Treeduck

T-Mobile teased us at CES 2009 by introducing the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8900 but denying us any details on availability date and pricing. Fortunately, we didn't have to wait too long as the carrier has released the final details and has given us our own review unit.

In short, the BlackBerry Curve 8900 is a solid addition to T-Mobile's smartphone lineup and one of the company's top offerings, in our opinion. It replaces the Curve 8300 series, and brings several notable improvements, including a sleeker design that's bolstered by a more solid construction and an amazingly sharp display, a faster processor, a full HTML Web browser, and a 3.2-megapixel camera. It also has integrated Wi-Fi with UMA support so you can make unlimited calls over a Wi-Fi network. However, our one big disappointment is the lack of 3G support. It's a feature that could really have given the 8900 an edge over its competition. (more...)

We can safely say that we've never seen a phone like the Nokia 7705 Twist. Sure, we've reviewed square handsets before, and swivel models were in style a few years back; however, we've never had the two design aesthetics combined onto one device. We're not quite sure if it works--it's certainly unique, but it's awkward. The Twist offers a fair number of features, decent performance, and a nice keyboard for messaging and e-mail; however, it can't measure up as a multimedia phone. It's available from Verizon Wireless for $99.99 with a $50 rebate and a service contract.

Design
As we said, the 7705 Twist offers a singular design for a cell phone. It's perfectly square (2.71 inches by 2.71 inches by 0.59 inch), but the rounded corners make it look only slightly less angular. We suppose that you'll either love or hate the overall effect. On one hand, it has a clean, minimalist profile and is a bit avant-garde, but some people may find its design to be harsh, weird, and uninspired. Indeed, it's certain to get looks on the street, though maybe not for the right reasons. The Twist's front cover is basic black, but you can use a purple or black battery cover (both come in the box). When closed, the phone slips easily into a pocket, and at 3.44 ounces, it won't weigh you down. It also fits neatly in your hand. (more...)

In the world of Nokia Xpress Music phones we've seen a full range of models, from the high-end to the rather weird. T-Mobile is the only U.S. carrier to have offered Xpress Music phones. It started in 2006 with the 5300 and followed up two years later with the 5310 and 5610. Now the carrier offers a budget alternative with the Nokia 5130. Simple in both form and function, the 5130 is the most low-end of all Xpress Music phones we've reviewed. The candy bar phone offers the normal music functions, but it goes easy on other features. Service is respectable, and the price--$29.99 with a rebate and a two-year service contract--is affordable.

Design
The 5130 Xpress Music somewhat resembles the earlier 5310. It also sports a slim candy bar design, though it's bit larger (4.23 inches by 1.83 inches by 0.58 inch; 3.10 ounces) and it features a glossier skin with a dotted pattern over its speaker one the rear side. The handset comes in two color schemes--aqua/silver and red/black. We tested the former, but the features are the same on both models. The 5130 has a comfortable feeling in the hand, and it travels well.

The 5130's two-inch display supports 256,000 colors. The resolution is decent (320x240 pixel), though some graphics, particularly the menu icons, weren't very sharp. On the upside, the Series 40 menus are intuitive provided that you turn off the transition effects. You can adjust the standby font color and the font size.

The navigation array has a spacious, user-friendly design. The square toggle is raised and shows a different color than the central OK button or the surrounding keys. The soft keys and Talk and End/power controls are flat, but they're quite large. You can set the toggle as a shortcut to user-defined features. They backlit keypad buttons are a mixed bag. Though they're sizable, they have a slippery plastic feel. Dialing and texting takes some getting used to, and the numbers and letters are rather small.

On the rear side is the camera lens. The 5130 offers neither a flash nor a self-portrait mirror. On the left spine are the dedicated music controls, which you can use to activate the player and scan through your songs. On the right spine you'll find the large accessible volume rocker and the microSD card slot. We were glad see a 3.5mm headset jack on the top of the 5130. Next to it are the proprietary charger connection and the Micro-USB port.

