We love the little green robot that is Google's Androidoperating system, so we're happy to see it nudging into the inexpensive worldof pay-as-you-go phones, thanks to T-Mobile's Pulse. The Pulse isn't going to set theworld on fire with smoking good looks or stunninglyinnovative features, but it does a very respectable job nevertheless. Once it's tweaked out with yourfavourite Android apps, the Pulse should leave you satisfied, and with somechange left in your wallet.
T-Mobile Pulse
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
The Pulse is available from T-Mobile for £180. You'll alsoneed the Internet Booster, which includes unlimited access to the tubes (with a1GB fair-use policy) for £5 per month. T-Mobile told us that the Pulse willalso be available on a contract in the future, but it couldn't confirm the price.
The people's Android
The Pulse is the first phone to bring the Android operatingsystem to the pay-as-you-go masses, so we're happy to see that T-Mobile hasn't let usdown by shipping a cheap and nasty knockoff. The Pulse isn't fancy -- itsblack plastic body is nothing to write home about, and its trackball feels rather wobbly. But, with a big, 89mm (3.5-inch) screen -- it's the biggestscreen on any Android phone out there -- it's nothing to be ashamed of.
When you're relying on a touchscreen, with few buttons tofall back on, responsiveness is everything. We found the Pulse's screen sufficiently sensitive, but the hamster inside couldn't quite run quickly enough onits wheel for the phone to respond quickly in all applications. Forexample, scrolling around the three home screens is fast and responsive, buttyping on the soft keyboard requires a slow and steady hand. When we typed attop speed, letters were dropped, and the predictive text can't help when onlyhalf the letters are registered. The Pulse is also deathly slow to start up and resumeafter sleeping.
Normally, we'd crucify a touchscreen handset that can't cutthe mustard in the keyboard department, but the Pulse has so much to offer that can't help but cut it some slack. For instance, it offers the choice ofthree keyboards in both landscape and portrait orientations: full Qwerty, analphanumeric layout and a compressed Qwerty option such as we've seen on smallerBlackBerry models, like the BlackBerry Pearl 8120.They all support predictive text, although we found the word suggestions tobe dodgy at times, and a great feature that allows you to slide down on thekey to type a secondary character, like a number or symbol.
Tiny tweaks on asolid foundation
T-Mobile -- or, to be accurate, Huawei, the manufacturer of the Pulse -- hasadded a few tweaks to the bog-standard version of Android. For example, there aresome widgets for the home screens, which it calls 'wildcards', that display yourvideos, pictures and other treasures. There's also a fancy address bookapplication that shows you your favourite contacts in a Cover Flow-stylecarousel of photos, which you can tap to dial. So far so fine, but there'snothing overly innovative here compared to the fancy social-networking features onother Android handsets, like the HTC Heroor the MotorolaDext. They're solid, useful features, but Android isthe real star of the show.
The more we use Android the more we like it, especiallysince developers are creating more great apps every day. Unsurprisingly, ourInternet overlord, Google, which created Android, is leading the pack withutterly stunning apps like Google Sky Map, which is only available on Android.With goodies like this available as free downloads from the Android Market, the Pulse isn't just a decent and cheap touchscreen phone with a massivescreen -- it's a smart phone with an almost endless supply of creative, innovativefeatures to explore. Until there's a cheap, pay-as-you-go iPhone,that's a benefit you just can't beat.
Even if you don't get stuck into the Android Market,T-Mobile has included a good range of pre-installed apps on the device. For example, the YouTube app kindly offers to play full-screenversions of movie links that you click in the Web browser, and RoadSync syncs you up with the email, calendar and contacts from your MicrosoftExchange email at work.
Hello, can youhear me? No
Unfortunately, like many of the smart phones currently wowing us with theirapp-packed powers, the Pulse is crap at actually being a phone. We found itscall quality very poor, and calls take ages to connect, or failaltogether. We have the same complaints about smart-phone stars like the iPhoneand Hero, so we don't want to single out the Pulse unfairly, but it'shugely annoying and something to be aware of.
The Pulse keeps you connected with Wi-Fi and HSPA for fasteruploads and downloads over 3G, and it also has built-in GPS. T-Mobile ispitching it with a free, one-month trial of the TeleNav sat-nav app, but you can stickwith the built-in Google Maps for free.
The Pulse comes with 2GB of internal memory and room for amicroSD card. We tested it with a 4GB card and it had no trouble recognisingour photos and video. There's also a 3.2-megapixel camera on the back, which isfine for the occasional snapshot, and it shoots video too.
Conclusion
The T-Mobile Pulse does a good job of cutting corners to present an Androidsmart phone at an affordable price. The case may be rather plasticky and the keyboard a touch unresponsive, but we can overlook eventhat flaw in a phone that offers such huge potential for a punyprice. Its big screen, great connectivity and Android features mean this phone will satisfy your Web wanderlust, but be warned: like many top-endsmart phones, the Pulse isn't very good at making boring old phone calls.
Edited by Charles Kloet