wounder, it does successfully take some design cues from it and is a compelling device in its own right. A EV-DO Rev A for data connections. Unfortunately, Wi-Fi support is conspicuously absent, leaving you with no fallback option if a cellular connection isn't available. The Instinct's built-in memory is a relatively paltry 32 MB, which you can increase up to 8 GB (equivalent to the base iPhone) via the microSD card slot conveniently located on the Instinct's right edge. The Instinct comes with a 2GB card to get you started. One of the criticisms of the iPhone is a battery that isn't easily replaced by the device owner, but the Instinct imposes no such limitation. The back panel slides off to allow easy access to a 1000 mAh Li-Ion battery, which is rated for 5.75 hours of talk time. With significant use of the data features and a handful of voice calls, we got about 48 hours of life out of the battery. We noticed that the battery power indicator wasn't very linear, however; it took quite a while to go from full to around half, but not long thereafter we were greeted by a low battery warning. Included with the Instinct is a second 1000 mAh cell, along with an adapter that allows it to be charged outside the phone. The catch is that the adapter is basically a plastic box with a lid that's required to keep the battery against the charging contacts, so losing the lid Features Measuring 4.6 x 2.2 x 0.5 inches, the Instinct is slightly narrower and taller than an iPhone, and at 4.4 oz it's a bit lighter too. Being a Sprint device, the Instinct communicates via CDMA networks (800/1900) and supports 14 The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp. [ User Interface The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones ] would render the charging adapter useless. list of messages via the on-screen menu, listen to them in any order you want, and easily do callbacks or save numbers to your contact list. As an Internet access device, the Instinct is a bit of a mixed bag. The Instinct's browser makes scrolling Web pages pretty easy, but the content window is small relative to the screen (though you can reclaim a bit of space by hiding one toolbar). The browser supports full HTML (but not Flash) so it can display many Web pages more or less like they would on a regular monitor, and a button lets you access the mobile version pages for better performance. We used that feature more than we expected, because even with an EV-DO connection the browser performance tended to be clunky and we spent a lot of time waiting for pages to fully load (here's where Wi-Fi would come in handy). The Instinct lacks support for instant messaging, but you can use it to access e-mail accounts from all the major Web-based providers (AOL, Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo). Just enter your account info, and you're up and running within a moment or two. How you access a work e-mail account depends on what kind of mail server it is; if it's Microsoft Exchange with Outlook Web Access enabled, you can access it directly with Instinct. Otherwise, you'll need to get to it indirectly by downloading Sprint's Mobile E-mail Desktop Connector onto your PC, which requires it be left running. The Instinct also has an integrated GPS receiver that enables you to use the device for voice-guided turn-byturn directions. The Instinct works very well as a GPS device -- better than most smartphones, we think -due mainly to the relatively spacious touch screen that makes it easy to view and interact with the display. The Instinct's broad face is dominated by a 3.1 inch, 240 x 432 touch screen display (compared to 3.5 inches and 320 x 480 for the iPhone). Below the screen are three hard buttons, consisting of a Home key flanked by a Back key and one that summons the Instinct's phone-related functions. The Instinct's haptic touch screen responds to contact with vibrations, a feature we like a lot since it provides the tactile feedback you'd normally get from mechanical buttons. (You can turn this off if you want.) The responsiveness and accuracy of the Instinct's touch screen were quite good; we encountered only the occasional input error while using the dial keypad or on-screen keyboard (the phone switches to landscape orientation when you use the latter). Many, though not all, of the Instinct's functions are invoked by swiping a finger, a motion that's easy for the device to interpret. Because the display uses resistive rather than capacitive technology to detect input, you can use gloves or a stylus instead of bare skin to activate it. Interestingly, the Instinct comes with a stylus, but there's nowhere on the phone to stow it so we think it will be left unused by most. The Instinct uses a simple grid menu with large buttons that's divided into three tabs, Main, Fun, and Web, plus a fourth Favs category that you can put your own preferred applications into. Overall the UI is intuitive enough that unlike many smartphones, you won't need to spend much time with your nose in a manual to get the gist of how things work. Voice & Data When it comes to call quality, the Instinct left us slightly disappointed. There was often a muddy, hollow quality to the audio on incoming calls -- including when using the speakerphone -- and several callers remarked that things sounded "tinny" on their end. Like the iPhone, the Instinct's voicemail is a quantum leap ahead of the typical phone. You can browse your Camera & Multimedia The Instinct's got a 2 megapixel camera and includes a self-portrait mirror, but there's no flash. The camera took decent-looking photos, but it doesn't offer any configurable options, nor can you choose photo size, apply effects, or edit your shots afterward. On the other hand, the camera pops up an on-screen warning if you're about to take a fuzzy photo. 