Features
The 5130's phone book size is limited by its shared memory (30MB). Each contact holds six phone number types, an e-mail address, a URL, a company name and job title, a formal name and nickname, a birthday, and notes. The SIM card holds an additional 250 contacts. You can organize friends into groups and pair them with a video/photo and one of 23 polyphonic ringtones.

Essentials include a vibrate mode, text and multimedia messaging, an alarm clock, a calendar, a to-do list, a unit and currency converter, a world lock, a notepad, a calculator, a countdown timer, and a stopwatch. For more advanced options you'll find stereo Bluetooth, a voice recorder, USB transfer and mass storage, voice commands, PC syncing, instant messaging, and Web-based e-mail. The microSD slot can accommodate cards up to 2GB; one such card should come with the phone.

The 5130 offers the standard Nokia Xpress Music player. The interface is simple, but the controls are simple and intuitive, and the player supports album art. Features include an equalizer, shuffle and repeats modes, playlists, stereo widening, and an airplane mode for listening to tunes while you fly. The player supports a variety of file types, and you can use tracks as ringtones.

You can transfer music onto the phone via a USB cable or a microSD card. When using the former method, your computer should recognize the phone immediately; you then can drag and drop music back and forth. When listening to tracks, you can minimize the player so you can access other functions, and the player automatically pauses when you receive a call. If radio is your thing, the 5130 also offers an FM tuner with station presets.

The 2-megapixel camera lacks a flash and self-portrait mirror.
The 2-megapixel camera takes pictures in six resolutions, from 1,600x1,200 down to 160x120. Other editing options are standard. You'll find three quality settings, three white balance choices, a self-timer, portrait and landscape modes, five color effects, four light sensitivity modes, and a 4x zoom. The camcorder shoots clips in two resolutions (176x144 and 128x96) and offers editing options similar to the still camera. Clips for multimedia messages are capped at 38 seconds, or you can shoot for longer in standard mode. Photo quality is decent--there was little image noise, but colors were washed out. Video look just average on the display.

The 5130 offers good, but not great photo quality.
You can personalize the 5130 with a variety of display themes, screensavers, wallpaper, light effects, and alert tones. You can download more customization options and additional ringtones from T-Mobile's t-zones service over the WAP 2.0 wireless Web browser. The handset comes with demo versions of five games: Diner Dash 2, Bejeweled, Midnight Pool 2, Pac-Man/Ms. Pac/Man, and 5th Grader 2009.
Performance
We tested the quadband (GSM 850/900/1800/1900; EDGE) Nokia 5130 Xpress Music in San Francisco using T-Mobile service. Call quality was quite good. The signal was strong and clear, the audio was free of static or interference, and callers sounded natural. Volume gets sufficiently loud, though audio is distorted with an echo sound at the highest levels. Fortunately, we didn't need to turn up the sound very often, but when we did, our call quality was slightly diminished.

On their end, callers said we sounded fine most of the time. They could understand us clearly except when we were calling from a very noisy place. During those times we had to speak loudly and repeat ourselves. Speakerphone calls were fine clarity-wise, though the volume was rather low. We had to be very close to the phone in order to hear our friends and have them hear us in return.

The 5130's music quality is decent, though lacking in warmth. More importantly, the sole external speaker doesn't have the best output. Our tunes sounded best at lower volume levels, even if we could hardly hear them. When we turned the volume up louder, however, the audio became bass-heavy. Headphones will offer the best experience.

The 5130 has a rated battery life of six hours talk time and 12 days standby time. The promised multimedia battery life varies as follows: 4 hours of video playback time, 1 hour of video recording time, and 20 hours of music playback time. The 5130 has a digital SAR of 0.88 watts per kilogram.

Up until recently, the highest megapixel camera phones to grace U.S. carriers have been 5-megapixel shooters like the Motorola Zine ZN5. If we wanted to play around with higher-performance camera phones, we had to get our hands on unlocked versions like the 8-megapixel Samsung Innov8 from our friends in Europe.

