It looks like more colors are on the way for Nokia Lumia 800, following closely the white version, whichwe got to spend time with. The Windows Phone device showed up in red and green in a commercial for the Nokia BH-220 Bluetooth headset.

The colors are yet to be confirmed by Nokia, as the video cannot be found in the company’s official YouTube channel. Check it out below.

In case the music in the video sounds familiar, you are right. It is the Nokia Tune Dubstep Edition, whichwe told you about back in October.

Motorola Droid RAZR MAXX brought 3300 mAh of battery goodness to our office [VIDEO]

January 27th, 2012, 22:44 by Stefan37 comments

Introduction

Samsung brought a range of new Android devices to CES with LTE and Super AMOLED being the central themes to all of them. All major carriers (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile) got in on the action. Most of the gadgets were GSM-flavored, but all of them had voice call capabilities to go along with their blazing fast data, even the tablet.

Okay, let’s do a count and see if everyone’s here.

On AT&T’s side of the table, there’s the Samsung Galaxy Note I717 “phoneblet”, the eco-friendly Samsung Exhilarate and the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket HD, a Skyrocket i727 with the Galaxy Nexus screen.

On Verizon’s side, there’s just the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 LTE I815, which takes up two seats with its roomy 7.7” Super AMOLED Plus screen.

Then there’s the Samsung Galaxy Nexus LTE for Sprint, which as the name suggests packs LTE connectivity in addition to the usual CDMA and EVDO. Other than that, there’s no difference between it and the other CDMA Galaxy Nexus, the i515 for Verizon.

T-Mobile is also getting a new phone - the Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G. It packs a 4” Super AMOLED screen and a Qualcomm S3 chipset with two 1.5GHz CPU cores. It’s the one exception to the LTE rule, relying only on HSPA+ (which T-Mobile says can deliver up to 42Mbps downlink speeds).

Most of these devices should already be pretty familiar, so let’s start with the Samsung Skyrocket HD. It features a 4.65” Super AMOLED screen with 720p resolution, up from 4.5” Super AMOLED Plus screen with WVGA resolution for the regular Skyrocket. The rest is the same - 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 8MP camera with 1080p video and LTE connectivity.

Anyway, the other new device is the Samsung Exhilarate. It’s made of 80% recycled materials, AT&T advertise it as “the first 4G LTE smartphone built to meet many environmental and sustainability standards”. It’s got a 4” Super AMOLED screen and eco-saving software features.

The third device for AT&T, the Samsung Galaxy Note I717 brings its usual assets - a 5.3” Super AMOLED screen with 800x1280 pixels resolution and the S Pen - but also LTE connectivity and a different chipset than the international version (this one uses two CPUs at 1.5GHz).

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 LTE I815 has a name long enough for two devices and a screen to match that. LTE connectivity is in tow, but it offers CDMA too - for both data and voice.

We’ve already met the Samsung Galaxy Note I717 for AT&T and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 LTE I815 for Verizon but we went on a second date and we have new photos to share. Join us on the next page.

Samsung Galaxy Note I717 hands-on

The Samsung Galaxy Note for AT&T brings little surprises - it feels just like a regular Note. Except, of course, there are four capacitive keys below the screen replacing the one hardware and two capacitive keys combo of the international version. AT&T’s Galaxy models typically feature this small redesign, so it didn’t surprise us one bit.

    
Samsung Galaxy Note I717

Both the Black and the White version were at the booth and the White one was wearing a snazzy white genuine leather protective flap over its screen.

The flap is attached to the left side of the back cover and features an embossed “Galaxy Note” logo and a slit for the earpiece, so you can talk even if it’s closed. Now, the flap isn’t strictly necessary as the Note has a Gorilla Glass to guard its screen, but it makes the sizable droid look a lot classier.

  
White leather protective flap for the Galaxy Note

There is a flip cover for the Black version of the Note too, but also a Brown and Orange ones if you feel like adding a little color. By the way, these covers aren’t unique to the AT&T version, you can get one for other versions of the Note too.

The other interesting thing on Samsung’s booth was a mini gallery of images drawn on the Galaxy Note using the S Pen. Next to this exhibit was the S Pen holder - a bigger version of Samsung’s stylus that makes it much more comfortable to hold.

  
A selection of images drawn on the Note • Some accessories

Samsung is really pushing the Galaxy Note as the device for the artistic types or people who are constantly taking notes.

By the way, the Samsung Galaxy Note I717 uses Snapdragon chipset (two 1.5GHz Scorpion CPU cores, Adreno 220 and 1GB RAM) instead of Samsung’s Exynos, but there’s no way you’d notice that at first glance. We’ll see if the brain transplantation lead to any major user experience changes when we get to spend more time with the Note.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 LTE I815 hands-on

There’s little new to report on the Galaxy Tab 7.7 since we saw it yesterday. We did see the leather pouch available for the tablet, it’s available in Black, White, Brown and Orange versions.

There should also be a flap for the Tab 7.7 just like the Note’s but that wasn’t present at the Samsung’s booth. What Samsung did have to show was a Bluetooth keyboard with Android-friendly keys that you can use for long text entry. This one should be compatible with all droids, but if you’re going to work with a long text, you’ll really want the extra room that the tablet screen offers.

    
Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 LTE I815

Other than that, it’s pretty much business as usual. The weight (340g) and thickness (7.9mm) of the Galaxy Tab 7.7 haven’t changed, and neither has the Exynos chipset with a dual-core 1.4GHz processor.

The screen is the same brilliant unit we saw when we reviewed the GSM version - standing at 7.7”, it’s marginally bigger than the one on the Tab 7.0 Plus, and it uses the Super AMOLED Plus technology with conventional RGB matrix (no PenTile here).

    
Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7’s screen is great

The LTE connectivity is the major change in the Tab 7.7 LTE I815. You can use the Wi-Fi hotspot feature to connect up to 10 devices to it (if you’re using 3G, you can only connect 5).

The Galaxy Tab 7.7 LTE I815 is SAFE certified, which means it packs a suite of enterprise-friendly security features including Mobile Device Management (MDM), on-device Encryption, Virtual Private Network (VPN) and corporate email, calendar and contacts.

We should note that Verizon’s version of the tablet will come with 16GB of built-in storage (you can expand that with microSD cards up to 32GB).

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 LTE I815 will launch with a TouchWizzified Android Honeycomb.

We’ll be back with more images, videos and impressions over the next hours and days so stay tuned!

Introduction

Oh, look - it’s another BlackBerry Bold! But what’s the catch? And where is the difference really? Sure it looks a bit smaller than the 9900 but it’s the same QWERTY / touchscreen combo. So far, so good.

    
BlackBerry Bold 9790 official pictures

Now, let’s play spot the difference. The Bold 9790 is powered by a different processor and HD video is one of the first things scrapped. To make amends, the phone has what’s probably the best BlackBerry still camera to date. Both the screen size and resolution have taken a cut but we haven’t told you the best part yet. The Bold 9790 looks no worse than the Bold 9900 and costs less.

Now, the BlackBerry Bold 9790 is merely the next-in-rank. It doesn’t have the premium features of the flagship but it makes sense as a potential replacement of the year-old Bold 9780. What it does is add touchscreen to a classic package, aiming to keep the BlackBerry experience up to date.

Key features:

·         BlackBerry OS v7

·         Enhanced email and data security with BlackBerry Internet Service

·         2.45” 16M-color TFT touchscreen of 480 x 360px resolution

·         QWERTY keyboard

·         Quad-band GSM support and quad-band 3G with HSDPA

·         Dual-band Wi-Fi b/g/n connectivity

·         NFC support

·         GPS receiver and BlackBerry maps preloaded, digital compass

·         5 megapixel auto-focus camera, LED flash (surprisingly good camera, too)

·         VGA@30fps video recording

·         1GHz processor

·         768MB RAM

·         8GB of inbuilt storage

·         Optical trackpad

·         microSD card slot (up to 16GB)

·         DivX and XviD video playback support

·         Office document editor

·         3.5 mm audio jack

·         Smart dialing

·         Compact body and solid build quality

Main disadvantages:

·         BlackBerry Internet Service account is a must to enjoy all phone features

·         No HD video recording

·         No front-facing video-call camera

·         No Flash support

·         No FM radio

·         No haptic feedback

·         Super stiff lock button

·         Poor audio output quality

·         Poor loudspeaker performance

·         Wobbly back panel

The 9790 is part of the premium Bold line but comes across as more mindful of budget than your average high-end BlackBerry. It pretty much does the same job as the flagship but charges less and is not without charms of its own.

    
BlackBerry Bold 9790 live pictures

The Indonesian debut of the BlackBerry Bold 9790 reveals something about RIM’s market strategy. It makes sense for the 9790 to stay out of the Bold 9900’s way and focus on emerging markets instead. Not that Indonesia is technically one - it’s one of RIM’s strongholds. On the other hand, the Bold 9790 did need a strong start and a launch at a traditionally loyal market was supposed to give it just that.

Anyway, we’re about to see what a smaller and friendlier - though less powerful - version of the flagship can offer. And to whom. Follow us on the next page where the Bold 9790 feels just as good as the 9900, if not better.

Basic retail package

The BlackBerry Bold 9790 comes with the standard set of accessories. The compact retail box fits a charger, a headset and a microUSB cable. No microSD card is provided. There’s no leather case either - a nice accessory that the Bold 9780 could afford more than a year ago.

  
The retail box

BlackBerry Bold 9790 360-degree spin

The BlackBerry Bold 9790 is tangibly smaller than the Bold 9900 and that’s more than welcome. Yes, users will have to make do with a smaller screen and keyboard, but it’s not a thing to ruin the usability. OK, maybe you won’t get the same level of comfort as with the 9900, but the Bold 9790 is the compact class. It weighs 107g and stands at 110 x 60 x 11.4 mm. The important thing is the touchscreen / QWERTY combo works fine and the phone looks nice and feels solid.