15 The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp. [ The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones ] You can also record video with the Instinct (something you can't do on the iPhone). A configurable length setting will cap your videos at 2 minutes in length (around 6MB in size) so they can be sent over the air. Otherwise, you can shoot videos as long as available storage will allow. Reviewing the photos and videos you've taken on the Instinct is easy via a thumbnail page from which you can send via e-mail, upload to the Web, or beam via Bluetooth. There's also a filmstrip viewing mode that lets you scroll through all your shots by swiping your finger, but because the Instinct's display doesn't support multi-touch a la the iPhone, you can't use a "pinching" motion to change the orientation of a photo. The Instinct is no iPod, but it does have a music player capable of MP3, AAC, and WMA audio formats, among others. The Instinct supports the stereo Bluetooth profile and uses a standard 3.5mm audio jack so you can use the listening device of your choice (a wired stereo earbud set with inline mic is bundled). You can buy tracks for $0.99 each, or save yourself some time (but not any money) with six-song bundles at $5.94. As with some other Sprint phones, you can access a few dozen channels of video in various genres (news, sports, weather, entertainment, etc.) through the Instinct, along with a handful of TV networks. The quality is usually acceptable but often degrades to barely watchable with pauses and compression distortion. With the bundled Sprint Media Manager PC utility, you can transfer your own audio, video, and photos to the Instinct. Putting an Instinct in your pocket (it comes with a slim carrying case that omits a belt clip) won't take an outsized chunk of your cash. The phone costs a fairly reasonable $129.99, reflecting a $100 mail-in rebate and the obligatory two-year agreement, and service plans are $69.99 and $89.99 for 450 or 900 voice minutes respectively or $99.99 for unlimited voice minutes (and all plans include unlimited data). The Instinct isn't the technological tour de force it would have been if the iPhone didn't exist, and it has its share of weaknesses and missing features. On balance, however, we think the pros outweigh the cons, and it's still a well-designed and powerful communications device. I 16 The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp. [ The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones ] BlackBerry Curve 8330: Who Needs Anything Else? By Gerry Blackwell R ejoice o ye CDMAites! The Curve is come! Praise the lord and pass the PDAs! Customers of Verizon and other North American CDMA-based cellular providers can finally lay their hands on one of the hottest PDA phones, Research in Motion's (RIM) BlackBerry Curve, the smallest, lightest cell phone with a full QWERTY keyboard. The original Curve 8300 is a GSM device. It took almost six months for a CDMA version to become readily available. Telus and Bell in Canada introduced the Curve 8330 earlier this year and Verizon launched it in May. Sprint and Alltel now have it as well. Verizon sells the 8330 for $200 with a two-year contract, $300 with a one-year contract. Bell and Telus in Canada sell it with one-, two- or three-year contracts, or no contract, for $200, $400, $500, or $550 (Bell), $200, $450, $500, or $550 (Telus). Voice, e-mail, and data packages are, needless to say, extra. The Curve 8330 is not significantly different from the original 8300 model. It's not a quad-band world phone, of course, but it is a dual-band 800/1900 MHz device. Best of all, it works on super-fast CDMA-based EVDO networks. Like most Curve models, the 8330 includes an onboard GPS receiver, and the carriers are offering turnby-turn navigation services. Verizon has VZ Navigator, which is based on the AtlasBook platform from Networks in Motion (NIM). Telus is also using NIM. Bell uses technology from TeleNav Inc. Unlike the Curve 8320, a GSM model available from T-Mobile and Wirefly in the U.S. and directly from RIM in Canada, the 8330 does not include Wi-Fi, which is a great pity. Though it's not a lot different from the original Curve, we wanted to try out the 8330's GPS navigation features and test network connectivity over EVDO -and generally take a second look at a product that has had a lot of hype, and some criticism. We originally reviewed the Curve as a better -- if not as sleek -- version of the BlackBerry Pearl, RIM's first foray into the consumer/business market. The Pearl had a crummy 1.3-megapixel camera, you couldn't plug in standard stereo headphones to take full advantage of its music playing ability and its 20-key SureType keyboard, while impressive technology, was slower to type on than a QWERTY keyboard. With the Curve, RIM appeared to be trying to correct these problems. 