But that has all changed with the 8-megapixel Samsung Memoir, which is now available from T-Mobile USA for a much more affordable $249.99 (compared to the $700 or so for the Innov8). Indeed, this makes the Memoir the highest-performing camera phone with a U.S. carrier, though we're sure this accolade won't last long. The Memoir definitely delivers in the photo quality department, with great photos and camera features that rival even those on a standalone point-and-shoot camera. The Memoir even offers direct uploads to online photo-sharing sites like Flickr and Photobucket.

Of course, the Memoir wouldn't be much of a phone if it didn't have other features, too. It comes with Samsung's proprietary TouchWiz interface, a full HTML browser, support for T-Mobile's 3G network, GPS, a music player, and more. $249.99 is a little pricier than most other U.S. camera phones, but we think the Memoir's design and feature set more than make up for it.

Design
The design of the Samsung Memoir certainly walks a very thin line between camera and phone. The ergonomics are uncanny--the shutter button and zoom controls are on the top, the camera lens and flash are positioned in a way so that your fingers are unlikely to block them, and the touch-screen interface acts as a giant viewfinder--all like a regular camera. That small area where you would wrap your right-hand fingers when taking a photo? It's clad in faux leather separate from the rest of the phone, presumably for better grip. If it were not for the telltale call keys and the T-Mobile branding, we would've thought the Samsung Memoir was a camera and not a phone.

Is it a camera or a phone? The Samsung Memoir mimics a camera very well.
Be it camera or phone (or both), the Memoir is one svelte, elegant device. Measuring 4.2 inches long by 2.1 inches wide by 0.6 inch thick, the Memoir is clad in black with silver on the sides, and it's one of the slimmest high-end camera phones we've seen. Dominating its entire front surface is a 262,000-color 2.6-inch touch-screen display that looks simply stunning. The display is vibrant with vivid colors and sharp-looking graphics. You can adjust the backlight time and brightness, and you can personalize the display with wallpaper and a greeting message. While you can adjust the font type, you can't change the font size.

Like other Samsung touch-screen handsets, the Memoir has haptic feedback, meaning the phone vibrates to let you know your touch has registered. You can adjust the intensity of the vibrations if you want. The touch interface is pretty responsive and intuitive, but it did take us a little while to get used to the sensitivity of the screen, even after calibration. We would occasionally launch a program when all we wanted to do was scroll through the menu. We imagine this is something you learn to adapt to with time, but newcomers to touch-screen handsets might find it frustrating. Also, the Memoir has an internal accelerometer that automatically changes the display's orientation from portrait to landscape mode when you hold the phone horizontally. This only happens with certain applications like the Web browser and the messaging interface, and it only rotates clockwise by 90 degrees.

On the default standby page, you'll find four icons at the bottom row of the display. They represent the phone dialer, the phone book, the Web browser, and the main menu. The phone dialer has a virtual keypad with large alphanumeric keys, plus there are also shortcuts for the call log, voice mail, the messaging menu, and the phone book.

The Memoir features Samsung's proprietary TouchWiz interface, just like on the Behold and the Omnia. It consists of a tray of widgets along the left side, which lead to various applications like the clock, the music player, and so forth. You can also drag and drop them to the main screen for easier access to your favorite applications. But some of these widgets are more than just shortcuts. For example, the Weather widget will display the city you're in as well as your local weather report right on the main screen, and the music player widget allows you to control your music without having to open up the application.

You're unfortunately limited to the widgets that are preloaded to the Memoir, but Samsung did include a camera-focused widget. It allows you to upload your photos to online sharing sites like Flickr and Photobucket directly, without having to use e-mail or a third-party program. This is definitely one of the highlights of the phone, which we'll mention again in the Features section. Aside from dragging and dropping the widgets to the main screen, you can also drag them back to the tray. To close the tray, just touch the little arrow icon.