Design and build quality

The BlackBerry Bold 9790 has the same layout of controls and keyboard design as its bigger 9900 sibling. The handset is comfortable to hold and the finish is very pleasant. The Bold 9790 does just fine without the metal accents and fiberglass of the flagship.

To begin with, there’re no glossy bits anywhere on the phone’s body except - inevitably - the screen glass which transitions into a huge Lock button at the top. The chrome frame does come across as a bit cheap but the rest is simple and practical. We especially liked the rubbery finish of the rear.

In terms of layout, it’s the traditional messenger design. The front is almost equally split between the 2.45” touchscreen and the keys. The difference to the Bold 9900 is that this time around all four controls around the trackpad are stand-alone instead of sharing a single piece of plastic. This is probably not as elegant but individual keys are a lot more tactile and solid to press.

  
BlackBerry Bold 9790

The 2.45” touchscreen has HVGA resolution, down from VGA in the premium Bold 9900. Effectively, it’s a pixel density of a little less than 250ppi. The images are reasonably crisp, and the screen looks vibrant and punchy. The sunlight legibility is as good as on the Bold 9900 and we don’t mind the viewing angles either.

   
The BlackBerry Bold 9790 display is quite decent

Here is how the BlackBerry Bold 9790 stacks up against similar devices in our traditional screen brightness test.

Display test

50% brightness

100% brightness

Black, cd/m²

White, cd/m²

Contrast ratio

Black, cd/m²

White, cd/m²

Contrast ratio

LG Optimus Black P970

0.27

332

1228

0.65

749

1161

Apple iPhone 4

0.14

189

1341

0.39

483

1242

HTC Sensation

0.21

173

809

0.61

438

720

Samsung I9000 Galaxy S

0

263

∞

0

395

∞

Sony Ericsson XPERIA Arc

0.03

34

1078

0.33

394

1207

Samsung I9100 Galaxy S II

0

231

∞

0

362

∞

BlackBerry Bold Touch 9900

0.29

403

1376

0.47

618

1304

BlackBerry Bold 9790

0.38

395

1036

0.55

579

1043

BlackBerry Curve 9360

0.40

380

946

0.55

584

1054

Nokia E6

0.52

757

1456

0.57

1004

1631

Above the display we find the earpiece, along with a status LED. Right next to it hide proximity and ambient light sensors.

The QWERTY keyboard of the 9790 has the traditional Bold style of sculpted keys, with metal ridges separating rows, exactly like in the Bold 9900. You can enjoy great tactility even though the keyboard is crammed in a little less space.

    
The QWERTY keyboard is way more comfortable than its size suggests

Many of the keys (not just the numbers) can be assigned speed dial. There is a dedicated currency symbol key and the usual command shortcuts: * locks the keypad and screen while # toggles Silent mode on/off. Numbers share keys with some of the letters and you need to press the alt key to use them at times. The good thing is that whenever the context allows it, the switch is automatic.

The mouthpiece is just below the keyboard.

The usual set of BlackBerry controls are between the keyboard and the screen, either side of the trademark touchpad. The Call, Menu and Back keys are separate buttons with rounded edges and excellent press.

  
The four controls and the trackpad

The left side of the handset features the 3.5mm audio jack. It’s exactly the same layout as in the Bold 9900, though an audio jack usually makes more sense at the top or bottom.

  
The audio jack is on the left

The right side of the BlackBerry Bold 9790 brings no surprises - there we find the volume controls and the single convenience key set by default to start the camera and serve as a shutter key. An important difference for those coming from the Bold 9780, is that the shutter key is not a two-step button.

With the auto-focus camera being a key feature of the Bold 9790 - something for it to wave in the face of the flagship - it’s a shame RIM didn’t bother put a proper shutter key. They must’ve thought the traditional continuous auto-focus is enough.

  
The volume control keys, placed either side the pause/mute button, and the only convenience key are on the right

There is a very small pause/mute button between the volume Up and Down keys. The volume rocker and the camera key are slim pips of black rubber - a bit tricky to press but very easy to locate by touch.

The top of the Bold 9790 as we already mentioned is an extension of the glass covering the screen. There you’ll find the single Lock key. This is the familiar invisible key design but it didn’t quite work as planned this time around. The Lock key is really hard to press to a point where it becomes a real nuisance.

  
The Lock key at the top

The bottom features the microUSB port.

  
The microUSB port at the bottom

A 5 megapixel auto-focus camera lens and a LED flash are the most notable features at the back. They are placed on a black plate made of matte plastic. The loudspeaker grille is squeezed between the said plate and the chrome frame.

  
There’s the usual stuff going on at the back: camera lens, loudspeaker grill and LED flash

The battery cover is all plastic, with a soft, rubbery feel to it, which is practically immune to fingerprints. It is easily opened with a slide. The price for this comfort is imperfect fit, resulting in a minor but irritating wobble.

The 1230 mAh Li-Po battery is quoted at up to 408 hours of stand-by or 5 hours and 20 minutes of talk time. In our battery test the Bold 9790 achieved a score of the average rate of 35 hours in our battery test. This means that if you use your device for an hour each of phone calls, web browsing, and video playback every day, you will have to recharge it every 35 hours.

BlackBerry Bold 9790 battery scorecard

The microSD slot is under the battery cover, but is still hot-swappable. There is a small flap made of blue rubber, which you need to lift to access the card slot. It keeps the memory card in place after that.

  
The hot-swappable microSD card slot and the battery

The BlackBerry Bold 9790 is the usual solid job, although you’re not supposed to get a fancy design and unique finish. It feels solid in the hand, with great grip and good ergonomics. It’s the compact class of the premium Bold line and it seems to hit the right balance. The smaller, friendlier size of the Bold 9790 makes a lot of sense as an alternative to the flagship.

  
The Bold 9790 looks and feels great in hand

The BlackBerry OS is a familiar place to go

The new OS 7 is hardly breaking news, with four BlackBerry reviews behind us already. The BlackBerry Bold 9790 is basically the same package as the Bold Touch 9900. Well, the imaging seems to stand out—with an autofocus still camera for a change—but without HD video. The rest of the software features are a pretty close match, down to the NFC support.

We are going to reexamine OS 7 again in detail, for a complete and comprehensive coverage of the phone and its features. There are sections containing reused text but that’s inevitable given most of the interface is the same. And you can rest assured that all the BlackBerry Bold 9790 specifics are accounted for.

Here goes our traditional video demo to warm you up.

BlackBerry OS 7 tries to look like the QNX-based (PlayBook’s) Tablet OS. The UI icons have been updated to mimic those on the PlayBook, but the rest is pretty much the same - functionality changes are brought to a minimum.

   
BlackBerry OS 7 UI

The status area of the homescreen consists of virtual buttons. Clicking the row allows you to quickly toggle the cellular, Wi-Fi, NFC and Bluetooth radios, as well as quick access to the alarm clock and settings menu.

  
You can manage your wireless connections by selecting the status area and clicking on it

Clicking on the loudspeaker icon at the bottom lets you change the currently active profile, while clicking the magnifying glass on the other side of the homescreen lets you start a universal search. BlackBerry OS 7 introduces voice search, too. There is a small virtual mic button next to the Search bar. Just tap on it, say something and click on done. We tried numerous commands and names and the Bold Touch 9900 recognized them all. By the way, when you are on the homescreen you can initiate a search by just starting to type on your keyboard.

  
Profiles • The universal search works great

If there are any missed events, such as SMS, email or missed calls, they can be quickly accessed by pressing the bar between the search and profile icons on the default screen.

 
Notifications

Below that is the app tray, which consists of several tabs. You can easily hide that completely or pop up one, two or three rows of it with simple swipe gestures.

The first of the app launcher tabs holds all icons. A sideways sweeping gesture changes the currently active tab. The alternatives to the All tab (which holds all your apps in one place) include, Favorite (manually added) and Frequent (auto generated).

   
Frequent, Media and All tabs

There are also Media (which holds media-related apps) and Download (for the apps you have downloaded yourself) sections for even more ways of sorting your apps.

To navigate, there is a trackpad as well as a touchscreen. The trackpad features the usual sharp and precise control. One place where it makes a lot of sense is in listed submenus that pop up as you press the Menu key. Not that they are not thumbable - it’s just that wrong presses are completely ruled out with the trackpad.

Pretty much everything you see is clickable in BlackBerry OS 7 and works the way it’s supposed to. There are still small elements such as the homescreen Search and Profiles icons, which are easier to access via the trackpad rather than the touchscreen.

The important thing to note is that, unlike the flat iOS layout, the Curve 9380 has a menu button to access options that are not visible on the screen. You get used to that pretty quickly though, so in the end the Curve 9380 manages to keep both new and returning users happy. Trackpad and touchscreen complement each other in a natural way.

Phonebook

The BlackBerry Bold 9790 may run on the latest edition of the OS, but its phonebook is the same as before.

   
The phonebook is the same

The contacts get listed alphabetically by first, last name or company and you can pick which of their recent activities get displayed when checking out their profiles. You can easily search for a specific contact by typing in a part of the name so navigation is pretty fast.

Like previous BlackBerry devices, the Bold 9790 lets you put your contacts in one of two categories - personal and business and then filter your phonebook accordingly. There is also grouping available and you can create as many custom groups as you like.

Editing a contact gives you the available fields organized in several sub-groups. You can also replicate some of the fields and add custom ones easily so it’s all cool.

   
Editing Dexter’s contact info

Telephony has both voice and smart dial

The BlackBerry Bold 9790 in-call performance was as good as we’ve come to expect from the Canadians. No voice drops or reception issues were experienced.

What gives the Bold 9790 some extra points however is the Smart dial feature. Indeed that was our preferred way of locating contacts on the handset - you just press a few keys straight from the homescreen and a list of names that contain them appears on the screen. There’s no unpleasant delay or anything like that.

