Great value fun factory :->
 Oct 1st, 2003
Advantages:
Good camera, video clips, MP3, expandable
Disadvantages:
Size and weight, surfing locked to 3
Recommendable:
Yes
Detailed rating:
Look & Feel
Durability & Robustness
Battery standby time
Value for money
Range of features
more
  Senno
About me:
Hi, I am a 27 year old accountant from the south east of England. I hope you find my reviews useful ...
Member since:16.03.2001
Reviews:5
Members who trust:2
Review rated by 22 Ciao members on average: very helpful 
This review received a counterstatement by a party concerned
Read Comment
I already own an NEC e606 on 3, which I bought in April of this year, and was keen to see what the next generation of 3G mobiles would offer. The first thing you notice is the size of the box and quantity of components you get with the phone. Like the e606 before it, the A920 comes with 2 batteries, 2 power cables, handsfree kit, substantial manual and 3 services guide, CD ROM and USB cable. In addition this new model also includes a black phone cover sleeve, and desktop cradle - offering a slot to charge the spare battery alongside the phone itself.
To my eye, 3G handsets are made to a higher standard than the majority of 2G models. Very robust and solid. However, they are also consistently larger and heavier. The size and weight of the A920 precludes dangling it from a belt loop, and you certainly know it's in your pocket! Someone told me this was because they also have to function on the 2G network. Switching the phone on you are greeted by the large central 'touch-screen' display. It's resolution much finer that the e606/e808, though the 65,000 colour depth is the same. The e606 had the brightest screen I've ever seen on a phone - I've used it a few times as a torch - the A920 is far less
bright, but still clearly visible outdoors on a sunny day.
There is no keypad, only a few directional and 'function' buttons. Navigating the phone's menu is by a metal stylus that slides out of the top of the phone. Anyone used to MS Windows will cope without much of a learning curve - icons across the top select the main functions and pop-up boxes ask you to confirm important actions. I found most tasks quick and responsive, far more so than the painfully slow NEC series. At the bottom of the handset are the red on/off switch and green 'accept a call' switch all mobile users are familiar with. Pressing this also brings up a 'soft' keypad on the display - big enough to use with just your fingers should you wish to make a quick call without digging out the stylus. I won't make a long list of all the A920 capabilities - Motorola's website does a better job than could! However, I will comment on the most important one's for me in choosing this phone:
Camera
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Built in to the top of the phone is a VGA (640x480) quality camera. It's mounted on a swivel axis that lets you move it from facing the user to pointing away at a subject on the other side. It's fixed focus and there's no flash. The quality is better than on the e606 and also better than my other cam phone the Nokia 7250. The best phone-cam on the market at the time of writing is the Sharp GX20, and this phone can't live up to it, picture quality is good, but still just not quite sharp enough to replace your digital camera. This is a real pity, as the phone is so large and heavy that adding a really good camera (such as the 2M pixel device on the Sony NX90 PDA) would have put this handset in a different league. Video recordings of up to 1 minute with sound can also be taken, the frame rate is higher than with the e606 (and Sharp GX20) and is probably the most 'fun' feature. Pictures and video can be sent over multimedia messages to other phones or email addresses, plus you can also email directly from the phone with in 3G coverage using '3mail'. Audio
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The phone comes with a 32MB card, enough to store 6 or 7 pop songs on MP3 format. Audio can be transferred direct from your PC in MP3 format, which makes for excellent compatibility with internet music files. Unlike with the old e606 where files had to be converted to WMA or the poorer quality 3GA format. The 'loudspeaker' on the back is not as good as on the e606, however a stereo handsfree headset is included in the box. Voice notes can also be taken.
Video media
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Transferring an internet video clip to the device was fairly hard work, perhaps somebody knows a better way, but I wanted to put a film trailer (from a well known film trailer site...) onto the phone to show a friend of mine. Involved the following steps:
Load trailer into Apple's QuickTime Pro
Export file as .avi
Load .avi file into Nokia Multimedia Converter 2.0 (available from forum.nokia)
Export file as .3gp
The result was viewable, but fare below the quality of video clip you get from the 3 network. I'm guessing they use far better quality converters - none are included on the CD ROM! Playback make the best use of the available screen size by offering a widescreen option in the menu, this shows the video across the screen so you just hold the handset lengthways.
Making calls
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My biggest problem with the NEC e606 is it's absolutely terrible earpiece, the speaker is so sharp and tinny that conversations are painful. One solution is to use the handfree kit - but a mobile phone should at least perform it's most important function well enough! The A920 is far better, call quality was excellent. The rear speaker double's as a loudspeaker (there's a dedicated button on the side of the phone to switch between private/loudspeaker). The contacts list has a dedicated icon on the display and it's easy to sync contacts with MS Outlook via the CD ROM software. Sending sms and multimedia messages is also a breeze, next to each number in an individual contact there are symbols for sms, multimedia message and email - you just press and the appropriate screen comes up. Entering text is standard PDA fare - 'soft' keyboard (a tiny keyboard appears on screen for you to tap out the letters) or handwriting recognition (2 boxes appear in which you write out letter by letter). In both cases word recognition applies, such that as you write another box appears with a list of words, making for quicker entry than T9.
3 Network
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My biggest frustration is with the network itself. Downloading files is so quick that the potential for internet browsing with this technology is huge. However, 3 are currently locking customers down to there own pages. This means you simply cannot surf, or use their devices as modems to power other PCs. That's a real shame, and hopefully things may change next year. Of course, they're hoping most of their revenue will come from consumers paying for football clips, etc. At least they should update their data more frequently - looking at the news headlines at 6am one morning I was surprised that they were the same as the night before! Reuters - the world's best newsagency - supply their news/finance, and 3 simply don't apply this content as well as they could. Movie trailers/sport clips/weather/interviews all download very fast, but surfing is what this technology is for and I hope 3 open up there ultra-fast mobile portal soon... In conclusion, if you want to be on the first wave of this new technology I would recommend taking a look at the A920, forget the e606 with it's slow menu and poor screen resolution. The phone is, however, large, too large for most people. Also, as with the e606 battery life is dreadful - you will need to charge it every night and make sure you're carrying an car-charge when you go on long drive! As a PDA it suffers because 3 have locked the software, meaning all those useful apps for the sony-ericsson P800 cannot be used on this device, hopefully that should change by the end of the year, but there are no guarantees. It has an excellent calendar/organiser, voice notes and contacts book which will are the mainstays of a PDA, but being restricted to 3 approved applications will stifle this device in the long-term. Value for money here is excellent - this phone was free on a new contract, and when you're (at the time of writing) paying wads of cash for the Nokia 7250i, which offer nothing but a pinhole camera and radio headset, you're talking excellent value. Half of the equation when choosing a new contract is call costs and with 3 at the moment you're getting superb value, they're aggressively targeting the other networks prices and you simply can't get a better monthly deal, international calls are also cheap (cheaper in some case than a BT landline). However, for me I'll still be using my trusty 6310i and IPAQ most days, slower, but without the shackles.
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by (5%):
07.11.2004 10:22
good reviw - thanks
12.05.2004 23:29
Brilliant review. wish my a920 was as good as yours.(toutch screen not up to standard).lots of info once again great review.
19.01.2004 17:20
Fantastic review - I think I might need to upgrade from the E808 - an abysmal phone. Thanks for the info.