The Samsung Memoir has a virtual QWERTY keyboard in landscape mode.
For texters concerned about the lack of a physical keyboard, the Memoir does have a virtual QWERTY keyboard. After you create a new message, you can tilt the phone horizontally to reveal the landscape QWERTY keyboard that spans the length of the display. The keyboard is roomy and the haptic feedback helps to ensure accurate typing, but it's not quite as smooth as using the iPhone's virtual keyboard. We like that you can type messages with the T9 alphanumeric keypad if you wanted to, and the dedicated punctuation keys are nice (You still have to switch to a different keyboard for symbols and numbers). When in the Web browser, the QWERTY keyboard even has a .com key, which is certainly helpful when entering URLs.

There are three physical keys underneath the display; the Talk, Back, and End/Power keys respectively. The microSD card slot and headset/charger jack are on the left spine. On the right are the camera shutter button, a screen lock key, and the volume rocker that also acts as the camera's zoom controls. On the back is the aforementioned 8-megapixel-camera lens with a built-in retractable lens cover. There's also a Xenon flash, but no self-portrait mirror.

Features
The Samsung Memoir's camera is the primary reason to get this handset, despite the fact the Memoir comes with a whole host of other advanced features. We'll get to that shortly, but first we wanted to let you know a few essentials before we delve into the main course. The Memoir has a large 2,000-entry phone book with room in each entry for four phone numbers, four instant-messaging usernames, a Web site address, birthday and anniversary dates, a street address, and notes. You can save callers to groups, pair them with a photo for caller ID, plus one of 23 polyphonic ringtones.

Other essentials include a vibrate mode, a speakerphone, text and multimedia messaging, a calendar, a calculator, a notepad, a task list, an alarm clock, a world clock, a timer, a stopwatch, and a currency and unit converter. It also has voice command, PC syncing, Web-based e-mail for a variety of providers (AOL, Yahoo, GMail, Comcast, etc.), instant messaging, GPS support, and stereo Bluetooth. The Memoir is also one of the few phones to support T-Mobile's 3G network. News junkies will also like the built-in RSS reader. Though there's 3G, there is no Wi-Fi, which is quite a disappointment seeing as there's a full HTML browser and photo upload capabilities.

The Samsung Memoir's camera is similar to the Innov8 in terms of features. The 8-megapixel camera can take pictures in up to seven resolutions, from a large 3,264x2,448 to the smallest 320x240. Some of the more typical camera settings include color effects, white balance presets, 8x digital zoom, a self-timer, three quality settings, a mosaic-shot mode, three shutter sounds with silent option, and nine fun frames. You will even find more advanced camera settings like an adjustable ISO and exposure metering.

You also get 12 preset scene settings for certain conditions like portrait, landscape, sports, indoor, beach, sunset, backlight, and more. If you've ever had problems with jerky photos, you'll like the Memoir's antishake mode. Smile-shot helps you to snap a photo only when the people are smiling, and blink detection lets you know when someone has blinked. We've tried both smile and blink detections, and it worked flawlessly. For business travelers, you'll like the ability to use the camera for capturing business cards, so you might never have to carry a bunch of business cards home with you again. There's even a panorama mode that lets you auto-stitch photos after shooting seven photos in quick succession from left to right (or vice versa).

The camcorder is impressive as well. The Memoir can record clips in two resolutions (640x480 and 320x240) in one of three modes: normal mode, picture message mode, and slow-motion video mode. Videos in normal mode are kept for however much storage is on the phone. Picture messages are capped to 30 seconds, and slow-motion video capture is shot at 120 frames per second. The settings are similar to the still camera.

The Samsung Memoir takes really great photos.
Photo quality is simply amazing. We're very impressed by the sharp images, accurate colors, and little to no image noise. After you're done shooting photos, you can store them in the phone or up to a 8GB microSD card. You can also e-mail them, send them to a friend, plus you can upload your photo directly to one of four online sharing sites--Flickr, Kodak Gallery, Photobucket, and Snapfish. You just log into your preferred site, and upload directly from the phone--no need for a special e-mail address or a third-party application like Shozu. We really like this feature, since you do not need to resize your photo down to a more Web-friendly resolution and can instead upload the full original photo if you like. The Memoir also supports geotagging if you want your photos to be tagged with the location where you took the photo.