17 The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp. [ The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones ] The video-capable camera is 2 megapixels, which is an improvement, but it's a long way from the best in phone cameras. The Curve also lets you use standard headphones, although listening on the 8330 confirms our belief that all-in-one devices are not the way to go if you care at all about music. The 8330 sounds tinny and digital. That said, it's fine for spoken-word recordings. The QWERTY keyboard is good, a definite improvement over the Pearl's Sure-Type keyboard, although the keyboard on the Motorola Q 9h is marginally better if only because bigger. The Q 9h, a Windows Mobile device often compared to the Curve, is bigger all over, although slightly thinner. The Curve, in fact, is nothing if not a marvel of miniaturization: 4.2 x 2.4 x 0.6 inches (107x15.5mm) and about 3.9 ounces (111g). We still like the screen, a backlit TFT LCD (240 x 320 pixels, 65,000 colors). And we like the fact that the Curve includes a microSD card slot (in the battery compartment). But my goodness! Could they not have included at least a 1GB card? Two-gigabyte microSDs sell for as little as $15 online, so how much would RIM (or Verizon) have to pay for bulk purchase 1GB cards? We tested the 8330 on the Telus network in Canada. Yes, it did sound a bit tinny and digital -- hmmm, didn't we just say that about music playback? -- but all the calls were perfectly clear and audible. The Curve, as noted in the original review, also has a pretty decent, relatively distortion-free speakerphone. And it works well with Bluetooth hands-free headsets. One of the things we particularly wanted to test on the 8330 was its performance as a tethered modem on the EVDO network, providing -- or so RIM and operators claim -- broadband wireless connectivity for laptops. After all, who needs a PC card modem, or even a Boingo Wi-Fi subscription, if they have a phone that can do the job? The procedure for setting up the Curve to use it as a modem with a Windows laptop varies from one cellular provider to another. Ask your operator for detailed instructions. If that fails, surf the Web for instructions. Telus was able to provide us with easy-to-follow directions that worked perfectly. 18 As a starting point, you have to ensure that the BlackBerry modem drivers and the latest version of BlackBerry Desktop Manager (both included in the software bundle and installed by default) are active on your computer. You'll also have to create a new dial-up network connection in Windows, likely with some nondefault configuration options, and then key in a telephone number, which will be different for each carrier. We were pleasantly surprised by throughput on the Telus EVDO network, which is now available in large and most mid-size Canadian cities -- ditto for EVDO from U.S. carriers. With three of five connection bars showing on the Curve's screen, we measured throughput using online Internet connection speedometers. Download speeds ranged from 700 kilobits per second (Kbps) to 1.2 megabits per second (Mbps). Upload speeds were a little disappointing -- in the 150 Kbps range. This was adequate for viewing the smallest size of video available at sites we tried. We also tested it with Skype, the Internet phone service. The calls we made were not among the best Skype connections we've ever experienced, but perfectly tenable. The catch, of course, is that you may pay through the nose for data -- especially when roaming. Verizon partly solves the problem with unlimited voice calling and data packages, starting at $130 a month. Yes, that's still expensive. But if you're a road warrior who only needs an Internet connection for e-mail, light surfing, and to tap into a corporate database, the Curve and one of Verizon's Nationwide Email Calling Plans may be the only phone and Internet service you'll ever need, rolled into one. The Telus Navigator application -- similar if not identical to the Verizon VZ Navigator -- worked well. The GPS receiver connected as quickly as any we've tested recently, faster than some. Downloading maps and directions was quick. But then we were using the fast EVDO network. Download speed might well prove a problem when you're only in a 2G or 2.5G coverage area. The Networks in Motion maps and interface are good, but this package does not offer three-dimensional maps, which were available on earlier BlackBerry GPS The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp. [ The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones ] applications we tried. It's not a deal killer, but unfortunate. GPS on cell phones seems like a great idea, but the economics of getting it from a cellular carrier again throws into question whether all-in-one devices are really the way to go. The cellular carriers claim their solutions are cheaper than others. It's true that you get the hardware -- GPS receiver, screen, computer processor -- included in the price of the phone. The least expensive dedicated portable navigator today costs about $150. But with a dedicated navigator you get the software and maps included and if you never upgrade the maps, you don't pay anything more. With VZ Navigator and other cellular GPS solutions, you pay by the day or month. Verizon charges $2.99 per day or $9.99 for unlimited monthly use. If you do want an all-in-one device, though, the Curve 8330 is a pretty good one. It offers BlackBerry's unbeatable e-mail experience, a great interface and a Swiss army knife's worth of functions - music and video playing, still and video photography, phone, broadband modem, GPS navigator. Who needs anything else? I 19 The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp. [ The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones ] Verizon XV6900: Small, Svelte & Sweet By Amy Mayer e wanted to hate it. Come on, you see the white chassis, the wide touch