Review Of Pantech Reveal – Blue
Pantech Reveal has two keyboard which we think is not needed; the numeric keypad occupies the space which could have been used to a bigger screen.
Sum and Substance:
Thumbs Up:
Web browser, music player.
Thumbs Down:
Small screen, cramped QWERTY keyboard.
Inside the Trunk:
Technology: GSM
Band: GSM 850/900/1800/900
Phone design: Slider
Caller ID: Yes
Other features: 3G, music player, camera, GPS.
The Whiz Kid Speaks:
Display 2.2 inch QVGA, 320×240 pixels resolution, 262,000 colors, 1.3 mega pixel camera resolutions - 1,280×1,024, 1024×768, 640×480, 320×240, video resolutions 176×144, and 320×240 supported music formats – are AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AAC+V2, MP3 and Real Audio format. Supported video formats – MP4, H.264. AT&T Navigator, IM, email, HTML browser, GPRS/EDGE/UMTS/HSDPA 1.8 Mbit/s/HSDPA 3.6 Mbit/s, FM Radio, 256 MB internal memory expandable to 8 GB, 2.0 Stereo Bluetooth, Email IMAP/POP3/SMTP.
Razzle Dazzle:
Remember the Nokia 6600? Yes, the old phone. The Pantech Reveal looks just like that and has an additional slider QWERTY keyboard. But with keyboard closed this phone and Nokia 6600 have lots of similarities when it comes to looks. The screen of the phone is quite tiny as compared to other phones and the phone is OK in the looks department. On the sides of the phone there is volume rocker, microSD card and camera key.
Inside Dope:
Pantech Reveal has two keyboards, a normal numeric keypad below the screen and beneath the phone there is a slider QWERTY keyboard. Now, we don’t know why there are two keyboards. The numeric keyboard could have been sacrificed to give way for larger screen size. But a smaller screen means that if you want to read text on this gadget there will be lots of scrolling.
The phone is 3.9 inch long, 2.36 inch wide and 0.59 inch thick, it weighs 4.66 ounces. The phone is curved on the ends, looks cute. The phone’s display is 2.2 inch which is really small. Smart phones are known to have 3 inch display screen size. The display is good and you can see it clearly even in sunlight, something that we don’t see much in mobile phone screen.
The screen has a display resolution of 320X240 and has 262,000 colors. In the display you can adjust the brightness, the font style, the backlight timer, the menu type, the color theme and you can customize the home screen with different clock types and a greeting text when you start the phone.
Below the tiny screen there is the numeric keypad which has two soft keys and a circular toggle with OK button in the middle. The call accept and the call end button is not at the top half of the keypad but lower than that which we were quite surprised with. The middle OK buttons doubles as short cut buttons when the phone is in stand by mode. Typing on the keypad was comfortable and we didn’t have any issues. You can use this keyboard to type when the QWERTY keyboard is closed.
The QWERTY keyboard slides from beneath the phone (smart phones these days have keypads sliding from the sides) and it is quite cramped. Typing on this keyboard will be a pain in the neck, the keys are too tiny. There is not much room when you make a QWERTY keyboard since all the keys are to be accommodated in the small place. You can type with both QWERTY and numeric keypad at the same time.
Pantech Reveal has 3G which means you can access AT&T’s broadband services. You can stream video to watch it from a website and you can also do video calling with people who have compatible handsets. You can purchase songs online, if you download from Napster or eMusic directly to your phone, it lets you download the song to the PC for free!
For gamers, the phone has Sims 3, Ms. Pac-Man, Uno and Diner Dash 2 but playing on this small screen is something that is not worth mentioning.
There is a 1.3 mega pixel camera behind the phone which is quite awful. Firstly we don’t know why such low end technology is used when 3.2 and 5 mega pixel cameras are available. We shred even two mega pixel cameras to pieces in our reviews. The camera can take four resolutions 1,280×1,024, 1024×768, 640×480, 320×240. A two mega pixel camera can take maximum resolution of 1600X1200 and that too looks blurred.
Four white balance settings, three quality settings and four color effects are available for you to use on the camera. Other features include a self-timer, brightness, a timer sound toggle and a shutter sound toggle. Photo quality is below average, stay away from this device if you are a shutter bug freak. The video too is quite poor, the video camera gives you resolutions of 176×144 (MMS), 176×144, and 320×240. You can record with or without audio. Video quality is very bad.
One of the pros of the phone has to be the HTML browser which is based on Opera. When you open up there are three screens, one for URL, one for Yahoo search and one for browsing the web and then there is a list of book marks which contains address of websites that you might need frequently like movie times, shops, restaurants, weather, news headlines. Other than this there is a Popular screen which gives you stories from News & Finance, Sports, Entertainment, Travel, etc.
You can zoom in and out of these web pages but there are only two settings. When you zoom, it zooms really close and when you zoom out the pages look too small. The small screen adds to the miseries when you are using the web, you will have to scroll a lot. Also, you have to go to the web home screen to enter the URL. But this is one of the best mobile browsers that we have seen in a mid range phone.
The woes of this phone continue with bad call quality. The voice on the phone distorted a bit and the people on the other side of the phone said that there was crackle and a lot of background voice was heard while on the phone. Voice was not clear and audible on the phone even with full signal.
The call quality of the speaker phone was better, we heard a little background voice but that is to be expected since speakerphone attracts a lot of back ground voice. Other than that the voice on the phone was loud enough.
The MP3 player of the phone was quite good. The supported formats are AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AAC+V2, MP3 and Real Audio formats. You can create and edit play lists on the fly and you can set songs for repeat or shuffle. Sound quality was good and we were impressed by the simple interface. Listening to music on speakerphone is not as good and we recommend you to use the head set. The video player can play MP4 and H.264 videos but with this small screen, the experience was passable. The phone has a microSD slot and can accommodate up to 8 GB of memory card.
The phone has rated talk time of 4.5 hours and 11 days of stand by time.
Nitty Gritty:
The phone is good for music and web browser, but the screen is too small and we think the presence of two keyboards was not necessary. Still we will recommend the phones owing to the two pros mentioned above. The phone is made more for business men who need to access internet on the go rather than a student. Go get it if you don’t mind the small screen.
