Camp HD

Inside of a world filled with interchangeable Android phones, the Kyocera Echo truly sticks out. This Sprint handset breaks new ground through providing another fold-out screen that provides the device a whopping 960 x 800 pixels of real estate property, enough to evaluate the rest of your chosen website pages, use two different apps at the same time, or run specially optimized programs that put different content on each panel.

Design
Physically, the Echo is the weirdest phone I’ve seen shortly. It starts out appearing like a fairly thick candy-bar phone at 4.5 by 2.2 by .67 inches (HWD) including a hefty 6.8 ounces, which has a black bezel around its 3.5-inch 800-by-480 screen, that is thicker on the right side than you are on the left.The darn thing actually accordions open, for a unique hinge, leading the second screen to almost swing out into place. You require three distinct motions to be expanded the Echo: First, pull the top screen back and away; second, swivel it down so it is flat and parallel with the second screen, and third, push it into place.

Display
Dual-screen computer systems have got a shady history. Occasionally, you’ll learn about them at CES as well as other trade events, however they vanish, joining the scrap heap of unrealized prototypes. MSI and Asus, one example is, both showed dual-screen computers at CES 2010, although not at this year’s show.

Keyboard
Considered one of the better uses of the Echo’s second screen is the virtual keyboard. When both displays are open and you are clearly holding the device in landscape mode, the keyboard uses up the entire bottom screen.By default, the Kyocera Echo runs on the Swype keyboard enabling you to improve your typing by drawing lines between the letters you intend to type. If you find Swype annoying, you possibly can plunge to the traditional Android keyboard. In the two cases, the keyboards give you a very small amount of haptic feedback, which you may also disable.

Camera
The 5-megapixel camera seems fairly responsive, though the quality of pictures was hard to test in the low light of the nightclub where the event happened. It can shoot video at 720p, but the relatively low resolution of the phone’s screen won’t reveal that off. You’ll only view it when you’ve moved it for a computer, or some other device.

Performance
Inside, the Echo incorporates a 1GHz Snapdragon processor. For that reason, the handset responds relatively quickly when frequent lowering and raising programs, scrolling though menus, and switching tasks. It also remained responsive when simultasking on the two displays.

Call Quality
Call quality was satisfying coming from all fronts. Voices sounded natural on our end and then there was little static or interference. The signal also was clear also it stayed relatively strong in buildings and underground. We noticed, however, that callers sounded a tad removed. Though the volume was loud enough, that it was just as if our friends were calling from behind a wall or screen. It wasn’t a large deal, nonetheless it was inescapable.Reports from the other side were good too. Callers could tell we had arrived having a cell phone, nevertheless they mentioned decent clarity and little wind noise.Interestingly, in addition they said we sounded a bit distant even if there is enough volume. It wasn’t a difficulty as we were speaking in a very quiet place, but when there is plenty of background noise we did have got to speak around be understood.

Battery life
The Echo lasted an epic 8 hours and 26 minutes on the LAPTOP Battery Test, which involves continuous surfing over 3G at 40-percent brightness. In dual-screen mode, this time declined to 3:47. By comparison, the HTC Evo Shift 4G lasted 6:51, and the 3G Samsung Intercept lasted just 5:10.

HTC arrived on the scene strong at the Windows Phone 7 launch event with the introduction of five cellphone. Most were for the European and Asian markets, but AT&T landed the HTC Surround, while Sprint will get the HTC 7 Pro during the early 2011. The Surround is exclusive as it provides built-in surround-sound speakers with Dolby Mobile and SRS WOW HD technology–a cool but niche feature. So far as devices go, the Samsung Focus might be the most suitable choice for some consumers.

Design
The Surround weighs a hefty 5.8 ounces and measures 4.7 x 2.4 x 0.5 inches. The phone feels well-crafted, with hard black plastic on the back and aluminum accents on the sides. The bottom 1 / 2 of the phone slides out a half-inch to reveal the silver speaker grille, which can be perforated with skin pores. The top of the Surround has a 3.5mm headphone jack as well as a sleep/power button, the right side has a volume rocker along with a dedicated camera button, and the bottom incorporates a microUSB charging port.

Display
The 3.8-inch capacitive LCD on the Surround screen looks good, with strong, accurate colors and nice contrast. It has a resolution of 800 x 480, so text pictures were easy on the eyes. However, the screen looks a bit dull next the Super AMOLED display on the Samsung Focus, another AT&T Windows Phone 7 device, let alone the category-best iPhone 4′s 960 x 640 Retina display.

Audio
The speakers actually provide multichannel via Dolby Mobile and SRS WOW HD and activate it, you merely press the small button on the left-hand side of the speaker. There’s a obvious difference if you do that, as the audio sounds richer and fuller. However, the overall sound quality did not really knock our socks off. It’s certainly much better than most, but songs still sounded somewhat tinny. Also, within a speakerphone call, the volume, even at its highest level, was too low to have a conversation in a slightly noisier environment.

Performance
Everything responded quickly and Windows Phone 7 OS gives the device a very fast and fluid feel. The only lag was when an app was using the web to tug information, which likely had more related AT&T’s 3G speeds than how quick the phone was putting data on the watch’s screen.