You can then select them with the trackpad or tap directly on the contact to initiate a call.

 
The in-call screen

Voice Dial is also available via the Universal Voice Search. It works like a charm too.

The BlackBerry Bold 9790 scored a Below Average mark in our traditional loudspeaker test, so you can tell is among the questest phones we’ve tested – especially for a BlackBerry, it’s an unusual result.

Speakerphone test

Voice, dB

Pink noise/ Music, dB

Ringing phone, dB

Overal score

BlackBerry Bold 9790

61.3

60.8

63.7

Below average

Nokia E6

68.8

61.5

70.7

Average

BlackBerry Curve 9360

69.2

65.9

71.0

Average

Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro

67.7

66.2

75.

Good

BlackBerry Bold 9900

71.0

72.7

76.3

Very Good

HTC Desire Z

72.7

72.7

82.5

Very Good

LG Optimus One P500

77.1

74.5

77.9

Excellent

Messaging runs on BIS subscription only

The BlackBerry Bold 9790 handles all kinds of messages through its nicely organized apps. You get SMS, MMS and email support out of the box and there are also a few IM apps preinstalled.

  
Checking out the messaging menu

Of course, much like with the other BlackBerry handsets, a BIS account is a must if you want to use email on the Bold 9900. And while we understand the advantages of the BlackBerry internet service, it would have been nice to give users some kind of alternative.

   
The Email client

And we shouldn’t forget that not every carrier worldwide is offering BIS, which reduces the Bold 9790’s reach. Still if you do get a subscription you can check out the nicely organized and easily customizable client, which has deservedly earned itself a good reputation over the years.

  
Reading an email

Photos can be resized for sending, emails can be flagged and filtered by request, color and status, while folders can be created, edited and deleted from the device itself.

The message editor, which looks identical for all types of messages, is pretty simple to use and packs a neat interface. There is a counter at the top indicating the remaining characters to 160, and another one showing the number of parts the message will break down into for sending. That one turns into a data counter if you are creating an MMS or email.

  
Sending Dexter a message with the Bold 9790

Entering recipients is as quick and convenient as it gets. You just start typing and the smart-dialing kicks in, giving you a list of contacts containing the typed letters.

All that combined with the comfy keyboard makes the Bold 9790 pretty great at the task it was meant to perform: entering text. Some added visual effects would be welcome, but getting the job done is what really matters here.

Old, but feature-rich music player

In OS 7 RIM has refreshed the Music Player icons, but that’s really all they did. It’s still pretty conservatively styled, but most functionality is there, and has been since BlackBerry OS 5.

There’s quick searching of tracks and automatic sorting by artist, album and genre. Creating custom playlists is also supported.

   
Browsing your tracks in the music player

Album art is on the list of included features too, along with equalizer presets and the single track repeat option.

   
The now playing screen and the available settings

Quite naturally, the player can also be minimized to play in the background. You can then go back to it via the task manager or the main menu. Pausing it by hitting the mute button is also possible, but unfortunately, there’s no indication of the currently playing song on the home screen.

Audio quality disappoints

Last time we had a BlackBerry smartphone for an audio quality test, we were left quite disappointed with its performance, so we were hoping that the Bold 9790 will help bring things back to the right track. Unfortunately, the Bold 9790 did even worse, putting up arguably the worst performance we have seen in the past few months.

Even the active external amplifier part of our test wasn’t a particularly smooth ride for the Bold 9790. Normally, we are used to seeing great scores all over the field here, but with RIM’s latest we were treated to extremely high stereo crosstalk, above average distortion levels and sub-optimal frequency response. Volume levels were pretty low, too, so there was very little for us to be happy about here.

Things got only slightly worse when we plugged in a pair of headphones, but that’s hardly any consolation. The main difference was the spike in total harmonic distortion and the volume levels which got even lower. Audiophiles should certainly pick another smartphone.

Test

Frequency response

Noise level

Dynamic range

THD

IMD + Noise

Stereo crosstalk

BlackBerry Bold 9790

+0.16, -0.97

-89.4

89.3

0.112

0.321

-32.7

BlackBerry Bold 9790 (headphones attached)

+0.15, -0.92

-88.9

88.9

0.682

0.368

-34.0

BlackBerry Curve 9380

+0.09, -1.07

-85.8

84.9

0.0056

0.150

-80.3

BlackBerry Curve 9380 (headphones attached)

+0.11, -1.04

-86.3

85.2

9.048

3.496

-41.0

BlackBerry Curve 9360

+0.09, -1.08

-85.9

84.2

0.0062

0.189

-82.1

BlackBerry Curve 9360 (headphones attached)

+0.12, -0.98

-85.6

84.0

0.339

0.298

-38.0

BlackBerry Torch 9860

+0.14, -0.62

-86.8

88.2

0.011

0.110

-86.5

BlackBerry Torch 9860(headphones attached)

+0.15, -0.57

-86.7

88.3

0.019

0.169

-36.8

BlackBerry Bold 9780

+0.26, -3.61

-89.7

87.9

0.012

0.021

-89.4

BlackBerry Bold 9780 (headphones attached)

+0.24, -4.87

-89.5

87.5

0.0093

0.271

-55.9

Apple iPhone 4

+0.01, -0.07

-90.1

90.0

0.0068

0.012

-89.6

Apple iPhone 4 (headphones attached)

+0.01, -0.07

-90.4

90.4

0.0036

0.092

-68.4

 
BlackBerry Bold 9790 frequency response

You can learn more about the whole testing process here.

Very good video player, understands DivX/XviD, lacks AC3 support

With so many better options out there, the Bold 9790 is hardly a device you will consider if watching videos is your priority. Still it does a great job, so you might want to add that to the features list when you go out shopping for a new phone.

  
The video player interface is almost identical to the music player

The landscape screen is a good start, while the video player itself isn’t bad either. Its styling might not be too impressive, but the functionality is mostly there.

There are the usual playback controls when you hit a key or tap on the screen plus a dedicated fit/zoom to screen option.

   
The video playback screen and some of the available options

The Bold 9790 video player promises to support DivX, XviD, H.264/MPEG-4 and WMV videos up to 720p resolution. It did manage to play all of the DivX files we threw at it. WMV, MOV and MP4 files up to 720p were no problem either, but not all the XviD ones made it. Sometimes we had no audio due to the lack of AC3 codec support.

The general performance here is decent, and is probably more than most BlackBerry-purchasing users will ever need.

Image gallery is nothing impressive

The image gallery has no changes since the OS 6, so it should be familiar to all the BlackBerry users already.

Images can be browsed in grid mode or viewed as a standard list. There’s searching by name here too, but we don’t generally remember the names of our camera snaps, so we won’t count that as an extra.

   
The gallery

Photos can only be browsed in landscape mode or you can manually rotate them. Unfortunately the Bold 9790 has no built-in accelerometer to provide automatic rotation.

You can skip to the next photo without returning to the gallery – you just flick your finger over the trackpad or do a finger swipe on the screen and you are done.

  
Browsing images

Checking an image’s properties, going into zoom mode as well as starting a slide show are all a menu key click away. Setting one of your images as a homescreen wallpaper is available too.

Picture browsing is pretty fast and so are zooming and panning. We would have preferred if the volume rocker could also be used for zooming, but the gallery is generally pretty good.

The best BlackBerry camera to date

The BlackBerry Bold 9790 comes with a 5 megapixel camera which is still the highest resolution you can get from a RIM smartphone. This time though, the camera is an auto-focus one.

The camera comes with the same unattractive interface and a relatively low number of customizable settings. What’s even worse is that the bar at the bottom covers a part of the frame, making proper framing a really hard task.

   
The Bold 9790 camera interface

The camera key is also uncomfortable, considering that you do most of your shooting with the Bold Touch 9900 in portrait mode. Still you can always use the trackpad or the dedicated virtual key on the screen.

Geo-tagging, flash and scenes can be accessed straight from the viewfinder and those are just about the only options you get with the Bold 9790. The only other thing you can customize is image resolution, which is located in the advanced settings menu.

There are no settings for exposure compensation, white balance, ISO or anything like that. There is face detection, but that is a dedicated scene, rather than a separate setting.

The image quality of the BlackBerry Bold 9790 is excellent - there is plenty of resolved detail, lively and accurate colors, good contrast and no defects of any kind. Although the noise levels are quite high, they are still tolerable. Frankly this is the best image quality we’ve seen from a BlackBerry so far.

Here are several samples so you can judge the image quality for yourself.

   
   
BlackBerry Bold 9790 camera sample photos

Photo quality comparison

We’ve also added the BlackBerry Bold 9790 to the database of our Photo Compare Tool. As you can see, the Bold 9790 is an excellent performer in the 5 megapixel class, doing awesome in all three charts.

  
BlackBerry Bold 9790 in the Photo Compare Tool

Great VGA video recording, continuous auto-focus helps too

BlackBerry Bold 9790, despite the capable hardware, is limited up to VGA recording at 30 fps. The videos are stored into a 3GP container.

The one thing we were really impressed with was the continuous auto-focus for the camcorder. It works the way we love it – it refocuses only when needed instead of constantly re-focusing as you pan around.

   
Camcorder UI

The video quality is great too – the frame rate is steady and high, the resolved detail is probably the best we’ve seen from a VGA camcorder. The noise level is tolerable, the colors accurate and the contrast is fine too. We couldn’t possibly want more.

Here’s a VGA video sample from the Bold 9790 camera. And here is another 30s long sample.

Connectivity has NFC

The BlackBerry Bold 9790 is giving you a broad range of connectivity options, as you would expect from a modern day smartphone.

The quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support secures global roaming and the quad-band 3G with 7.2Mbps HSDPA and 5.76Mbps HSUPA gives you the extra speed. The dual-band Wi-Fi is also nice addition with an easily customizable Wi-Fi manager taking care of all the connections. Wi-Fi hotspot is also available. Bluetooth with A2DP support rounds off the list of wireless connectivity options.

