Beyond E-Tech Duet W002 – Another clone of Apple iPhone
Thumbs Up:
Beyond E-Tech Duet W002 offers dual SIM card slots and average features.
Thumbs Down:
It is still ill-conceived and depicts little concern about usability and originality. It features sluggish performance and average call quality.
Inside the Trunk:
Technology: GSM
Band: Quad-band of GSM 850/900/1800/1900
Phone Design: Candy Bar
Caller ID: Yes
Other Features: T-flash card slot, Dual SIM, touch-screen, EDGE
The Whiz Kid Speaks:
Beyond E-Tech Duet W002 offers dual SIM card. It has 71MB internal memory and micro-SD expansion slots that accepts up to 8GB cards.
2.8 inches resistive touch-screen LCD display has a resolution of QVGA resolution of 320×240 pixels. Beyond E-Tech Duet W002 offers 1.3-megapixel camera that features video recording. Supported wireless interfaces are Bluetooth and IEEE 802.11 b/g.
The basic feature set of Beyond E-Tech Duet W002 includes 12 polyphonic ring tones, voice recorder, currency and unit converters, call log, world clock, stop watch, alarm clock, calendar, calculator, multimedia and text messaging, and notepad.
The additional highlights are Windows Live Messenger, internal search application, FM radio, access to Google Maps, file manager, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.
Razzle Dazzle:
Beyond E-Tech Duet W002 is 4.01 inches tall, 2.15 inches wide and 0.55 inch deep and it weighs around 4.23 ounces. It is smaller and lighter than iPhone. Black casing with silver trim, slit shaped speaker at top and dominant display on the front are attractive.
Inside Dope:
Beyond E-Tech Duet W002 is just identical to Apple iPhone with similar menu design, shape and icons. While using, it seems to be a clone and clear copy of Apple iPhone. In addition, it supports two SIM cards like its predecessors Duet D8 and D888. The W220 offers average performance and hard to use touch-screen. We suggest to avoid the Duet W220 and the D8 cell phones for simple D888 one. The Duet W002 will cost $150.
2.8 inches resistive touch-screen LCD display of Beyond E-Tech Duet W002 has QVGA resolution of 320×240 pixels. The display is very small for touch-screen phone, we prefer to use 3 inches minimum for touch-screen. Resistive touch-screen is difficult to use and you have to use the included stylus for better usage. You can adjust the calibration; still it does not help about accuracy. You have to apply a bit more pressure for swiping, tapping and scrolling via lists. You can customize the brightness, backlight time, screensaver and wallpaper. The W002 also allows turning off the inbuilt accelerometer. The display does not feature multi-touch.
As already said, the menu design of Beyond E-Tech Duet W002 is a copy of Apple iPhone. You will find similar series of icons on standby main screen. Some of the icons including Clock, Mail, Notes, Camera, Photos, Phone and Contacts are exactly same as that on iPhone. On the contrary, the Calculator, Text and Map icons has minimum differences to their counterparts on iPhone. Menu system of the Duet W002 will rotate in landscape mode while tilting the phone. In addition, the menu will span into three pages.
You will find three controls beneath the display for Call button, End key and Home button. The touch-screen is less accurate nearby its edges, so you have to use the physical controls. 2.5mm headset jack, combined port for USB cable/headset, and power control are located on the top. We will prefer to have 3.5mm headset jack and micro-USB jack. Music player shortcut and volume rockers sit on the left spine, whereas camera shutter is on right spine. Camera lens with flash is located on the rear front. Micro-SD card slot and both SIM card slots are located behind the battery. The W002 phone does not have stylus slot, so you have to use the hook.
Again, most of the features and goodies of Beyond E-Tech Duet W002 are identical to Apple iPhone. The W002 can store 800 contacts in its phone book and each SIM card can store additional 250 contacts. Each contact can save four numbers, one email address and company name. You can categorize the contacts into groups and pair them with one ring-tone. The W002 does not feature visual voice mail.
Music player of Beyond E-Tech Duet W002 again resembles that of iPhone. It features equalizer, play side selection, repeat and shuffle modes and lyrics display; but does not have album art. You can transfer the songs through via USB cable or memory card.
Beyond E-Tech Duet W002 has 1.3-megapixel camera that features video recording also. The image storage resolution is VGA 640×480. It offers several options such as flash and exposure modes, shutter sounds, wallpaper frames, white-balance, color effects, self timer, slideshow application, multi-shot mode, digital mode, night mode and three image quality settings. You can use camera lens on front side for capturing self-portraits. The photo quality is poor. While testing, the image noise was visible and colors were little off.
The video recorder has above similar options. You can shoot the videos for 15 seconds or as per available memory. The recorded video quality is also not good with lots of pixilation.
For Internet, Beyond E-Tech Duet W002 has two Web browsers: WAP browser and Opera. It also has three Java games (Dice, LianLianKan, Bejeweled), eBuddy messenger, FM radio recorder and Books application. It also capable of receiving analog television broadcasts like the D8.
For testing, we made few calls through quad-band based Beyond E-Tech Duet W002 via AT&T and T-Mobile service. You can dial any phone number and select the SIM card to use. The overall call quality on both networks was good. We received natural sound with low volume and humming sound at our end. The signal strength of T-Mobile was poor. With both carriers, the callers received average sound at their end with some background noise. They told us that we were calling through cell phone. They received some static while using T-Mobile. The speakerphone call quality was also not good. Both of us received low volume and little distortion.
The performance of Beyond E-Tech Duet W002 was poor and sluggish. It took 5 seconds to show the menus. We also noticed processing icon on main display while using.
Beyond E-Tech Duet W002 has battery life of 10.8 days idle standby time and 3.6 hours of talk time. The digital SAR is 0.29 watts per kg as per FCC radiation tests.
Nitty Gritty:
Beyond E-tech Duet W002 has only one specialty to accept dual SIM card. If you cannot afford Apple iPhone and need its clone with dual SIM card, then you can buy this W002 phone. On the contrary, we will recommend you to go for Duet-D8 that offers simple interface and good user experience.
