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Review GSM phone Voxtel V300

Voxtel V300. Live pictures

Package:

Handset
Battery
Charger
Data-cable
CD with software
Manual

The phone Voxtel V300 is a miniature clamshell with two colour screens and a VGA camera. The handset is intended for women most of all even though some men will like that. It is comparable to Samsung A800 in size as the dimensions are 75x38x21.5 mm vs. 80х40х22 mm of Samsung A800. Voxtel V300 weights 70 gr vs. 64 gr of A800.

The phone appearance does not offer any new design solution as this is a classical clamshell with an external aerial. Two colour versions are provided - red and blue; both look interesting. The device body is made of durable plastic and the covering is smooth to the touch. The assembling quality rouses no censure as well.

Since the phone dimensions are rather small, at least men may encounter some difficulty in opening the device, although for a woman it will be a snap if she has long nails.

The front surface has a work indicator and around and inside it there is a little mirror that serves as ornamentality. The indicator has three colours - red, yellow, and green. The most curious thing is that either Russian or English menu informs of the indicator to have three colours - red, cyan, and purple. A little discord is present, yet it is alright for sure.

There is also a colour STN screen of the resolution of 96x96 pixels (19x19 mm) showing 65K colours. The screen is good at showing preinstalled images, but photos lose their appeal, since both the small dimensions and an STN matrix used affect.

At an incoming call the external screen shows the caller's name (if the number is entered in the phone book) or number. Besides, a small window (that is the limit in its side with the screen dimensions concerned) in the right contains a photo or image assigned to the caller. In order to descry the photo one has to use imagination greatly.

Another feature which involves the external screen is that, while the phone is opened, it does not turn off, but keep running and the image orientation changes (i.e. turns about). When you are typing a number or at an incoming call, the information is repeated on the external screen so that everybody next to you can see a caller's name or number and photo or image. The device does not patently mean for spies - they will immediately disclose. Common users also seem to dislike people around to be aware of whom the former are calling.

The left side has a strap hole, a coupled volume button, a camera key and a headset gap shielded with a rubber shutter fixed to the body. There is a microphone and an interface gap on the bottom.

Having opened the clamshell, you will see an internal screen which little exceeds the external one in dimensions. The TFT screen of the resolution of 128x160 pixels (20.5х25.5 mm) is able to show 262K colours. The image quality is quite good and the screen is very hard to compare to those of other devices because of the small dimensions of the V300 screen.

The keypad is made of plastic and the number keys are modest in size and well-distributed so that it excludes mistypes. The keys are marked with Russian and English characters. The keypad backlight of blue is well-distributed and so all the characters are seen entirely. A 4D key with an OK key inscribed, though small, is very handy. Pressing any of four ways invokes fixed actions which are not to be reassigned.

The back surface has a camera lens that is placed not so ordinarily. Since it has been transferred from the upper cover (a common camera location of clamshells) to the lower cover, the camera objective is canted at an angle of 45 degrees for the convenience of the customs.

An accumulator battery also serves as a phone back. It is a Li-Ion battery of the capacity of 660 mAh and, according to the manufacturer; the device is able to work for up to 100 hours in standby mode and to 3.5 hours in talk mode. Under the condition of Moscow MTS network the handset has worked for 2 days in case of 20 minutes of talks a day and up to 20 minutes of using other functions. The battery life is modest and one should not expect more from the device. Full charge takes an hour approximately.

Phone book. An access to this menu item is assigned to the right softkey. The device holds up to 250 entries. Each entry could have name, up to three numbers and e-mail. Moreover you may appropriate one of 10 preinstalled images or a photo to an entry. The most curious thing is that any photo may not be appended to a contact as it must be created in a special mode - Phone Book photo.

A search in the phone book is made as a name one. Contacts stored in a SIM-card memory are found in a proper division - SIM Manager on the analogy of Sony Ericsson phones. You can create 10 groups, specify a group name and assign your ring tone. Contacts to group must be saved to the device memory.

Messages. The handset contains up to 82 messages and supports EMS as well. A message may be sent to a mere subscriber at once. One of three melodies is to be assigned to an incoming message. Creating a MMS presents no difficulty, because everything is logical and clear.