The BlackBerry Bold 9790 is also equipped with a standard microUSB port that is enabled for both data connections and charging. Once connected, you can sync your data with the BlackBerry Desktop Software. It allows you to sync your iTunes collection, save for the files that have DRM.

The Bold 9790 is also equipped with NFC capabilities, which allow you to connect it to other NFC-enabled devices and NFC accessories as well as read NFC tags.

Finally, you have the option to use your microSD memory card slot for file transfers.

Good browsing experience

The web browser on the BlackBerry Bold 9790 is a nice improvement for the BB platform. It is comparably fast and responsive; supporting multi-touch zooming, text selection, text reflow, mouse cursor, etc. The only thing really missing is Flash support.

   
The Bold 9790 web browser is great

Now it does have its woes, we’ll give it that. Based on Apple’s WebKit engine and using a similar caching system as the iPhone, the new BB browser reacts surprisingly like the one on the iPhone 4. Unfortunately, its performance is not quite the same.

You see, both browsers cache the already rendered page thus they show users a texture, rather than a real page. This way you get great performance while panning or interacting with the page.

When you zoom in, the browser is not ready with the new texture, so it simply zooms in the already rendered one, effectively upsizing it, which makes both the text and images look blurry.

Now here’s where the difference in performance of the iPhone 4 and the BlackBerry Bold 9790 shows up. When you zoom in on a portion of text, on the BlackBerry, it takes a second or two to clear up the hazy cached image of the text, while on the iPhone 4 that’s an instantaneous action.

So, you got speed in panning and scrolling, even in zooming because the texture is quick to refresh rather than to zoom on a heavy page, but you get little annoying refresh moments on zooming.

Now that’s something you won’t see on a stock Android browser because the fonts there are rendered in real time. But the heavier the page is on Android, the longer the refresh time.

Unfortunately, again unlike the stock Android browser, the text reflow works only once - when the text is out-zoomed and you double tap on it. The text reflow stops working when you zoom in even more or turn the phone in landscape mode. The iPhone 4 web browser works the same way.

But we won’t bore you to death with these little nitpickings. The BlackBerry Bold 9790 web browser is a fast and modern piece of software, it renders pages nicely almost like a desktop browser and it will always get the job done unless you’re reaching for some Flash content.

If you decide to use the trackpad for navigation instead of the touchscreen, you’ll get a virtual mouse cursor and automatic panning and scrolling when you reach the end of the screen.

   
Managing bookmarks, tabs and some of the available options

Text reflow works like a charm, just tap twice on the text you want to zoom and reflow.

Except for the missing Flash support, the handset provides a solid browsing experience.

Rich organizing skills

True to its business objectives, the Bold 9790 has superb time-management capabilities. Its organizer includes a decent set of applications and although some of them are hardly lookers, their usability cannot be called into question.

The calendar has monthly, weekly and daily view modes and allows easily customizable events to be set up. We have to admit that some event presets would have been useful, but sadly the device fails to provide them. Calendar entries can be forwarded and conference call information can be merged into the Calendar.

   
The BlackBerry Bold 9790 organizer centerpiece – the calendar

The phone comes with the full version of Quick Office pre-installed, allowing it to view all kind of documents (incl. PDF) and edit Word, Excel or PowerPoint files.

   
Both document viewing and editing is supported out of the box

The organizer package also includes a calculator with built-in unit-converter, as well as a voice recorder and a Notes application. A handy To-do manager allows you to set-up and organize your upcoming tasks.

  
The calculator comes with a built-in unit converter

The alarm application has only one alarm slot and fails to impress. It’s quick to turn on but most of its settings can only be adjusted from the settings menu. There you can change the tone, snooze time and the volume as well as the vibration intensity. Given the slot limitation though, getting an alternative alarm clock app from BlackBerry App World seems like the right thing to do.

   
The BlackBerry OS 7 still offers just one alarm slot

The BlackBerry Bold 9790 comes with a stopwatch and a timer. Both are accessed from the clock application and have the usual functionality.

  
There’s a stopwatch and a timer

The clock also offers a bedside mode that turns off the status LED (unless you set it otherwise) and displays a large clock on the screen.

There are also a Password Keeper app, Voice Recorder, Memos and Tasks app to store your passwords, voice memos, text memos and tasks.

   
Voice Recorder • Memos • Tasks

Finally, the BlackBerry Bold 9790 comes preinstalled with Facebook and Twitter applications to help you in your social life. You also get the native Social Feeds app that gathers all of your Facebook and Twitter updates in one place.

   
Facebook app • Social Feeds native app

BlackBerry App World is where the apps come from

The BlackBerry App World is RIM’s application distribution solution. Quite well organized, it accepts payment by credit card or PayPal.

Managing your apps can be done through your computer or directly from the device itself. There are enough categories and a search box to make searching easier.

   
There BlackBerry App World mobile client

There’s a basic filtering system as well - it allows you to check out the highest rated free and paid applications, as well as the newest titles. In general there’s hardly much to complain about the BlackBerry App world interface, it provides a pretty solid user experience.

At just over 14500 apps, 3500 games and 12000 themes, the number of applications isn’t as impressive as in the App Store or the Android Market, and to make matters worse only a small fraction of the titles are actually free (though some of the paid apps offer free trials).

BlackBerry Maps requires BIS fuel too

As one would expect nowadays, the BlackBerry Bold 9790 is equipped with a built-in GPS with A-GPS support. For navigation you get BlackBerry Maps preinstalled. Unfortunately it is yet another application that only works with a BlackBerry internet plan activated, and the only navigation option you get is directions.

  
BlackBerry Maps

To get directions you can enter an address straight from your phonebook and you can also save your favorite spots so you don’t have to type them in every time.

  
Getting directions

Also, addresses that are included in messages are automatically detected and can be displayed on the map at the expense of a few clicks. Map data has also been updated, including more cities than ever. We can still think of at least several apps with more detailed maps, but let’s not get too picky here.

BlackBerry Maps also allows you to send your location to anyone via email or SMS, and that rounds off a decent but certainly not spectacular application.

Final words

The question on everyone’s mind must be how the Bold 9790 will coexist with the Bold 9900. And they’re not asking nicely either. People are fuming in the comments and most of them seem to see no point in having two so very similar handsets released fairly soon after one another.

We don’t pretend to know how RIM think, but we guess we can see some of their reasoning. Let’s look at the facts. It’s six months sharp between the release of both phones. Even more, if you acknowledge that the Bold 9790 is only now starting to be available on a broader scale.

What it means is the flagship’s been paid due respect. The Bold 9900 enjoyed its well-deserved head start. It had its place in the spotlight as the carrier of the new BlackBerry OS 7, the first of the family to cross the 1GHz clock mark and the first to have a VGA screen.

 
BlackBerry Bold Touch 9900

The Bold 9790 has no firsts on its resume but it’s not applying for the same jobs anyway. Maybe RIM needed something to play against the youthful HTC ChaCha? Or something that’s closer to the Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro’s price range?

  
HTC ChaCha • Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro

Even the Nokia E6 must’ve been on their list too. It’s an excellent hardware package, complete with all the Bold Touch 9900 trimmings. Now available with Symbian Belle, it’s a hard one to beat, especially considering that its price has long settled at a level that’s nearly impossible for a premium BlackBerry to match.

 
Nokia E6

So, we’ve come to that after all. Price is the biggest thing the Bold 9790 has in its favor. It’s the affordable option in the premium line. One that’s not supposed to compete with the flagship but help RIM widen their demographic and get a foothold in emerging markets.

The 9790 is a natural upgrade from the Bold 9780 but you can throw in a few Curves there as well for flavor. It should be a good option too for loyal RIM users who fancy a transition to touchscreen but think the Torch line is taking it too far.

The Bold 9790 is a classic BlackBerry package. Not the kind of classic you need to be old enough to appreciate. A loyal Blackberry user perhaps…

Introduction

Apple gave the world the tablet. Samsung gave the world a choice. It’s not as simple of course as narrowing it down to an iPad vs. a Galaxy Tab. Nearly every phone maker out there has a tablet to offer. But the fact is that whatever size you want and whatever screen you like - Samsung most likely have it.

     
Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus official pictures

Samsung have tablets stretching from 7 to 10.1 inches of screen diagonal. And these are either Super AMOLEDS or LCDs with the resolution ranging from WSVGA (600 x 1024) to well above HD. There are 3G and Wi-Fi enabled combos or Wi-Fi only versions. Users can choose between 16/32/64 GB of inbuilt storage. With all that variety on offer, it was obviously time to go back to where it all started.

If anyone needed a refresh, it would be the original Samsung P1000 Galaxy Tab. A single-core powered Froyo-running tablet has little left to offer and the 7.0 Plus does well to send it into retirement. The slimmer and lighter upgrade more than doubles the processing power and runs the latest tablet-tailored version of Android, Honeycomb 3.2. .

The Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus is one of the two tablets of the house (along with the Galaxy Tab 7.7) to use Samsung’s very own Exynos chipset - a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor and Mali-400MP graphics. As you are about to see, this SoC does quite well in the benchmarks, beating the NVIDIA Tegra2 competitors on almost every count.

