Beyond E-Tech Duet D888 – with 2 SIM cards

Sum and Substance:

Thumbs Up:

The phone can take 2 SIM cards, built in antenna lets you listen FM radio without plugging in the headset

Thumbs Down:

Multimedia features are poor, mobile television quality is horrible, poor build quality, SIM cards get loose too easily.

Inside the Trunk:

Technology: GSM
Band: GSM 900/1800/1900 (Tri-Band)
Phone design: Candy bar
Caller ID: Yes
Other features: Camera, 2 SIM card slots, music player, FM radio, mobile television.

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

The Duet D888 has a 2.8 inch display which gives a resolution of 240×320 pixels or 65k colors, display languages include Vietnamese, Spanish, English and Chinese. MP3 is the only sound format supported. Supported video formats are MPEG-4 and 3gp. PIM features include alarm clock, calendar, reminder, calculator, conversion and stopwatch.

The handset has a 2 mega pixel camera with lens cover. There are 64 polyphonic ringtones in MIDI and MP3 format. For messaging and data there is internet browser and GPRS. The phone has a 300 entry limit for phone book. Each entry can take a birthday, company name, e-mail address and multiple phone numbers.

Razzle Dazzle:

The Duet D888 has a classic cell phone design and looks quite outdated. We thought it was ugly, with the cheap plastic exterior and the buttons weren’t comfortable to press. These days, manufacturers are trying hard to make a phone look sexy but Beyond E-tech, it seems, doesn’t care.

Inside Dope:

The only thing that is appealing on the phone, is the ability to take 2 SIM cards at one time. But apart from that, this is a low feature phone with a cheap build. The call quality is good but you hardly get a phone these days with a bad call quality. The phone can take 2 SIM cards, which means you can call and send messages from two different numbers. You use a single phone and yet keep your personal and work life separate.

The display of the phone is 2.8 inches big, it gives a 320×240 pixel resolution or 65k colors. The display is bright, the photos look sharp and the text can be read easily. The interface is icon based and it is a bit irritating. For instance, to open a photo, you have to navigate through the toggle, then select the photo and then click ‘open’.

The capability to take 2 SIM cards at the same time is a unique feature of this phone. We welcome this feature but the phone has 2 separate inboxes for the SIM cards which we didn’t like. We would have preferred a single inbox. There are two call buttons for the two cards so you can dial a number and call from the desired card. If you get two calls simultaneously, then you get a choice of answering any one of the call. You can also deactivate a SIM card.

We liked the navigation array on the phone because it was well designed. It contains a dedicated key for FM radio, two soft keys and four way square toggle with a OK button in the center. The latter toggle button can be programmed for shortcut for 4 applications. Other than these buttons, there are 2 call keys and a end button.

On the sides of the Duet D888 there is a volume rocker and camera key. The former is a bit smaller but is still accessible during a call. The bottom of the phone has a charger jack and a USB port. The 2 SIM cards are located behind the battery and are loose. We lost the connection on the phone quite a lot of times. The memory card slot is located on the sides of the phone and the device comes with an extra battery.

The D888 has just 300 entry limit for phone book which we thought was a bit small. A single entry can take a birthday, company name, e-mail address and multiple phone numbers. The SIM card can store 250 additional contacts. The phone has 25 polyphonic ringtones but you can use your music files as ring tones. Photo caller ID and grouping of contacts is supported. For entering, the D888 supports Chinese, Vietnamese, Spanish and English.

Additional features on the phone include currency converter, calculator, world clock, alarm clock, to-do list, calendar, multimedia and text messaging, file manager and vibrate mode. For advanced users there are features like speakerphone, call recoding, video recording, e-book reader and Bluetooth.

The handset is good when it comes to multi media. There is music player, video player, FM radio and a 2 MP camera with video recording. However, these are pretty basic, especially the music player. There are not a lot of user and editing options but we were surprised by some features that the phone had to offer. For instance, you can record from FM radio and even schedule a recording. There is also mobile television but the quality is horrendous. The phone comes with a built in antenna which lets you use FM radio without plugging in the headset. The handset comes bundled with a USB cord for file transfers.

National Geographic gives you some content on the phone like animal and travel themed wallpapers and animal ringtones. For leisure gamming, the device comes with 2 built in games – Magic Sushi and Mahjong.

Call rates vary according to the country. While in Europe you will pay 90 cents to call home. In the Caribbean and Canada the call rates are $2.70 per minute. Calling to Canada costs more than Latvia which seems a bit crazy. On the bright side you get free incoming calls for 60 countries.

Call quality, like mentioned before, was decent but not great. We will recommend this only for occasional use. The volume was loud enough and voices sounded natural but there was a bit of background noise. Our friends on the phone said that they could hear us but we weren’t clear. This handset, according to them, picks up background noise easily. Speaker phone calls weren’t as good and the sound distorted when we pushed it to the highest level.

The battery life on the handset is 4 hours for talk time and 5.4 days for standby time. We thought the latter is a bit short but the phone comes with an extra battery for this. Battery lasted longer in our lab tests.

Nitty Gritty:

The Duet 888 can take 2 SIM cards at a time and other than this, we didn’t like any other feature on the phone. The multimedia features are poor, the camera is low end, call quality could have been better. Even if you want two numbers we will recommend you to buy two different phones instead of going for this one.