Are you in the market for a new smart phone? Android 2.3? Dual SIM? 3G? Less than 10k? Well, you’re in luck, as of this writing there are about five phones you can choose from.
I wanted replace my old Samsung Galaxy 5 with a dual SIM smart phone so when I travel I could just buy a local SIM and pop it in. A few days ago I went to Viramall to get one of these dual SIM bad boys. As luck would have it, Lenovo had a booth on the ground floor, which gave me a chance to play with the A60. It had a nice big 3.5-inch screen, and performance was snappy considering it had only a 650Mhz processor. I was tempted to buy it right there but the hardware buttons and the screen’s viewing angle turned me off.
Next, I was off to the Samsung show room, but the Galaxy Y Duos was not yet available. According to them (“off the record daw”), it would still be released mid February, and priced about 3K more then the single SIM Galaxy Y. So I just played with the Galaxy Y on display. While performance was good, the resolution and viewing angle was not. However, colors were nicely saturated and touch screen input was quite responsive. Also typing on the 3-inch screen was challenging. I should note that the Galaxy Y Duos has a slightly larger screen (3.14” vs. 3.0”) and a better camera (3 vs. 2MP).
As much as I wanted to try out the Stellar they did not have a demo unit. I was really looking forward to playing with it since it has the best specs among all the phones. To be honest, I don’t like the design on the Stellar that much. Same problem with LG, no demo unit and the price was pretty high. I do like the design of the Optimus Net.
Finally I found the Alcatel 918N. Only 2 shops had them. I asked if I could try it out and the sales lady at Citilight Telecoms was nice enough to let me have a go at it. Right away I was impressed with the design and build quality, the textured finish was nice and “grippy”. Performance was actually snappy and the screen quality was even better then the A60 and Galaxy Y. I had to ask the sales lady again “talaga ba p5999 lang ito?” She said the regular price is actually p7999 but Alcatel was having a promo, she did not know when the promo will end. It even comes with charger, earphones, screen protector and 2GB micro SD card. The price was just too hard to refuse, so I paid for it and said “bahala na!” I wanted to get a case for it, and right away I realized the problem of getting “unknown” phones. No accessories! I was able to find a jelly case for a Samsung Chat S3350 that seemed to fit but I would need to cut holes for the camera and ports. Anyway, it was only P120.
Does the box look familiar?
After my usual unboxing ritual, I could not help but notice how similar the packaging was to my iPhone4. Everything worked right away. I entered my Google account, transferred all my contacts and with in 5 minutes it was up and running. Right away, I can definitely say that performance is a lot better then my old Galaxy 5. Alcatel did not add much to the OS, so you get an almost stock Android experience, as compared to the TouchWiz overlay of Samsung.
Most of the usual apps like Facebook, web browsing, email etc., all work. And yes, Angry Birds plays pretty well on it. Just don’t expect to play any high-end 3D games. I guess what most people will be interested in is how the dual SIM actually works, so lets focus on that.
Installing both SIMs is a bit tricky because they go on top of each other. Please ready the manual! Basically, both SIMs are active all the time. You can rename each SIM like Work or Personal. You can even color code it. You also have the ability to choose which SIM will be your default for text, call, and data. Note that SIM 1 will have 3G, SIM 2 only 2G. So if you’re planning to roam in Japan or Korea, only SIM 1 will work. Before you call or send a text message, you can easily switch between SIMs. If not, then it will use your default SIM settings. You can’t assign a default SIM per contact or contact group so that you won’t make the mistake of sending from the wrong SIM. For example, all “work” contacts will use SIM 1. However, replies to texts will be received by the corresponding SIM, even if it’s not the default.
As for the camera, photo quality is just ok, nothing to get all excited about. (There are some samples in this post.) It has the usual scene modes, white balance, smile detection and, so on. I was more impressed with the video quality as it records in 480p (720x480, 3gp format), which is better then the QVGA of the Galaxy Y.
The battery will last you a day of light wifi, 3G and games. The 3G Hotspot feature works, but as with most smart phones you will have to recharge every night. Notwithstanding all these fancy features, call quality is decent. Texting on the 3.2-inch screen is usable but I suggest installing a better keyboard like “Swiftkey X”.
Overall, it’s hard to find faults, especially at this price point. My second choice would have been the Stellar or A60, just for the screen size alone. Sometimes, it really makes you question, is it really worth buying a high-end smart phone costing more than 20K? Why do top manufactures make such expensive phones while the likes of Alcatel can produce something so cheap yet so adequate? We shall see how this phone holds up for the next few months. I really believe that if someone can make a high-end dual SIM phone at about 10-15k, it would be a winner!
DLNA Device like TV, PS3, Media Players etc.
I found it at Viramall for P3300. I was hoping it would be cheaper, anyway I took a chance. What I wanted to do was to setup my own media, file and print server, setup up an internet webcam so I can watch the kids when I’m away and be able to have a backup 3G internet connection in case my DSL goes down. After extensive online research, so far this Sapido seems like the only one that can do it all. It is after all a complicated setup. Could it be done?
Getting the router to work was not a problem. Now to setup the webcam. In order to do this you first need to setup a DNS server with a service like TZO or DYNDNS. Then you need to enable Port Forwarding. However, to do this, you need to setup your modem in bridge mode so that your router (and not your modem) will be the one to dial your ISP. Complicated? YES! It took me a week of research just to get it to work.
I was using an old Genius webcam with my setup, however the video quality was terrible, I bought another one from CD-R King which did not work. I had to exchange it three times and the last one finally worked. But the video would freeze after a few minutes. Finally, I bought an A4Tech webcam and it finally worked.
I tried using a 8GB flash drive to use for downloading torrents. It recognized the drive but would freeze once downloading started. Again after some research, I learned you have to format it under NTFS.
Ok, this was the least problematic. All I needed was the APN name. I tried it with my SmartBro and it worked. You can even set the number of minutes after your DSL connection fails before it switches to the 3G modem. Nice!
This was the last on my list. It took me a while to figure out that it won’t work on my Mac. At lease not on OS X 10.5 or .6. I have not had the chance to try it on Lion. It works fine on Windows and even on my iPad using the “Printing for iPad app”. I guess OS X just does not support print server from this router.
Ok, this post should have started with geek alert. Am I the only one who wants a setup like this? Perhaps. But after a long and complicated setup I can only recommend this router to those who like to experiment and have time to tinker. If you just want a simple wireless router, then you can save time and money and just buy another model or brand. I guess 4 out of 5 is not bad. My only worry now is if this router breaks I’m not sure I have the time and patience to set it up all over again.