Key features

• 7.0” 16M-color PLS TFT capacitive touchscreen of WSVGA resolution (1024 x 600 pixels)
• Weighs 345 g
• Exynos chipset: Dual-core 1.2GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor; 1GB of RAM; Mali-400MP GPU
• Android 3.2 Honeycomb with TouchWiz UX UI
• Quad-band GPRS/EDGE and tri-band 3G with HSPA connectivity (HSDPA, 21 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps)
• Support for voice calls, texts and MMS
• 16/32 GB of built-in memory
• 3.2 MP autofocus camera, 2048x1536 pixels, LED flash, geotagging
• 2.0 MP front-facing camera; native video calls
• 720p HD video recording @ 30 fps
• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi Direct, dual-band, Wi-Fi hotspot
• Stereo Bluetooth v3.0
• HDMI TV-out (adapter required), USB host (adapter required)
• microSD card slot
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• Adobe Flash 11 support
• GPS with A-GPS support; digital compass
• 1080p DivX/XviD/MKV video support with subtitles
• Accelerometer and proximity sensor; three-axis Gyroscope sensor
• Polaris office document editor preinstalled
• Infrared port, Peel Smart Remote app preloaded
• 4000 mAh Li-Po rechargeable battery

Main disadvantages

• Smallest screen with the lowest resolution in the Samsung tablet lineup
• Has a non-replaceable battery
• Uses a proprietary 30-pin connector port for charging and connectivity
• One of the lowest capacity batteries in the range

7” is the compact class in tablets and you can reasonably expect it to be targeting the budget-conscious. With that in mind, we guess we cannot hold it against the Samsung P6200 Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus that it sticks with the screen resolution of its predecessor. It’s worth noting though that the 7.0 Plus has the improved PLS variety of TFT displays. What’s more, the main 7” competitors - HTC Flyer, BlackBerry Playbook - have the same WSVGA resolution.

   
 
Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus live pictures

On the other hand, Samsung seem to have a superior alternative in the Galaxy Tab 7.7. It’s powered by the same Exynos chipset - clocked higher - but boasts a WXGA Super AMOLED screen in a gorgeously slim body. All that beauty costs a small fortune though and gives the seven-inch Samsung tablet a space to fill as the affordable option in the tablet line.

But there’s still a whole review to go before we can call the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus value for money. Let’s get busy then, shall we? The hardware inspection starts right after the break.

Unboxing the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus

The retail package of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus brings no surprises. The box holds the device itself, along with a USB cable, a two-piece charger and a set of earphones.

  
Taking a peek inside the box

Design and build quality

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus gets rid of the angular sides of its predecessor to get more than 2mm slimmer. Overall, it trades the solid, blocky feel of a BlackBerry Playbook with the pretty much uniform design of tapered edges closing around the front, as seen in the Apple iPads and the bigger Samsung tablets.

Unlike its bigger siblings though - the Galaxy Tab 8.9 and the Galaxy Tab 10.1 - the 7.0 Plus is designed with portrait use in mind. The earpiece is on top where it belongs, while the charging port is on a short side, right under the Samsung logo. Of course, four-way screen rotation lets you use the tablet however you like, but portrait seems to be the default orientation.

By comparison, the bigger Samsung tablets don’t have a logo anywhere on the front. Another thing is the front camera - in the 7.0 plus it’s in the top right corner, rather than being centrally placed on one of the long sides. Being in the corner, it can be used in both orientations – portrait and landscape.

In portrait position, the 3.5mm audio jack is on top just like in phones but this makes little sense in a tablet. You’re not gonna put it in a pocket and listen to music.

Then we get to the earpiece of course. Full support for telephony is nothing new on Samsung tablets but the 7.0 Plus can actually be used as a phone - and we don’t mean speakerphone or headset use. You can hold it to your face and talk as if it were just another handset. Just make sure there’s no one around to make laugh of you.

All screen up front, the back of the Tab 7.0 Plus is made entirely of glossy plastic, but the white paintjob does well to hide smudges. Black screen bezel, white back and a silver frame running along the sides - the styling of the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus is clean and simple. Tablets usually play it safe and don’t get too carried away with the design. The Tab 7.0 Plus is good-looking but portability and comfortable hold are obviously its top priorities.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus is built around a 7.0” PLS LCD screen with a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels. Although obviously not the best screen to find on a Samsung slate, you can expect reasonably good image quality. The 7.0 Plus cannot match the WXGA resolution of its bigger siblings or the Super AMOLED screen of the Galaxy Tab 7.7 but the main competition isn’t doing a lot better either. The Blackberry Playbook and the HTC Flyer offer the same size and display resolution.

The 7.0 Plus has a rather bright display with colors and contrast looking good indoors. There’s a dedicated picture mode setting that lets you boost or tone down the saturation and contrast. As far as the outdoor visibility is concerned, it’s passable even if colors do get a bit washed out. There is no chance you lose sight of what’s happening on the screen, so no worries there.

Display test50% brightness100% brightnessBlack, cd/m²White, cd/m²Contrast ratioBlack, cd/m²White, cd/m²Contrast ratioSamsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus0.1719611410.344241236Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.10.312578260.55502915HTC Flyer0.181699210.414091002Motorola XOOM0.1221618530.214362041LG Optimus Pad0.191708890.57458811Apple iPad 20.181679250.55429775Apple iPad0.181788340.53410776

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus has no hardware controls at the front – it doesn’t need any with Honeycomb inside. That makes it easily distinct from the original, which has four capacitive controls below the screen. Here, all you get is the front camera and an earpiece.

 
The 7” PLS TFT display on the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus

At the top we find the 3.5mm audio jack and the secondary microphone used for stereo audio in camcorder mode. The other one is at the bottom and you are warned upon launch of the camcorder app against covering the microphones.

  
The top of the slate with the audio jack and one of the mics

Moving on to the bottom, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus looks much like an iPad. It uses a proprietary 30-pin connector for charging and connectivity. The two speakers are on either side of that port. Not quite the stereo speaker layout if you ask us - and no, the earpiece doesn’t get involved in video playback.

  
The bottom has the speakers, the primary mic and the connectivity port

Both the USB host and HDMI TV-out require adapters to work and they are not part of the standard package. An SD card reader is another optional accessory, which you can purchase separately. Be warned that you’ll need a power cable to use the HDMI TV-out.

   
USB host adapter • SD card reader • HDMI adapter

Aesthetically, a single connectivity port is the preferred solution, but still we prefer the separate USB and HDMI ports because they use standard cables, which are easier to come across.

The long sides of the slate accommodate lots of stuff. On the left you can find the SIM compartment and microSD slot, both sealed with plastic lids. The right side features the Power/Lock button, the thin volume rocker and the infrared port. The latter is used by the preloaded Peel Smart Remote app to turn the tablet into a giant universal remote of sorts.

    
The SIM and microSD slots on the left • The volume rocker, power/lock key and the infrared port on the right

The journey ends at the white back of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus - we should note there’s a model finished in black too. Anyway, the 3.15 megapixel camera comes with an LED flash, which will probably make better use as a torch than provide serious shooting assistance. Then again, nobody buys a tablet for its imaging capabilities.

  
The all-white back of the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus is powered by a 4000 mAh Li-Ion battery. Along with the screen resolution, it’s one of the things that remained unchanged since the original.

The battery of the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus achieved a score of the average rate of 63 hours in our battery test. This means that if you use your device for an hour each of phone calls, web browsing, and video playback every day, you will have to recharge it every 63 hours.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus battery scorecard

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus is well built and feels strong but not heavy in hand. It’s easy to handle and that’s why people would go for a 7” tablet in the first place. The 7.0 Plus is a welcome upgrade over the original Samsung Galaxy Tab. The Honeycomb 3.2 software is a good enough motivation but the bump in processing power is not to be underestimated either. For one, the 7.0 Plus won’t feel out of depth around dual core competitors but Samsung’s own Exynos SoC gives its media credentials a serious boost.

The screen resolution is the lowest in the Samsung tablet lineup but on par with the main competitors. The phone capabilities are an obvious advantage.

   
 

HoneyWiz, is it?

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus is running the latest Android build for tablets, Honeycomb 3.2. It is skinned with Samsung’s proprietary TouchWiz UI like all the recent Samsung tablets. The TouchWiz additions are nice, but you shouldn’t expect changes to run as deep as on the company’s smartphones. These are just some custom touches that should help the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus stand out in the Honeycomb crowd.

Before we begin here is a video demo of the user interface in action.

Designed from the ground up for tablet use, the Honeycomb interface gets rid of the typical Android controls we’ve seen in smartphones. The navigation keys are in the bottom left corner of the homescreen: Back, Home and Task switcher (plus a screenshot key courtesy of TouchWiz). The search shortcut is in the top left, the app drawer in the top right and finally, but certainly not least importantly, the notification area with quick toggles in the lower right corner.

The taskbar at the bottom is no longer static. A tap on the arrow flips it to its side to reveal eight shortcuts. Clicking on any of them opens a widget that you are free to move around the screen and it stays on top of everything until you close it or you open its full-screen app.

   
TouchWiz customizations are visible right from the homescreen

All the taskbar-docked shortcuts called mini-apps are proprietary Samsung stuff. They include the in-house task manager, phone and messaging widgets, world clock and the PenMemo app, as well as a calendar, calculator and a music player. Most of the functionality is overlapping anyway so you might not need to go there too often.

   
   
The TouchWiz docked apps

The notification area has the connectivity toggles that we’ve come to know from the smartphone edition of TouchWiz. They offer more functionality than the stock Honeycomb quick settings - including GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth controls - which saves you the extra effort of entering the extended settings menu. The rest of the toggles are Notifications, Sound, Auto-rotation and Flight mode.

   
The notification area has been improved too • the full-screen Weather app

The icons it the bottom left corner also have a new addition. We don’t know how many people other than reviewers and developers will find the new screenshot button useful, but it doesn’t hurt having it.

The functionality of the other buttons has remained unchanged – back, home and task switcher is what you get with stock Honeycomb.

   
The familiar Honeycomb UI

The search shortcuts (voice and text) are in the top left corner of the homescreen, while the app launcher and homescreen edit buttons stay in the top right. In-betweenis the final change brought by Samsung – the dots indicating the number of available homescreen panes and the current selection (and they are clickable for quick navigation).

   
Search is here and is as useful as always

The app launcher has seen no modifications at all, but there are plenty of preinstalled apps that cannot be found on other tablets – Social Hub, Music hub, Pulse reader, AllShare, Polaris Office, Video player and My files. Some of the other apps like the music player and the calendar have been modified as well.