Screen. All settings concerned to both the external and internal screens are collected in this menu. There is a wide choice of preinstalled images and you can also install your image downloaded with WAP or from a PC. As for the internal screen, either static or animated image may be selected as wallpaper, a variant of clocks showing (analog, digital or double) is also to be chosen, you could input your text (up to 20 characters) as well as determine a calendar to the main screen.

Sound. This comprises everything concerned with ring tones and a sort of call (vibra together with melody, vibra alone, melody alone and quiet).

Settings. The menu consists of date and time settings, backlight (5, 10, 20 seconds or permanent), menu language selection, indicator colour and external screen contrast.

Alarm-clock hides here too. There are three separate alarm-clocks and each could be once, daily and morning activation.

There is also a simple file manager which shows total and used memory capacity and all files downloaded to the device memory. Altogether the handset has 1856 Kb accessible.

Network. There are network settings.

Assistant. Organizer hides in this menu. One can view tasks monthly, weekly and daily. Each entry may have time determined, a category (meeting, cal, birth date) selected and a text mark (up to 20 characters) input. There is an option of event repetition - every week, month or year. You can also determine an alert message in the range from 10 minutes to an hour.

An attractive feature is a task search in several fields - date, category or text mark.

There is a simple calculator, a unit convector, a world time function and biorhythms.

It is interesting that, besides the mentioned items, this division has a melody editor as well. A melody is composed with notes and the instrument is also to be selected.

Personals. You may create up to 10 text notes, each of them contents no more than 70 characters. There are call and data records as well as safety settings (PIN, phone passwords).

Games. The handset has 3 games preinstalled - Fish Ball (a kind of Balls), Solitaire (that is all clear) and Survivor (arcade).

Internet. This holds a WAP browser of version 2.0.

Camera. Everything concerned with the camera lies here. Both the external and internal screens could serve as a viewfinder. Now I should warn you about that if using the external screen, you have to take pictures 'by touch'.

The 5x digital zoom activates by a back and forth deviation of the 4D key and a left and right deviation allows contrast adjusting. The photo resolution could be the following: 640х480, 320х240 and 160х120 and Phone Book photo. There are 10 effects and 16 frames to apply to photos. Multishooting permits taking 6 photos successively with a small interval. There is an option of creating a double photo. Then the screen divides in two parts upright and next two taken frames are joined together. The similar opportunity is realised in Alcatel phones, but there it is called 'mosaic' and permits joining 4 frames.

A photo album allows viewing photos one by one and the whole list is impossible to observe. It is interesting that the password may be determined for certain pictures or the whole album so that nobody but you will be able to view. The photo looks well on the phone screen, yet they are not so good on computers. And you should not upload photos to a PC in order not to be disappointed about your expectations. However you ought to take a look at the examples.

Sample photo №1
Sample photo №2
Sample photo №3

Impressions

The device rouse no censure about the connection quality and the microphone sensitivity suffices almost under any condition. The loudspeaker volume is up to par and the interlocutor is head well actually in a noisy street. The preset melodies sound alright thanks to the 40-instrument polyphony. As for an alert, one cannot but hear it even if the device lies under clothes or in a bag. Vibracall is poor and there is no reason to expect more from such a small phone.

The handset should be recommended to women above all, although some men will like it. The main advantage of the phone is its small dimensions, two colour screens and the good polyphony realisation. Yet I have to point to an important drawback: it is a very small font size and so one will fail in quick reading information. There are some inaccuracies of the menu and further the logic of the division distribution is not so clear.

A data-cable for a COM-port and the software is supplied in addition to the handset. I do not still understand why the kit lacks in a USB-cable as it was a worse trouble to find a PC with a COM-port. Now Voxtel V300's average price works out at 240 USD. Among the rivals, Samsung E600 is worth mentioning and cost 20-30 USD more. E600's advantage consists of the popular brand and the more qualitative body realisation. The models are similar in other respects and offer the comparable functionality.

Melody samples ( 321 KB, mp3)

Vladimir Fokin ([email protected])
Translated by Maria Mitina ([email protected])

Published — 11 April 2005

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