Camera and Camcorder
The Surround’s 5-megapixel camera isn’t great. The video mode were built with a focus bug?images went to send and receive of focus during the course of shooting a youtube video. Three video modes is going to take 720p HD movies at 24 frames per second outdoors or 16fps indoors, 640-by-480 movies at 20 frames per second, or 320-by-240 videos at 20 frames per second. Approximately 1,150 lines of resolution, the still camera didn’t measure to the Samsung Focus or the New iphone 4 4 ($199, 4.5 stars), although the shutter lag was sufficient at 0.4 seconds. Low-light photos showed some blur from low shutter speeds, that is the case with many cameraphones.

Music and Video
The Surround, as well as the other Windows Phone 7 phones, does have it’s media architecture based upon Zune software, which can be polished and is successful. The interface is organized with five categories–Music, Videos, Podcasts, Radio, and Marketplace. The video capabilities on the Surround are average. The included sample music video of Owl City’s “Fireflies” didn’t fill the entire screen and rendered its images with so-so degrees of detail. Videos that any of us recorded only okay at the same time. Audio in the videos was excellent, but video never lived approximately its end of the deal.

Call Quality and Battery life
The audio was mostly clear, but we’re able to hear some faint background noise. Plus, sound cut out and in once or twice, so we were required to ask our callers to repeat themselves. The speakerphone volume would have been a bit soft, so it was challenging hear our caller whenever we entered into a rather noisier room. The HTC Surround carries a 1,230mAh lithium-ion battery by using a rated talk time of four hours or more to 11 days of standby time. The smartphone beat the rated talk time by half an hour in your battery drain tests. With moderate to heavy use, there we were capable of go a complete previous day wanting to turn on and recharge.

Ever since Samsung’s Galaxy S cellphone have landed at AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint, Verizon is last in line–which seriously isn’t necessarily bad, considering Verizon customers there are ample strong Android phones to choose from, including the Droid X, Droid 2, and Droid Incredible. What exactly does the Fascinate provide the party on Big Red? This handset has the same vibrant AMOLED screen we loved on the earlier models, and in contrast to AT&T’s Captivate and T-Mobile’s Vibrant, this model includes an LED flash and mobile hotspot feature.

Design
Out of all of the Galaxy S devices, the Samsung Fascinate most closely resembles the Vibrant. The handset features a neat and attractive slate design with rounded corners, and it is slim and light-weight at 4.92 inches tall by 2.53 inches wide by 0.39 inch thick and 4.1 ounces. Though we dubbed the Vibrant as the sexiest of the series, in most ways the Fascinate is superior.

Display
As with the other Galaxy S devices, the Fascinate’s AMOLED screen is, well, fascinating. Its 4-inch display size is between the Droid 2 (3.7 inches) and the Droid X (4.3 inches), eventhough it carries a lower 800 x 480-pixel resolution when compared to 854 x 480 for the two Motorola devices.

Keyboard
The Fascinate offers two methods of input: Swype or the stock Android keyboard. The latter is easy to utilize, even in portrait mode, but when you experience how soon you are able to compose messages using Swype, it will be challenging to switch to everthing else.

Interface
Like the all the Galaxy S series, the Fascinate is run on Android 2.1 with Samsung’s TouchWiz 3.0 interface. The latter is unquestionably improved from previous versions, with enhanced functionality as well as a more polished look. To begin, there are actually new widgets, including one called Feeds & Updates and the other called Buddies Now. Feeds & Updates streams updates from Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace, and you will choose to display content collected from one of,two, or all three of the social-networking sites, in addition to set the refresh rate, which range from 30 minutes to daily. Buddies Now’s like a favorites list and means that you can immediately call or text those contacts, along with discuss any kind of their updates.

Music and Video
The TouchWiz ipod is touch-friendly as well as simple to navigate. It showcases album art nicely, too, through an iTunes Cover Flow-style user interface. Sound was clean over my earbuds, and decent via the external speakers. Certainly one of the most intriguing options that come with the Fascinate is the Samsung Media Hub, which could include every one of the Galaxy S phones. Media Hub is Samsung’s response to iTunes, an outlet for getting music and video. Unfortunately, Media Hub just isn’t yet accessible to users now; in accordance with my contact at Samsung, Media Hub will launch this fall. Customers will download the service via an over-the-air update.

Camera
The Fascinate has a 5-MP camera, but unlike those two phones, the Fascinate comes with an LED flash that proved helpful; even just in a wholly darkened room, the flash provided enough light to take fairly decent pictures at short range. In the light, pictures were a lot better. The Fascinate’s camera also did a great job adjusting the aperture when we moved the phone from the street to the bright blue sky; the street wasn’t shrouded in darkness, nor was the sky passed.

Battery life
The Samsung Fascinate ships by using a 1,500mAh lithium ion battery using a rated talk-time of 7 hours and assend to 13 times of standby time. In the battery drain tests, the smartphone provided 6.5 hours of continuous talk time one charge. During our review period, however, there we were able to dig up an entire day’s use outside of the smartphone–e-mail, Web browsing, music playback–before being forced to recharge at the end of the night. Read another cellphone review.