  
There are more preinstalled apps this time

We ran the traditional Android benchmarks on the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus (Exynos, dual-core Cortex-A9 1.2GHz, Mali-400MP GPU). Obviously, processing power is the last thing to worry about in this tablet. It can easily match, and even beat, most of the current crop of droid flagships (smartphones and tablets). You can rest assured you’ll be getting all the performance you need. There are only two gadgets proven to outdo the Tab 7.0 Plus in some tests: Samsung’s own Galaxy Nexus (TI OMAP 4460, dual-core Cortex-A9 1.2GHz, PowerVR SGX540 GPU, Android Ice Cream Sandwich) and the Galaxy Note (Exynos, dual-core Cortex-A9 1.4GHz, Mali-400MP GPU, Android Gingerbread). We should probably put the Galaxy Tab 7.7 in there too but not before we’ve seen and tested a market-ready unit.

 

Phonebook

Contact management is fairly straightforward on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus. Your contacts get automatically synced with your Google account unless you explicitly disable this.

The larger screen has allowed some modifications that reduce the needed clicks for some tasks and thus improve usability. Samsung also changed some plain Honeycomb icons with TouchWiz ones, but nothing beyond that.

  
The Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus contact manager

You get your contacts listed by either first or last name in the left part of the screen, while the details of the currently selected contact appear on the right. There is a handy search field on the top right corner as well as a shortcut for adding a new contact or deleting the selected one.

 
Search the contacts

The advanced menu offers a few more options - edit contact, import/export, join with another contact, send or print a namecard, get friends via social services, etc.

Editing a single contact is done via a popup window, where you the available fields organized in groups, with plus and minus signs on the right that let you remove or duplicate details.

  
Edit a contact

There’s also an Add another field button at the bottom that lets you insert a field that hasn’t existed so far for the specific contact.

Custom field names aren’t available at this stage.

There is one more thing worth mentioning - for every contact you get two tabs - the standard Info one we already talked about and History. The latter shows all the latest activity with this contact (emails, messages, etc.).

  
The Info and History tabs

Telephony has everything - does voice and video calls

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus had great in-call quality and reception. Wherever you use a headset or the embedded earpiece the sound is crisp and loud.

The dialer and call log have been integrated into the phonebook, each with a separate tab. Smart Dial is available and works like a charm – it searches names and numbers simultaneously.

   
Smart dial works like a charm • the in-call screen

Voice dialing is also available – all you need to do is press the virtual button at the bottom at the top left corner of the homescreen and speak your command (e.g. “call Dexter” or “text Dexter”).

Thanks to the proximity sensor, your screen will automatically turn off during a call. The available options during a call include taking a note, using the keypad, muting, holding the call or adding another call to this conversation.

The call log is the tab next to the dial pad. It displays all the dialed, received and missed calls in one list sorting your call history by contacts.

The only disappointment came when we ran our traditional loudspeaker test on the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus. The slate was well Below Average, suggesting that it would be smart to keep a close eye on it in noisier environments. You can find more about the test itself here.

Speakerphone testVoice, dBPink noise/Music, dBRingingphone, dBOverall scoreSamsung Galaxy Note N700062.961.768.0Below averageSamsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus66.265.765.9Below averageSamsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 3G66.266.070.9AverageSamsung I9100 Galaxy S II70.066.675.7GoodMotorola XOOM74.066.678.9Very GoodHTC Desire76.675.784.6Excellent

Messaging

The messaging app layout is similar with the phonebook - on the left you get contacts, on the right are the conversations.

There’s an application-specific search that lets you quickly find a given message among all your stored SMS and MMS.

   
Texting Dexter on the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus

To add message recipients, just start typing the corresponding name or number and choose from the contacts offered.

When you add multimedia content to the message, it is automatically transformed into an MMS. You can either quickly add a photo or an audio file to go with the text or compose an MMS using all the available features (like multiple slides, slide timing, layout, etc.). The multiple slides are all shown inside the compose box.

Two email clients

The Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus comes with two optimized email applications out of the box – one for your Gmail and one to use with any POP3/IMAP account.

They both have a split-screen interface. Initially, your folders are listed on the left and the emails in the currently selected one appear on the right. Upon clicking on a single email the list of emails moves to the left tab while the body of the selected one pops up on the right.

   
The default email client

Bulk actions are supported too, so you will easily manage mailboxes that get tons of messages.

You can set up the automatic email retrieval interval or you can disable that completely and check mail manually.

There’s also a handy setting that makes your client automatically download attachments only when you are connected over Wi-Fi.

   
The Gmail app

It’s basically the same excellent treatment you get on Android smartphones with a few further optimizations permitted by the large screen and higher resolution.

 
Digging into the settings menu

Writing emails is reasonably comfortable with the virtual QWERTY keyboard occupying about half of the screen. Now this is no match for a hardware keyboard, but you won’t notice any big difference when handling short emails.

In case the keyboard is too big for you, there is a dedicated virtual key on its top left, which will shrink it a bit. The keys become smaller and thinner, giving you even more working space. It’s still comfy enough to type and we actually like this design better.

   
The big and small keyboards • handwriting is also supported

There’s auto correction and auto capitalization available and you can enable sounds on key presses. There’s haptic feedback too - the slate vibrates exactly where you’ve tapped.

Sweet Honeycomb gallery

The Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus gallery is a pretty standard Android affair in terms of functionality, but it has too been tweaked to feel more comfortable on the large screen. Naturally, your Picasa web albums are automatically synced with your tablet.

  
The Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus image gallery is performing nicely

You can sort your images by album, date, location or tag. You can also choose between displaying images, videos or both.

  
Sorting and filtering your images

The upper right corner holds the sorting options, shortcuts to the camera, image details or extra settings (like make available offline for Picasa albums).

When you are browsing a specific album/date/location/tag the shortcuts change a bit – the extra settings shortcut is replaced by a button that starts a slide show. The icon in the very top left corner becomes active and clicking it brings you back to the full gallery view.

   
Checking out a single image

Quite expectedly, the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus gallery shows the images in full resolution so you can see the finest available detail in your images. If you want to zoom precisely to 100% just use the double tap gesture. If you feel like it you can zoom in even further - up to 200%, though we can’t quite see why you would need to.

 
Image details can be checked from the tablet itself

There is one more fancy way to zoom in and out, but we are not sure if it is quite handy. Just put your thumbs (any two fingers will do - it’s just that it only feels natural with thumbs) on a picture and tilt the tablet up or down and the photo will start zooming in and out.

The accelerometer-based trick is available here too - in the default view, albums with more than one photo inside have a cool 3D shadow effect when you tilt the slate.

 
The cool 3D effect activated by the accelerometer

TouchWiz-ed music interface

Samsung have blessed the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus music player with the familiar TouchWiz custom interface, which we find more functional than the stock Android one, even if it lacks the cover-flow-like browsing.

You can now sort your tracks by album, artist, song, genre, folders, composer or year. Playlists are here too and there are automatically generated most played and recently added lists. Naturally, there’s also a search option, which will be greatly appreciated by those with large music collections. It gets activated by pressing the magnifying glass icon in the upper right corner.

   
The home-baked music player

When you select a specific album (or a group of tracks based on any filter) the interface splits into three screens - the filters on the left, the album in the middle and the now playing track on the right.

Tapping on the song name brings you to a dedicated now playing screen where you have a repeat (one or all) and shuffle options as well as a setting to add the currently playing track to favorites.

   
The now playing interface • equalizers

Equalizers are available too, along with various sound effects like concert hall, music clarity etc.

Finally, if there is a track playing in background a dedicated row appears in the notification area showing its name along with the usual music shortcuts (something missing on the Honeycomb 3.1 version on the bigger Galaxy Tabs). There is also an option to shut down the music player directly from this menu.

The best video player up to date

Stock Android Honeycomb doesn’t have a dedicated video player app but Samsung always provides one of their own for the Galaxy Tabs and so it made its way to the Tab 7.0 Plus. Allowing for thumbnail, list and folder view modes, it’s a pretty functional application. There’s also searching so even if you fill that ample storage with short clips you should be able to find the one you need.

The Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus supports DivX/XviD/MKV files out of the box. Performance with higher-res videos is great – it played ALL videos up to 1080p (including) like a champ - smoothly and hassle-free. Subtitles are also available and there is rich encoding support. We really tries to find something the Tab 7.0 Plus won’t play, but without success. It seems Samsung has put support for every common audio and video codec making the Tab 7.0 Plus a real monster when it comes to video playback.

There are a few full-screen options too - normal, fill and stretch.

   
The video player is nice

Great audio output, but for the poor headphones stereo

Samsung slates are traditionally doing well in our audio quality test and the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus is no exception.

When connected to an active external amplifier, the Galaxy Tab 7.0 gets amazing scores all over and if it wasn’t for its low volume it would have been really perfect.

With headphones plugged in, the output is still impressively clean for the most part. As a matter of fact stereo crosstalk is the only affected reading, but sadly that one took too big a hit to let us call the Galaxy Tab 7.0 excellent. It’s certainly good, but true audiophiles will find better places to spend their money.

Check out the table and see for yourself.

TestFrequency responseNoise levelDynamic rangeTHDIMD + NoiseStereo crosstalkSamsung P6200 Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus+0.04, -0.07-89.588.80.00430.066-83.1Samsung P6200 Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus (headphones attached)+0.04, -0.07-89.188.90.00420.066-32.4Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1+0.03, -0.04-89.989.90.0140.018-90.8Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (headphones attached)+0.05, -0.03-89.689.60.0120.063-64.4Samsung Galaxy Note N7000+0.04, -0.08-90.488.90.00440.066-87.4Samsung Galaxy Note N7000 (headphones attached)+0.12, -0.06-89.788.40.00840.112-51.6Samsung P1000 Galaxy Tab+0.02, -0.17-90.790.00.1000.065-87.0Samsung P1000 Galaxy Tab (headphones attached)+0.72, -0.14-90.489.90.0180.360-53.4

 
Samsung P6200 Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus frequency response

You can learn more about the whole testing process here.

