O2 Cocoon

The O2 Cocoon

Released: August 2007

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What does this box design, layout and style look & feel like?

The box is a white colour with Braille embossed-like writing on the front 'greeting' you to the phone. The inlay is very colourful with landscape picture covering the whole area. There is magnet device on the end of the ...
...purchase this phone from any O2 store or from O2 Online. No other shop sells this phone. The O2 Cocoon is free on all O2 contracts. If you wanted to buy the phone as Handset only or Pay As You Go, it will set you back a cool £299.00. The phone can only be purchased in the colour white. But is it worth it? Is it better then the Apple iPhone? Lets find out….

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The O2 Cocoon

Released: August 2007

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What does this box design, layout and style look & feel like?

The box is a white colour with Braille embossed-like writing on the front 'greeting' you to the phone. The inlay is very colourful with landscape picture covering the whole area. There is magnet device on the end of the close for it to connect when you need to close the box. There are two compartments to the design. One is a cut out where the phone lies and the other is a drawer that you pull out with it tongue to reveal the contents.

The phone is white. And its side and insides are black. On the left of the phone you have you USB/Headset/Ariel port, Micro SD Memory™ Card slot and a lever to open the battery cover. On the left you have you Designated Music control buttons. Play, Forward, Back, button locker and a button to switch from music to radio.
The speakers on the phone are both side and in-between the screen and the keyboard of the phone. And the volume control scroll button is in between either speaker.

The keyboard is all smooth and very sleek. No confusing buttons, just a simple but slick design.

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Inside the box you get;

1 x Cocoon
1 x Battery
1x Nest (dock)
1 x plug adapter and plug-in compartments for UK and European plug sockets
1 x Radio Ariel cable
1 x Headset
1 x Split Jack for headset
1 x Warranty Booklet
1 x greeting pack
1 x CD with User guide, PC Suite, Windows Media Player 11® & QuickTime™ Installation software
1 x Manual with tips and how the phone works and what's to offer. For full help, the User manual on the CD is more beneficial. Not consumer friendly for someone who does not have a computer (=<)

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Where can you get this phone?

You can purchase this phone from any O2 store or from O2 Online. No other shop sells this phone. The O2 Cocoon is free on all O2 contracts. If you wanted to buy the phone as Handset only or Pay As You Go, it will set you back a cool £299.00. The phone can only be purchased in the colour white. But is it worth it? Is it better then the Apple iPhone? Lets find out….

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What does this phone have to offer?
Well. Lets start with the screen. There are two in total, An Internal screen and an external screen. Ill start with the external screen first.

The external screen has a scrolling LED display that is hidden beneath the white plastic casing is what makes you want to get this phone it's like a cartoon POW! In the face look at me, and at a click of a finger, you're in love.

Without even opening this phone your able to;
Know when you've got a text
See whose calling or texting you
See the name and the title of the tune you playing off your music player or which even radio station your listening to
Preview you text message before you've opened it
Find out what calls you've missed
View the time
& See when you O2 cocoon is charging

There are also action icons that light up. When they're lit, you can find out if;

You've missed a call
Got a message waiting to be opened
If you battery needs charging
Set to vibrate only
And if you've set an alarm

When the led scroll past, you can change the speed on how fast it goes by going into your settings.

The Internal screen has a TFT 262k Colour Screen (240 x 320 Pixels)
With a crisp pixilation. It has a shortcut menu on your main screen and also views the time, date and many other icons at the top of the screen. Also the screen has a small camera in the top right corner for 3G video calling.

When you have seen the amount of work that the design team has spent doing the packaging, the battery dock and the LED display, you would probably expect a cooler graphical user interface but this is where it's a down put. The layout of the menu and theme doesn't match the coolness of other parts of the phone and cannot be changed except how you view the menu - but it's easy to use. The quick menu is great when you add a contact into it. You can put picture thumbnail as the contact in your quick menu, which is quite snazzy.

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Capture Your Moment Perfectly - Camera and Video.
Don't expect to do any serious photography with the O2 Cocoon's camera since it's pretty basic I think. In perfect conditions - daylight, clean lens and a target that is standing still - you can take really good photos, but as soon as the light conditions are bad your results will not be any good. The 2 Megapixel Camera has the ability to Flash, do a 4x Zoom & Auto Focus to get that pristine picture. You can take pictures in portrait or landscape mode. It has a different way of viewing the picture in daylight, tungsten and fluorescent. Also it has effects like Sepia, B&W and Negative.
There is a self-timer on this phone, which can be set to 5 or 10 seconds. It is a shame there is not a tripod available so you can rush into photo or resting perfectly without scratching the phone on the wall non-intentionally.

When the camera is in landscape, there are funny frames, which you can use to take silly pictures of you and friends & family.

The resolution of the camera varies. 120x160 being the smallest and 1200x1600 being the largest.
With the advanced setting you can choose the quality of the picture, save location and shutter/timer sounds.
The video camera can also be used in portrait and landscape. There is a resolution, which you can use for MMS message sending with all the same specs as above for the camera except the funny frames. Resolution varies between 96x128 (MMS) and 240x320.
Video Player is amazing. Viewing them in landscape is better and uses the full screen.