screen, the slim profile on the Verizon XV6900 and you think: wannabe iPhone. After all, this smartphone is Verizon's version of the HTC Touch. For some, that's a turn off. But turn on the device, and you'll find your cynicism fading. The ample display (2.8-inch TFT-LCD touch screen) offers a new Home format featuring a giant clock display and two rows of quick access icons. One of those icons is a launcher that lets you choose an application (smells a little Apple-ish again, but bear with us). We particularly like the weather icon, which brings up current info for the locale you specify and has an arrow that allows you to bring in the multiday forecast. The touch screen is satisfyingly responsive to a finger, but a stylus, conveniently stored on the top right edge of the phone, makes tapping faster. As with the iPhone, the chief means of interaction between the XV6900 and a user is through the smartphone's touch screen and the user's fingers through HTC's proprietary TouchFLO technology, which essentially grafts an advanced touch interface onto the Windows Mobile user interface. TouchFLO is capable of recognizing and responding to 20 W the sweep of a finger across a screen, for instance. Sweep your fingers across the display to launch an animated, three-dimensional interface comprising three screens: Contacts, Media, and Applications. It is even supposed to be intelligent enough to distinguish between finger and stylus input, responding accordingly. We held out the most skepticism for the touch-keyboard since it was the slide-out QWERTY keyboard that made us such fans of the XV6800. The fact remains that typing with a couple of fingers or both thumbs on keys that only represent one letter each is more efficient than tapping squares on the screen that feature two letters. But, that said, the auto-write function on the unit is pretty impressive. As you start typing, a bar between the keypad and the text screen shows you options. When the word you want pops up, you can either continue typing until you've put in all the letters yourself, or simply tap the full word you want from the options. It will appear, with a space after it. If the word you want is the first one, which is highlighted as you type, press the space key and it will appear. We found the method of switching keypad view from letters to numbers and symbols a bit awkward and nonintuitive. Using capitals is obvious, just press the shift key and the letters transform to their uppercase ver- The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp. [ The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones ] sions. But to access the symbols stored on the same keys as letters (including numbers), you have to toggle between the "abc" keypad, the "123" and "XT9." In phone mode, though, the keypad resembles a standard phone pad. Dialing is simple and there are keys for call history and contacts, so it's standard Windows Mobile procedure to call people from your address book or your past calls. To pick up the phone when it's ringing, you have the choice of using the green phone button (the tactile option), or touching the Answer button on the screen. When dialing a new number, you touch it in on the keypad, then press the green button to place the call. Calls from Contacts or Call History can be placed from the screen alone. At 4.0 inches long by 2.4 inches wide, the XV6900 is about the same size as the XV6800 (which is 4.1" long by 2.3" wide). But the newer device weighs in significantly lighter at 3.8 ounces compared with 5.7 ounces. And the loss of that slide out keyboard also means a svelte profile, just 0.6 inches deep where the XV6800 is 0.7 inches -- a difference far more noticeable in your hand than when written out. The power button is on the top of the unit, on the left. The left edge houses a volume slider and the lowerright edge has the camera button. Between the stylus slot and the camera button, unmarked and easy to miss, is the flip-down cover of the microSD card slot. The bottom has your USB port and the reset button. The XV6900 comes with a carrying sleeve, a charger, a USB splitter for using a headset (not included), a USB cable, and a spare stylus. The device can sync with a computer using Bluetooth or USB. It's retailing for $350 after a $50 rebate. In the just-for-fun category, we would be remiss not to mention the self-portrait mirror. Point your camera phone at yourself and you can see in the tiny round mirror the image it's about to frame. It's not perfect but it's surely superior to guess work. After you snap an image, click the magnifying glass to see it full screen. A really handy feature is that you can rotate photos by simply tracing your finger over the screen in the direction in which you want the image to turn. Finger swipes also let you scroll through your photos manually. The smartphone also shoots video. Through the test, we had to concede the device shines. It takes some adjusting -- we often turned it off when we didn't mean to, for example, and we're not wholly sold on abandoning the slide-out keyboard. But overall this smartphone seems poised to challenge many other Windows Mobile-platform options, particularly where size and weight are prime considerations. I This content was adapted from Internet.com's SmartPhoneToday Web site and MediaBistro's Mobile Devices Today Web site. Contributors: Michael Gartenberg, Gerry Blackwell, Troy Dreier, Joe Moran, Amy Mayer. 21 The Buyer’s Guide to Smartphones, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2009, Jupitermedia Corp.