3.15 megapixel camera and 720p video

A 3.15 megapixel main camera capable of doing 720p videos and a 2 megapixel front-facing snapper (with VGA video) is what you get with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus. Given that tablets aren’t the most useful devices for taking snaps it’s probably as much as you are going to need anyway.

Nonetheless, the two cameras are mostly there to provide the functionality needed for video-chatting and some augmented reality apps or games and the possibility to snap a label or two as a memory aid comes as a welcome bonus.

The camera interface is an oversized version of what you find on the Galaxy S II with the available settings on the left and the shutter key and the video/stills switch on the right.

   
The still camera interface

Here go a few samples to show you the image quality of the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus camera. We found it to be pretty good for the 3 megapixel league – low noise, plenty of fine detail, accurate colors and good balance between contrast and dynamic range.

    
    
Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus camera samples

Photo quality comparison

As we already pointed out, the 3 megapixel camera on Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus does a splendid job, but that’s understandable - you have much more room and processing power here.

  
Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus in our Photo Compare Tool

Very good HD videos

The camcorder interface is not much different, really. There are fewer options available here, but the layout is basically the same.

  
The video camera interface

The 720p videos are top-notch with stereo audio recording, full of detail, low in noise and generally, nice and smooth. There’s plenty of information too.

Check out the 720p sample that we captured with the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus.

And here goes a 720p video sample from the slate that we uploaded to YouTube.

Video quality comparison

Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus is a match to most of the HD capable flagships and tablets and our video compare tools is here to prove it. Of course, there are a few 1080p capable camcorders using the same hardware so there is room for improvement. Once again we’d suspect that the more demanding Honeycomb was the reason why 1080p is absent here.

  
Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus in our Video Compare Tool

Connectivity has everything

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus is well equipped in terms of connectivity. There is proprietary 30-pin USB connector for computer connection, but there is no USB charging (though some users suggest the USB charging actually works, but due to the low USB power output, the Android OS is not indicating it as charging).

Naturally, you get quad-band GSM radios plus 3G speeds of up to 21 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA. It is GPS equipped as well.

The Wi-Fi support includes a/b/g/n versions, with both 2.4GHz and 5GHz band compatibility. Wi-Fi Direct and DLNA support are also available.

Thereis a microSD card slot as well. The 16/32GB of internal storage helps too.

Naturally, Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus supports USB-on-the-go, but you will need to buy an adapter for that. Using one you can connect card readers, USB flash drives and other compatible devices to your tablet and access their contents through the file manager.

You can also buy a separate HDMI adapter and connect the tablet to your HDTV with a regular cable.

And finally, there is an integrated infrared port. It is used mainly for smart TV control via the dedicated Smart Remote app.

A browser to like

The web browser is another key app as far as tablets are concerned. There is full Flash 11 support and tabbed browsing.

The tabs are kept in a bar on top, much like on a desktop browser. The address bar and search bar are incorporated in a single field - typical Android - which scores another point for the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus.

   
Browsing GSMArena.com on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus

Bookmarks and History have their own screen with a split-screen interface. In History you can check the pages browsed today, yesterday or over the past week. There’s also a most visited and today tabs.

 
Pressing and holding a link lets you open it in a new tab

Synchronizing the browser with your desktop Google Chrome doesn’t need any extra software – you check a box in the settings menu and you are done.

   
Some of the available browser settings

There’s also auto-complete for forms and passwords.

A neat feature allows you to access quick page controls (back, forward, refresh, bookmark etc.) by a swiping gesture performed near the right edge of the screen. You cannot have that and the classical interface though so you have to pick your priorities.

  
The alternative user interface

Now, for the Flash performance – the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus does great at 360p, 480p and 720p videos right in the browser. Flash games go well too.

  
720p Flash videos are now possible

By the way, if you find Flash content to slow down your page load times or cause stutter when panning, you can switch it to on-demand in the settings menu (or even turn it off all together).

Organizer has everything

A good set of organizer apps are available on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, including the Polaris Office that can both view and edit documents. It has really nice user interface with 3D arcs for the recent docs, internal file browser, intuitive interface, etc. It supports both internal and web storage (via Box.net).

  
  
Polar Office

Viewing and editing all kind of doc, sheet and presentation is hassle-free. You can also read PDF files, but naturally you can’t edit them.

Printing options are also available.

When you think of organizer features on a smartphone (or tablet) the first app that comes to mind is the calendar. It has five different types of view: daily, weekly and monthly.

   
Calendar app

Adding a new event is quite straightforward and you can also set an alarm to serve as a reminder.

  
List view • Creating an appointment

The calculator app is nicely touch optimized with huge, easy to hit buttons.

 
Calculator app

The Alarm app is optimized for big-screen use and is pretty intuitive. You can naturally set as many alarms as you like.

   
Clock app • Alarm clock

The World Clock app is full of eye-candy. You get an animated globe where you can pick time zones or cities, there are country flags, day and night animations, etc. Once you try it, you’ll definitely like it.

   

World Clock app

Applications

There are a few apps provided by Samsung for the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus worth mentioning - eBook, Memo, My files, Pen memo and Photo editor.

The eBook reader comes with one book for free - The Marvelous Land of Oz. naturally you can add books stores, buy books from them and they will appear on your virtual shelves.

    
eBook app

The eBook reader is quite capable - it allows you to highlight or underline text, change the font size and page color, search the book and put bookmarks. There is even text-to-speech feature with settings for speed and pitch.

The Memo is pretty simple notes application with interesting interface - you get your notes as sticky note on a wooden board.

  
Memo app

My Files is a familiar app - it’s the Samsung powerful file manager.

  
My Files file manager

Pen memo does almost the same as the memos, but in addition to the text it allows you to draw pictures and offers some extra option as colors, background, etc.

   
Pen Memo

Finally, the Photo Editor offers some basic picture edition tools - selections, rotate, resize, crop, color effects and adjustments, etc.

   
The Photo Editor

The last app worth mentioning is Peel Smart Remote. It uses the infrared port on your Tab 7.0 Plus to control your TV-set. Outside the USA, it acts just as a regular remote control and is rather useless.

   
   
Smart Remote

If you are a US resident though and you are using a TV/cable operator, then you can setup your Tab 7.0 Plus to control not only your TV, but your DVR, DVD/Blu-ray players, streaming players, home theater system, etc. You also get full TV program guide, you can create watch lists and the app will take you to the shows you want to watch right now, no need to switch the programs manually to find them.

The Social Hub

The Social hub combines you email accounts with social networking (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) shows all incoming messages as one list and your social feeds as another. You also get handy shortcuts to reply, mark as favorite and so on.

Thanks to the two-column interface you can easily switch between your accounts, messages and feeds if you don’t need all the stuff in one place.

  
The Social Hub is a true communication nexus

Google Maps and limited navigation

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus comes with a GPS receiver, which got a satellite lock in under two minutes with A-GPS turned off. A-GPS can speed this up quite a bit, but requires Internet access. We gotta say, we didn’t experience any issues with the GPS performance.

With a screen as large (or larger) than most dedicated SatNav units, with excellent sunlight legibility and plenty of storage, any money spent towards satellite navigation should go to buying a good app rather than a separate SatNav unit.

The Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus comes with Google Maps and Navigation. Voice-guided navigation has become a viable solution since the v5.0 update. Vector maps are smaller and way easier on your data plan and with the Navigation itself becoming available in more and more countries 3rd party SatNav apps are facing extinction.

   
Google Maps with vector maps does a bit of 3D

Quite naturally, the app also supports the Street View mode. If it’s available in the area you’re interested in, you can enjoy a 360-degree view of the surroundings. When the digital compass is turned on it feels like making a virtual tour of the location!

   
Using Street View

If Google Maps Navigation doesn’t do it for you, you can grab an alternative app from the Android Market – there are both free and paid ones.

Android market

With a 1.2GHz dual-core CPU and powerful graphics chip, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus can run every Android app designed for phones and slates.

The Android market is the fastest growing app repository around (also the one with the most free apps and number of downloads), so you can be sure that you won’t be having a shortage of software to install on your Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus. True, some apps aren’t designed to work on a WSVGA screen, but most scale well, so the only thing you have to worry about is finding enough time to enjoy all those apps.

    
The Android market has been nicely optimized for tablets

Recently, Google also redesigned the Android Market interface to make it easier for you to find the quality apps. There are now featured apps, editors’ picks and staff-recommended apps in addition to the usual top free and top paid.

The top new paid and top new free lists are worth checking out too and you shouldn’t forget the trending apps. Naturally, there is a built-in search and categories for the different types of apps so you don’t get lost. Recommendations are also based on your location to make it even easier to spot a quality app in the new Android market.

And if by some reason, the soon-to-become number 1 app repository on the market isn’t enough for you, you might want to check out some of the alternatives. Amazon has set up its own appstore and so has Opera, plus a few more minor app stores here and there. Choice is one of the best parts of the open platform.

Samsung’s own store called SamsungApps is also on board. There you can get a lot of free apps for your tablet.

  

SamsungApps store 

 

Nokia’s new Windows Phone flagship was unveiled at CES and we got to spend some quality time with it. The Nokia Lumia 900 builds on the 800’s innovative design and offers improved specs (like the 4.3” ClearBlack AMOLED display) along with some new features.

Chris Weber, president of Nokia Americas, says “The Nokia Lumia 900 is designed specifically with the US in mind and the announcement of this collaboration with AT&T, in addition to other recent announcements, signifies a new dawn for Nokia in the US.”

Nokia’s presence in the US has been waning, but they are ready to make a strong comeback with the Lumia 900. We’ll most likely be seeing it worldwide at some point, but any such plans aren’t public knowledge yet.

