PC Magazine - 2009 04.pdf - Libertad Zero - Blog

Samsung Memoir
SGH-T929 (T-Mobile)
$299 list and up with
two-year contract
L l l l m
Pros best camera-and-video
phone in the u.S.
excellent video
player. lots of
features. Fun to use.
Cons Web browser is a
bit sluggish. bad shutter
lag. buggy on a couple
of tasks. expensive.
Click here for more.
Helio Ocean 2
(Virgin Mobile)
$149.99 list with
two-year contract
l l l l m
Pros Push e-mail.
brings together contacts,
iMs, and e-mail
messages from multiple
accounts. gPS. Plenty of
additional features and
apps.
Cons Very bulky.
Default Web browser
is slow. requires a
two-year Virgin Mobile
contract.
Click here for more.
first looks consumer electronics
SaMSung MeMoir SgH-T929 (T-Mobile)
The Best Camera Phone
In the U.S.A.
The Samsung Memoir SGH-T929 (T-Mobile) may be
the phone that gets you to leave your digital camera
at home. This 8-megapixel shooter is full of surprises,
including support for two decent Web browsers, a
fun widget-based interface, and 640-by-480 video
recording. The Memoir is expensive compared with
other T-Mobile feature and camera phones, but if
price is no object, this Samsung can’t be beat.
The Memoir, which measures 4.7 by 2.1 by 0.6
inches (HWD) and weighs 4.4 ounces, resembles a
Samsung Behold mated with a point-and-shoot digicam.
The face has a 3-inch, 240-by-400-pixel touch
screen with Send, End, and Back buttons sitting in
a row below it. The back looks a lot like a digital
camera, with a protruding autofocus lens, flash, and
slightly textured grip.
As a phone, the Memoir is adequate. Reception
on T-Mobile’s 2G and 3G networks is very good; the
phone also works on 2G and 3G networks in other
countries, though it can’t access AT&T’s 3G network
anywhere. Earpiece and speakerphone volume are
both decent, though the earpiece tends to distort at
top volume. Transmissions through the microphone
Helio ocean 2 (Virgin Mobile)
The Pre Palm Pre?
One of the coolest elements of Palm’s highly anticipated
Pre has arrived early: Contact synergy comes
to the masses in the form of Virgin Mobile’s Helio
Ocean 2. This new feature merges address books
from several different sources to let you e-mail, text,
or instant message all of your friends quickly and
easily. Synergy on the Ocean doesn’t go as far as it
does on the Pre, but it’s here now, it’s inexpensive,
and it’s a pretty cool device for messaging friends.
There’s no getting around the fact that the
Ocean is huge. At 5.9 ounces and 4.7 by 2.3 by 0.8
inches (HWD), this is no slim-and-light handset.
The phone opens two ways: You can slide the
screen up to get a traditional phone keypad or slide
it sideways to get a full QWERTY keyboard. Navigating
is done by means of a four-way rocker with a
trendy optical sensor in the middle. You also get a
2-megapixel camera and 2.6-inch, 320-by-240 LCD.
Battery life came in at 6 hours 44 minutes of continuous
talk time.
Sure, the Ocean 2 is a fine voice phone, but really,
you’re not buying a warship like this to talk on—it’s
all about the messaging. The phone lets you com-
sound a bit muddy on the other end, and a lot of
background noise tends to come through, although
there’s remarkably little in-ear feedback of your own
voice. The Memoir’s battery life, at 5 hours of talk
time, is passable.
The big deal with this phone, of course, is the
camera, which is better than that of any other
carrier-subsidized phone in the U.S.—both for
photos and for video. It’s not on a par with top
dedicated still cameras like the Editors’ Choice
Canon PowerShot A1000 IS, but it competes
with lesser cameras like the Casio Exilim z250.
Even though the Memoir doesn’t have full smartphone
capabilities, its superior ability as a camera
phone lead us to award it an Editors’ Choice.
—Sascha Segan and PJ Jacobowitz
bine all your contacts from a free 100MB Helio webmail
account, AOL, Microsoft Exchange, and Yahoo
into one master address book. E-mail and IM run in
the background and automatically push messages
to you as soon as they arrive (except for messages
from generic POP/IMAP accounts). The one bump
in the road is that the Ocean 2’s Web browser is painfully
slow. Though it is not as sleek as the upcoming
Palm Pre, the Ocean 2 is worth a look for heavy
messagers who are willing to jump to Virgin
Mobile.—Sascha Segan
aPril 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 15