Motorola A1000 v Sony Ericsson V800

With Vodafone and Three spending huge sums promoting their new 3G phone services, handset manufacturers are responding with new models designed to take full advantage of the facilities. Two of the latest to hit the stores are Motorola's A1000 and the Sony Ericsson V800.

MOTOROLA A1000
Currently only available on the Three network, Motorola's latest device looks more like a PDA than a mobile phone, thanks to a touch-sensitive display that occupies around 80 per cent of its front panel. There are very few standard buttons, as most operations can be performed via the stylus, hidden in the lower right-hand side of the phone.

The A1000 has a central rocker button, so you can navigate up, down, left and right through menus, but we found it useless. It's so small that, regardless of which direction you push it in, you are likely to push it downwards and inadvertently select the wrong menu item.

Using the stylus is more effective - especially when entering text. The A1000 has fairly good handwriting recognition and you can enter words in your own scrawl and have them translated into recognisable entries - useful for notes and reminders.

The A1000 uses Symbian OS V7, with a UIQ 2.1 user interface. Unfortunately the UIQ menu structure isn't very user friendly, so finding the section of the phone you want can involve a lot of trial and error. Thankfully there are dedicated buttons for the most common functions such as dialling and accessing online content services.

To its credit, the A1000 has some interesting features, such as a 1.2-megapixel camera with lenses facing towards and away from the screen, so you can take pictures of your friends or self-portraits without having to turn the display away from you.

It also has an impressive 200-hour standby time and 225-minute voice talk time. There's Bluetooth wireless support and, with tri-band compatibility, you can use it in most countries.

Price:
From £49 with contract

Contact:
Motorola
www.motorola.com

Specifications:

• Symbian OS v7
• 65,000 colours, TFT touchscreen, 208 x 320 pixels
• 24MB built-in memory, supports removable memory (Triflash-R)
• GSM/GPRS/3G
• 900/1,800/1,900MHz
• WCDMA 2,100MHz
• 1.2-megapixel camera
• 200-hour standby time and 225-minute talk time

SONY ERICSSON V800
The Sony Ericsson V800 looks far more like a traditional mobile handset than the A1000. It has attractive retro styling and a flip-open clamshell design (complete with small exterior screen) that will be familiar to most users. At the moment it is only available with Vodafone.

The inside looks fairly ordinary. As well as the 12 standard keys, Sony has added a central menu key with dedicated video call and multimedia buttons to the left and right. The latter provides instant access to your movies and videos. The V800 uses Sony Memory Stick as its storage format, which may cause compatibility issues with other devices.

Navigating through the phone is fairly easy thanks to a four-way direction pad and clearly labelled icons. The screen isn't as large as the Motorola A1000, but it is clear, and the menu system is straightforward.

One of the phone's best features is its rotating camera, which can be positioned towards or away from the user. It has a 1.3-megapixel resolution with better than average image quality and clicks satisfyingly into either position. It also has a set of lights to the left and right, designed to help take pictures at night or in dark environments.

The external speaker faces away from the user on the top flap of the phone. If you make video calls without the in-ear hands-free kit, most of the caller's voice is directed away from the user, making it hard to hear.

We were very impressed with some of the phone's software. It comes with a number of very good Java games, some of which show off the handset's good 3D abilities. The V800 also has strong organiser functions that were easy to get to grips with.

Price:
From £49 with contract

Contact:
Sony Ericsson 08705 237 237
www.sonyericsson.com

Specifications:

• Multitasking
• 260,000-colour TFT, 128 x 160pixels
• 32MB Memory Stick Duo
• Network: GSM/GPRS/3G
• 900/1,800/1,900MHz
• 1.3-megapixel camera
• 280-hour standby time and 180-minute talk time

VERDICT
Both the V800 and the Motorola A1000 have their strong points. The latter should appeal to business users with its PDA-like functionality, but the V800 has similar features, is more portable and easier to use. We're still not convinced of the reliability of 3G networks, but if you're an early adopter after a next-generation phone, the V800 has the edge.

See also:

Orange C500

Orange's third-generation smartphone  03 Dec 2004

Like this story? Spread the news by clicking below:

 del.icio.us     Digg this     reddit!