The Good: The ultra-thin and light Motorola L2 slips easily into a coat or trouser pocket and the quad-band coverage makes it the globetrotters dream. Keep in touch with the phone’s strong messaging features and remain in reach with an impressive 14 day standby time.
The Bad: No memory expansion slot or support for corporate POP/IMAP email. Performance is sluggish at best, the display looks washed out. No 3G or EDGE support. Users with larger fingers will find it hard to use the keypad, and with only 10MB of RAM, you’ll be cramped for space. Unlike similar phones in the Motorola lineup, the L2 doesn’t include camera.
The Bottom Line: While this phone won’t turn any heads, it’s a good basic phone with a few strong points for frequent travelers. However, for a business-oriented phone, it’s surprisingly lacking some important features, like the ability to synchronize email and contacts with a remote server.
The Good: The Nokia E62 boasts a vibrant and sharp screen, a full QWERTY keyboard, and a full array of wireless options (Bluetooth, UMTS). This Symbian OS smart phone also has solid call quality, a speakerphone, the ability to view and edit office documents, and robust e-mail capabilities.
The Bad: No camera and a shallow keyboard which makes typing exhausting. The Nokia E62’s miniSD slot is located inconveniently behind the battery cover requiring you to turn off the phone to insert a card, and the device was sometimes sluggish when switching between apps.
The Bottom Line: The Nokia E62 certainly isn’t for everyone, but with its powerful productivity apps, connectivity options, and solid call quality, this smart phone will definitely make a good addition to a corporate user’s arsenal.
The Good: Loaded with features including extra-large dual color displays, microSD memory card slot supporting up to 2gb (as well as 60mb internal memory), 2 mega pixel camera (along with video capabilities) and external touch controls.
The Bad: The design of the MOTORAZR maxx Ve may not be for everybody. While the 2 mega pixel camera does offer good quality pictures, the video quality is lacking and can become grainy. The camera can only be activated when the phone is open, which can be annoying as well.
The Bottom Line: The Motorola MOTORAZR maxx Ve is an all-rounder, with features that will appeal to the majority of those looking for a cell phone that offers more than just text and phone functionality. Some may be put off by Motorola deciding to include Bluetooth v1.2 rather than the v2.0 seen in other handsets.
The Good: Very reliable with strong reception and a camera that will give you solid results. The SCH-u340 also has a good battery life, especially in standby mode, plus comes with Advanced Speech Recognition which allows you to not only speak phone numbers to dial, but also allows you to use voice commands to launch applications. For those who like to instant message AOL, MSN and Yahoo messaging is supported with this handset.
The Bad: The u340’s speakerphone can be soft at times, and the phone is fairly lacking in features, with no Bluetooth functionality or mp3 player onboard.
The Bottom Line: As an entry-level handset, the SCH-u340 is a solid choice. If you’re looking for a cell phone purely to send text or MMS messages and to make phone calls from, this will suit you fine.