The Memoir has a pretty simple music player. It supports album art, you can create and edit playlists, there are shuffle and repeat modes, plus six equalizer settings. You load music onto it with a USB cable by dragging and dropping into it. You can set the player to play in the background while multitasking.

Thankfully, the Memoir also offers a full HTML browser. It is similar to other Samsung browsers--you can scroll through pages by dragging your finger across the page. You can use the camera's physical zoom controls to zoom in and out of Web pages, which is very nice. And as we said above, the virtual QWERTY keyboard on the browser has a dedicated .com button, which helps in entering URLs. You can save bookmarks easily, and you can get rid of the surrounding controls for full screen mode if you want. It's not quite as good as the iPhone's browser of course, but it compares favorably with other proprietary Web browsers.

You can customize the Memoir with wallpaper, alert tones, and more. If you want more options, you can download them from T-Mobile's t-zones store. There are no included games.

Performance
We tested the quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900) Samsung Memoir in San Francisco using T-Mobile. We were impressed with the call quality. Callers sounded loud and clear, with natural voices, and nary a sign of static. On their end, callers said we sounded fine as well, though they did complain of the occasional background noise. Speakerphone calls performed admirably as well. Callers could still hear an echo, but it wasn't that bad. We could certainly hear them loud and clear, though with a slightly tinnier voice quality.

Music quality was pretty good. The external speakers give out a rather hollow sound with not a lot of bass, but the overall sound is fine. We would recommend using a headset for better audio quality of course.

The Memoir supports T-Mobile's 3G network (UMTS 1700/2100). It is very fast. We connected to Web pages in seconds and were able to upload a 2.2MB photo in just under a couple minutes.

The Samsung Memoir has a battery life of 5.5 hours talk time and 12.5 days standby time. It has a tested talk time of 5 hours and 5 minutes. According to FCC radiation tests, the Memoir has a digital SAR rating of 0.618 watt per kilogram.

Orange and T-Mobile are to merge their British operations to create the U.K.'s largest mobile carrier, their parent companies said Tuesday.
The as-yet-unnamed joint venture will have a combined customer base of about 28.4 million people, or 37 percent of the market, with the deal expected to complete in November. Orange chief executive Tom Alexander will be chief executive of the new company, with T-Mobile UK chief executive Richard Moat as chief operating officer.

The companies said the merger will cost between 400 million and 600 million pounds ($655 million and $983 million). It is expected to deliver savings of around half-a-billion pounds per year by 2014, by removing duplicate base stations and retail outlets, as well as other efficiencies in operational staff and customer support.
Timotheus Höttges, chief financial officer of T-Mobile UK's parent company, Deutsche Telekom, said in a statement: "We will become [the] market leader--our customers will benefit in many ways, for example from the best mobile broadband offer in Britain.
"In the second-biggest market in Europe, which is undoubtedly one of the toughest and most competitive, we are giving T-Mobile UK a clear and strong future."
The deal will include T-Mobile UK's 50 percent holding in its 3G network joint venture with Hutchison. It is not known how or if the deal will affect the status of Virgin Mobile, which runs on T-Mobile's network.
Deutsche Telekom lost 600 million euros ($860 million) in the first half of 2009, down from 1.3 billion euros profit in the same period last year, with its T-Mobile UK division writing off 1.8 billion euros and losing 100,000 customers. The period saw gains in the German company's other European mobile operations.
Orange said its U.K. first half sales were down 2.6 percent from last year, at 2.54 billion euros. Orange's parent company is France Telecom.
The deal will need shareholder approval from both companies and will also have to be cleared by British and European regulators. The U.K. mobile telecommunications market is widely regarded as highly competitive, and no regulatory problems are anticipated.
Rupert Goodwins of ZDNet UK reported from London.