When you've taken pictures of your friends and family, use their picture for Photo Caller ID,
Screensavers & Wallpapers.
There is software on this phone called Daily Wallpaper for which you can select which photos you want to see as your main display pic and set the rotation time being either Daily, Hourly or every 12 hours.

TIP!!!!! - Want some great videos on you phone and you have access to the Internet?

Go to www.zamzar.com and use this free service to download videos from places like YouTube. Simply type the URL, convert to 3PG and give them an email address and vóila! Go to your email inbox and download to you PC then transfer to you phone.
You can also use this to convert any pictures & music so it can be played on your phone.

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WOTZ IT LYK TXTIN FRM DIS FONE?

There are two type of Messaging with this phone. SMS (Text Messaging) and MMS (Multimedia Messaging). Both have the ability to be able to use Predictive Text and Word Prediction. With the word prediction, your phone think what you're going to write next and put a word in front of what you wrote. If it's not what you want, you press the back button. Simple!
MMS messages can be a maximum of 300Kb. Its disappointing but its enough I suppose.

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Need to feed your music monster? Feed him on this!

The sound quality is outstanding and from personal opinion, I would say it beats Sony Walkman phones. Songs can easily be accessed by using the built-in tune browser and the buttons on the side of the phone makes it easy to control your music.
If you change volume, start playing another tune or just pause, your command is scrolled on the LED display. If you're looking for a phone that also doubles as a music player, the O2 Cocoon is a very good choice. This phone can hold approximately 1000 tracks, supporting AAC, AAC+, WMA, MP3 and WAV without having to use the memory card. A 2GB internal memory?! That's impressive!
You can still listen to the music whilst your on a call if you using your earphones! It plays in the background and does not interfere with your call and the sound is crisp. I think it's a first for mobile phones and its my favourite feature (=>)
This phone offers an FM Radio RDS for those who haven't got music on your phone or like a variety. Your headphones can act as you Ariel when you're on the move.

The Music player also offers room for;

Album Art

Playlists - make your own selection

Headphone Adapter (Two Headphones)

Shuffle control

Voice Recorder

And for those less adventurous and a bit scare of technology, there are preloaded Polyphonic Ringtones, MP3 Ringtones and videos for your pleasure.

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Like some gaming entertainment?! So far this is the biggest down side.

The games work on Java™. It has preloaded games and demos for you to play. They include;

EA Air Hockey - full version
Tetris - Demo
Sims2 - Demo

There is very limited multimedia that you can download from O2 active. I bought Sim2 Pets for this phone and this is the only other game you can get for it so far.

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Are you not very organised? Need some help?! Let the cocoon be your organiser.

Contacts - store up to 1000 on your phone

Calendar - this will remind you for upcoming appointments

Address Book - Arrange and organise your contacts they way you want them

Calculator - Basic but handy!

Converter - Currency, Imperial and Metrics weights & Measurements

Alarm Clock

Handsfree Speakerphone

Vibration Alert

Voice Recorder - record that important analysis from the board meeting

Notepad - prefer to type? Write it down!

World Clock - Travel overseas a lot?! This also has dual clock so it can show two time zones on your main display

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Connect in more way then just SMS, MMS, Video Calling, and Speaking.

3G - very ideal for Facebook users. The better the signal the faster you're uploading will be.

Bluetooth® - Send and receive data

GPRS - Internet connector

USB - Use you phone to connect to the PC

3.5mm Audio Output

Network;
Quad Band (GSM 850, GSM 900, GSM 1800 & GSM 1900)
UMTS
Internet;

WAP 2.0 - O2 Active and downloading
XHTML - Used for looking up websites like Hotmail Google and YouTube etc.

Memory & Talk Time;
2 Gbytes Memory plus Micro SD™ Memory Card Option
5 Hours Talk Time
350 Hours Standby

ANOTHER BIG TIP!!! ….

When you get your phone, however tempted you are, let your phone charge for 16-24 hours. This allows your battery to reach full capacity. If you don't do this, your battery life will be short every time you charge.

Weight & Size;
92 g
94 x 49 x 21 mm

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What's My Overall Opinion?

The O2 Cocoon is a really nice phone. Sound quality is perfect, and it's easy to browse through your contacts, add new contacts, call missed numbers etc. It's well put together and very easy to use. You will get the hang of it in minutes.
Imagine yourself having the O2 Cocoon lying in the table in front of you in a dark nightclub or pub, and someone sends you an SMS or calls you - the scrolling LED display will give you everyone's attention for a while. When you put your phone inside the charger it instantly turns into an alarm clock with a big clock on the display. I tried to turn it off but you cant - but you can at least dim it. The alternative is instead of having the phone in the nest; just have the USB in the phone and the plug. This way the alarm still goes off and the bright light isn't on all the time.
Overall this phone is my killer for 2007 and I swear by it. The O2 Cocoon is a nice phone, but most of all it's a unique. Sound quality is perfect, both during calls and while listening to music. The camera is good... Ok...so it's nowhere near the Sony Ericssons 3.2 Megapixel camera phones but it gives you nice video and good 2 Megapixel photos!

A couple of things it good improve on like the availability of games & the camera and it would the very top end of the market.

91/2 out of 10. 

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