Pantech Pursuit – Messaging phone with a unique shake control
Sum and Substance:
Thumbs Up:
Compact design, great QWERTY keyboard, ‘shake’ trigger is great to use, other goodies include stereo Bluetooth, music player, 2.0 megapixel camera, and 3G
Thumbs Down:
Touch sensitive buttons are not that good for ending and answering the calls, Web browsing is not that good on a small display.
Inside the Trunk:
Technology: GSM
Band: GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 (2G), HSDPA 850 / 1900 (3G)
Phone design: Slider
Caller ID: Yes
Other features: QWERTY keyboard, GPRS, EDGE, 3G, WLAN, Bluetooth
The Whiz Kid Speaks:
Pantech Pursuit is 93.2 x 63.8 x 14.7 mm. It weighs 129.8 grams, the phone has a 2.8 inches TFT LCD resistive touch screen with 240×320 pixels resolution. The handset has a slider design with a full QWERTY keyboard. The phone has 50 MB of internal memory and the microSD card can take up to 32 GB cards. Data features includes GPRS, EDGE, 3G, WLAN, Bluetooth, v2.0 USB and infrared.
The handset has a 2 megapixel camera with a resolution of 1600×1200 pixels. Supported formats for the media player are WMA, WAV, MP3, H.263 and MP4. Other feature include T9, voice memo, organizer, shake control, music ID recognition. The 930 mAh lithium ion battery has rated talk time of five hours and standby time is 360 hours.
Razzle Dazzle:
When we first took the Pantech Pursuit out of the box, we thought the manufacturer sent us a toy. Yes, this phone looks a lot like Fisher-Price toy. It is 2.5 inches wide, 3.6 inches long, 0.6 inch thick and we liked the compact and chubby design of the phone. The front bezel has a textured casing and the phone’s back has a business feel. The handset also feels sturdy and nice in the hand. You can also use this phone as your handy mirror because the surface is quite reflective.
Inside Dope:
There are a smartphone craze going right now across the country but AT&T is concentrating on just messaging phones right now because they think there is a lot of demand for ‘smartphone lite’ handsets. AT&T calls these gadgets ‘quick messaging phones’ and one of them is the Pantech Pursuit. This is the first touch screen phone from Pantech and it has a slider design for the keyboard. The feature set too is impressive.
On the front, the Pantech Pursuit has a 2.8 inch display which dominates the front face. The screen size is a bit smaller than other handsets and it is not that good especially because you need a bigger real estate for touch screen phones. However, on the bright side, the screen looks crisp and colorful. The resolution is 320×240 pixels with 262k color support. The text is well rendered and clean. We also liked the choice of fonts and graphic icons that it had to offer. You can change the font style, menu theme, backlight time and brightness.
Pantech Pursuit, just like most touch screen mobile phones, has 3 home screens and for viewing them, you have to swipe your finger left or right. You can customize two of these screens, one for your favorite contacts and one for the applications shortcuts. On the bottom row, all the three screens have phone dialer, message in box, main menu and contacts list. The functions and applications on the three home screens are loaded by default on the extensive menu interface.
Pantech Pursuit comes with the resistive touch screen display so don’t expect it to be as easy to use as the iPhone. You will have to press a bit harder on the screen. The display is responsive and hence the screen will react as soon as you select something. There is also a touch calibration wizard to improving the accuracy and you get haptic vibration feedback for the presses too.
Pantech Pursuit’s phone dialer is pretty standard and we liked the big virtual keypad. The number digits are big and hence it is easy to press. For text messaging, you have choice of Graffiti handwriting recognition or the virtual keyboard. But you will type fastest with the physical keyboard. There is also Drawing Commander app which lets you launch a specific applitcations by just drawing the relevant letter. For instance, drawing A will launch the address book and drawing M will get you the music player. We don’t think this feature is that useful but you might have a different opinion.
Pantech Pursuit comes with an accelerometer and something called ‘shake’ control which lets you configure it for the different functions. Just press the mulitasking button on the side and hten shake the phone 1,2 or 3 times. While testing, we assigned one and two shakes for launch the music player and browser respectively. It is a bit gimmicky but again, you might have a different opinion.
Beneath the Pantech Pursuit’s display, you have the touch sensitive buttons for End, Clear, and Send buttons. We would have preferred physical buttons since these functions are used quite often and touch sensitive buttons are not that good. These keys might accidentally start or end a call. On the left side, there is a volume rocker and microSD card slot. On the right, there is the camera key, screen lock/power button, multitasking button and charger/headset jack. The camera lens is located on the back.
Slide the display on the right and you will see a full sized QWERTY keyboard. The mechanism is quite smooth and it locks securely at both the ends. The keyboard is made up for rows and typing is quite comfortable because the keys are adequately segregated from each other. The keys have a bubble like shape which adds to the ergonomics.
Nitty Gritty:
This phone is made more for the youth population. The shake controls make this pretty much clear. But people who message a lot too will like this phone.