Anyway, the first thing you’ll notice about the new phone is the bigger screen. It has grown in size to 4.3”, quite a jump from the 3.7” screen of the Lumia 800. The Lumia 900’s body is bigger too, but the bezels have shrunk to partially make up for the increased screen size, so the actual difference in size isn’t as big as you would expect.

The Nokia Lumia 900 supports LTE connectivity for AT&T’s growing 4G network, which allows for blazing fast data of up to 50Mbps downlink and 25Mbps uplink. HSPA+ support is available too with download speeds of 21Mbps and 5.76Mbps for uploads in areas without LTE coverage.

The camera has familiar specs - 8MP stills, wide-angle lens (28mm), F2.2 aperture and 720p videos. Unlike the 800, the Lumia 900 has a video call camera too, a 1MP unit no less.

An agreement with Electronic Arts brings 20 hot games to the Windows Phone Marketplace and it’s Nokia’s Lumia range that will get them first. Of course, with the 900 you’ll be getting those free Nokia Drive voice-guided navigation and Nokia Maps applications too.

    
Both Stephen Elop and Steve Ballmer talked about the Nokia Lumia 900

The last thing you need to know before we get to the actual hands-on is that the Nokia Lumia 900 will launch on AT&T exclusively at first, but neither Nokia nor AT&T were very forthcoming regarding an exact release date or pricing. It’s unclear when it will be available outside the US either.

Okay, now that we’ve had that covered, we can proceed to the fun part and finally handle the Nokia Lumia 900.

Nokia Lumia 900 hands-on

We got the opportunity to go hands-on with the Lumia 900 and we didn’t hesitate. It felt familiar and that’s no surprise - it uses the same polycarbonate unibody as the N9 and the Lumia 800. It will be available in Black and Cyan, by the way. Magenta didn’t do well in the US focus groups obviously.

The Lumia 900 has grown bigger to accommodate the 4.3” ClearBlack display, but the bezel around it has shrunk so the smartphone still feels reasonably sized.

No doubt that feeling is also helped by a slightly slimmer profile when compared to the Lumia 800 - 11.5mm vs. 12.1mm. The curvy body makes the handling of the Lumia 900 even easier. The phone has put on some weight though (it now weighs 160g, up from 142g) and while you can feel the difference, it’s not too heavy.

The three capacitive keys below the screen are positioned lower (because of the thinner bezel), but that doesn’t take away anything from their usability. The buttons are still far enough from the bottom to remain comfortable to use.

 
The Nokia Lumia 800 on the left and the Lumia 900 on the right

In the upper left corner of the front panel sits the new 1MP video-call camera. It was something we missed on the 800 and it has a more traditional position as well (the camera in the lower-right corner on the N9 took some getting used to).

Anyway, enough dancing around the subject, let’s talk about the display. It’s a 4.3” unit, the biggest of any Nokia phone (not counting those old Communicators). The ClearBlack AMOLED offers image quality that’s certainly among the best on the market.

 
The 4.3” ClearBlack AMOLED screen on the Nokia Lumia 900 is great

It has a 480x800 pixel resolution (not surprising for a Windows Phone), but unfortunately under the showroom lights we couldn’t tell if it used a PenTile matrix or not (the N9 and Lumia 800 do). We’re hearing reports that it uses a conventional RGB matrix with 3 subpixels to the pixel, which would be a major plus.

Update: Nokia confirms it’s not a PenTile matrix.

The pixel density here is 217ppi, which is equal to that of the Samsung Focus S I937 (another WP phone available on AT&T) and the Samsung I9100 Galaxy S II. We didn’t hear anyone complain about those two, so this kind of density should do well on the Lumia 900, too.

The display offers the deep blacks and vibrant colors typical of AMOLEDs and Nokia’s ClearBlack technology keeps reflections off the screen to a minimum.

The screen is covered by scratch-resistant Gorilla glass and has the trademark beveled edges.

The right side of the Nokia Lumia 900 is pretty busy - from top to bottom there are the volume rocker, Power/Lock key and the shutter key. The left side is left bare again.

  
The right side of the phone houses all controls • Nothing on the left

On top things have been reshuffled a bit. The microUSB port is left uncovered (no swinging door for it this time) and the microSIM card tray has been moved to the far right. Yes, it’s microSIM again.

  
The Lumia 900 next to the Lumia 800 (it’s the one in the rubber case) • Top view of the Nokia Lumia 900

The secondary noise-cancellation microphone is at the top too, while the bottom features only the loudspeaker grill.

 
Nothing new at the bottom

The back of the Nokia Lumia 900 is nearly identical to that of the 800. At a distance we’d be hard-pressed to guess which is which, if it wasn’t for the repositioned dual-LED flash to give it away.

The camera is the same 8MP unit with a 28mm wide-angle Carl Zeiss lens, which boasts an F2.2 aperture to let more light in. The camera on the front is a 1MP unit with a F2.4 aperture, wide-angle lens and can do 30fps videos (Nokia was mum on the resolution, but we’re guessing 720p). The Lumia 900 will come with the Tango Video Calls app preloaded.

The non-removable battery saw an increase in capacity too - it now stands at 1830mAh. Nokia is promising you’ll get over 12 days of standby out of it (on both 2G and 3G) and talk time is 7 hours (again, both 2G and 3G).

That’s about all we have on the Nokia Lumia 900 for now. The LTE wasn’t enabled so we couldn’t test it and the software is still in the works (it’s Windows Phone 7.5 Mango commercial release 2, which adds LTE support).

 
Some of the preloaded apps on the Lumia 900

One last bit of info, the phone is powered by a Qualcomm APQ8055 chipset (single 1.4GHz Scorpion core, Adreno 205 GPU) paired with 512MB RAM, so we expect the same zippy performance we got with the Lumia 800, but no major speedups. Internal storage is set to 16GB again and there are no other options here. 

Nokia Lumia 710 has a tall task at hand. The second brainchild of the Nokia- Microsoft partnership is the budget-friendly option in the lineup. It will try to entice first time smartphone buyers, while battling the Windows Phone establishment in the face of HTC and Samsung.

While the upscale Nokia Lumia 800 is clearly the object of more attention for its impressive build and superior features, the Lumia 710 is expected to sell in bigger numbers and perhaps bring higher profits. From a business perspective, the smartphone is even more important than its flagship sibling.

    
Nokia Lumia 710 official photos

Just don’t take the budget reference to Nokia Lumia 710 at face value. Because of Microsoft’s strict hardware requirements for the Windows Phone platform, the smartphone has the same 1.4GHz Scorpion CPU and 512MB of RAM as the Lumia 800, therefore promising identically smooth handling. In order to maintain the budget status and keep the price down, Nokia Lumia 710 has less built-in memory, an LCD screen instead of AMOLED, and a 5MP camera. Its design is less ambitious than the flagship’s, but the Lumia 710 is still solidly built, even if not as good looking.

Key features

• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
• Quad-band 3G with 14.4 Mbps HSDPA and 5.7 Mbps HSUPA support
• 3.7” 16M-color ClearBlack LCD capacitive touchscreen with WVGA resolution
• Scratch resistant Gorilla glass display cover
• 5 megapixel autofocus camera with dual LED flash, 720p video recording
• Windows Phone 7.5 OS (Mango)
• 1.4GHz Scorpion CPU, Adreno 205 GPU, Qualcomm MSM8255 chipset, 512MB of RAM
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
• GPS receiver with A-GPS support and free lifetime voice-guided navigation
• Digital compass
• 8GB on-board storage
• Active noise cancellation with a dedicated mic
• Built-in accelerometer and proximity sensor
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack; FM Radio with RDS
• microUSB port
• Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP and EDR
• Deep and coherent SNS integration throughout the interface

Main disadvantages

• LCD display’s quality is questionable
• No Flash or Silverlight support in browser
• No USB mass storage (file management and sync pass only through Zune)
• No video calls and no front-facing camera either
• No memory card slot
• microSIM card slot
• No native DivX/XviD support, videos have to be Zune-transcoded
• Disappointing audio quality
• Unimpressive battery life

The level of equipment sets the Nokia Lumia 710 on a collision course with two major rivals in the Windows Phone realm - the Samsung Omnia W/Focus Flash and HTC Radar. The Finnish offering however, has a few exclusive software tricks up its sleeve, which are expected to give it a slight edge over its rivals. The most prominent of course, being Nokia Drive - the exclusive and free lifetime navigation service.

As far as hardware goes, the three devices are almost identical, save for the screen technology and choice of finish.

   

HTC has problems. The company is not selling enough Android phones and gets buried among the vast amount of Android phones on offer from different vendors. As I’ve stated earlier, I like HTC phones (most of them), I even like the Sense Android skin. The Sense originates from the Windows Mobile 6.xx days and the early days of Android. Sense brought consistency between the product lines and made early Android and WM 6.x good looking and more usable. Nowadays, Android is nice looking and usable and HTC isn’t allowed to apply Sense on its Windows Phone 7 phones. It’s time to say goodbye to Sense.

• HTC would have the best differentiator of all Android vendors - the pure Android experience.
• Most users would be better of with pure Android and  it would be easier to upgrade HTC phones to the latest Android version.
• HTC would get tons and tons of free, positive marketing in tech press and in the Android community. Every review of an HTC Android phone would be a little bit more positive. Most often, tech reviewers doesn’t like (hate) Android skins. 
• The company would cut R&D and maintenance costs. This tactic would save money from day one.
• Allow network operators to add pre-installed apps (preferable delete-able). They are the ones promoting, subsidising and selling the phones. Don’t mess with them (too much).
• Don’t worry about the Sense team. They’re very talented and will find new jobs. As I said, they almost made Windows 6.x usable. 

So HTC, now do it. You’re welcome. One thing though. This pure Android opportunity may well be filled by Motorola/Google themselves. It makes this tactic a little less brilliant, but it’s still solid IMHO. Samsung, Sony and LG are too big headed to use this tactic across the board, they will stick with their skins.