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Reviewer: Huseyin Yedipinar
Vendor: Pantech (Global or USA) via AT&T Link
Price: $199.99 after Rebates and Subscription Agreement 

Here we have another smartphone, which is focused on answering demands of both texters and compact-lovers. The idea is to draw attention of everyone who enjoys technology, whether that’s a geeky-teen with friends to impress, or a business man who likes to answer messages on the go.  The phone feels like it is actually one piece, when in reality it is a three layered, four piece phone including battery.
Let’s first check what we get in the box, when we pick up the phone from vendor.

-Pantech Duo
-Travel Charger
-Lithium Polymer Battery
-USB Connection Cable
-3.5mm Stereo Headset Adapter
-Getting Started Guide
-Getting Started CD

Design:
Well, it is first of it’s kind, so there is no way to compare this phone to any other one out there, as far as individual sliding concerned, the number pad and keyboard both slide out very easily with one hand. I don’t think it would open accidentally either way, also do not try to open both sides at the same time, it isn’t happening. There is a tiny bit a design flaw, which may lead to greasy screen. There is no ledge or little bump that you can hold onto with your thumb to slide the screen open when you want to reveal the numpad. Good thing is, the color and texture of the phone will not allow you to have too much grease built up. It is not like ipod or PSP type of surface. It has rugged feeling frame which you can also hold onto and slide. It gives a nice touch to overall look of the device. However, it would have been better if they had something other than directional pad or the screen to push it up with. It is not a thin phone. It is about same thickness of a flip phone. You can see from the pictures how it compares to other phones. If this phone only had keyboard or numpad, it could have been incredibly thinner, but that’s not the focus here. It has four side buttons, two on each side. Two on the left controls volume, two on the right has camera and record buttons for voice command or voice notes. You have conveniently places left and right function keys, with Home and Back buttons underneath, and Send and Off buttons below them. There is also another button right in the center below directional pad, which lets you lock the phone or go into power menu. Number pad is very solid, and easy to press, but because keyboard is such a tiny slice between battery/keypad and phone screen, it doesn’t have raised letters or buttons. Only if they were tiny bit of raised, it could have been so much easier to type, but I cannot complain about the feel of these buttons, they are somewhere between soft and hard, sort of rubbery feel. Both microphone and earpiece are nicely placed.

Physical Features:
The phone has two ports, one at the top and one at the bottom. Both ports have that cover, which I like to call “Classy Cover”. I would probabl rip those covers off after a few months of usage. The top cover is for MicroSD, that doesn’t open so easily, which is a good thing. The bottom cover (which I would rip off) is the Audio/Data/Charging multi-function connection port. If I had problems with my nails, it would be pretty difficult to  get it open everytime I wanted to charge or listen to music or sync it. Otherwise, you will be calling upon a stranger on the subway or co-worker to open the port for you.

Battery placement is great, it doesn’t cause a big lump on the back of the phone. It is a thin battery. Underneath battery you have the SIM card slot, which you can simply slide in and out of place. So it should be easy for those who like to swap SIMs. Looks like Pantech listened to those complaints that HTC has been getting, for putting memory/storage cards underneath battery, and pantech put it at the top of the phone. Honestly, how many times are you going to be removing/re-installing the MicroSD card? I owned SDA and used it for over 18 months, I never had to remove the MiniSD once. I always used SDA as reader. Anyway, now you can swap the card all you want. It has a light at the top which indicates various different states of the phone, from low battery to reception..

Functionality:
Needless to say, you’ve got regular good-old keypad, and you have full QWERTY keyboard. This is a Phone, PDA, Music Player and Camera (from the last decade). It has the functionality you need in a phone. There is a little button below directional pad, which functions as “Power Menu” which allows you to turn off all radio signals and also functions as Lock button, which locks the phones keys. As with all WM Phones, it has two soft keys, and ever useful Back and Home buttons. You have no idea how many times I wished my wife’s Nokia had true BACK button. It is just not the same as Clear button, and this is one of the best functionalty a phone could ever have. Doesn’t look like it has light sensor to tell if backlighting need adjustment, or of the keypad should be lit or not, so it has to be lit or not lit based on your settings. While it is advertised as you can use the number pad for quick text, it is difficult to use backspace button since it is on the “upper layer” and moving your finger up there could feel awkward for a few people until you get used to it.  Once you Lock the phone, you would assume opening the keyboard slider would unlock it, but it doesnt, you have to choose Unlock and them press * key to unlock it. I would prefer if it unlocked open sliding action. Better yet, it would have been much better, if there was LOCK and UNLOCK button on the keyboard. So you could just use FN+KEY to lock/unlock.

Compatibility and Connectivity:
What else can you ask for –other than GPS, WiFi and IrDA–. The phone is QuadBand, will work almost anywhere in the world where it can roam on GSM networks, it has BlueTooth which allows both File/Data Transfer and Stereo Streaming to supported headphones. The included AC Adaptor/Charge accepts between 100 and 240 Volts of juice and adjusts input on the fly. Two tiny little problems. The headphone and charging jack. I loved it when other manufacturers used mini USB as their standard connection port, and threw in an on-board standard headphone jack. Pantech chose not to that, possibly because the keyboard occupied the space where you could have those ports. No biggie, the phone comes with the adaptor, however the idea of adapter dangling from the phone or fiddling your way through  your bag to find USB adapter to plug the phone to charge or sync is not very appealing. When I had my SDA, I could charge it anywhere I saw USB cable. The difference with this one, you can still charge it anywhere you see USB port, but you would have to be carrying its own cord with it. Those with POP3 or Exchange E-Mail accounts will be happy with WM6 and AT&T’s Push E-MAIL Service. There is no WiFi or IrDA.

Storage:

As I mentioned, there is MicroSD slot on top of the phone, it does not support SDHC yet, so your best bet would be getting 2GB or 4GB micro SD and packing it with programs, songs, movies, etc. The phone allows you to choose SD Storage as destination for pictures taken with the camera, or when you download a file from Internet Explorer, or whenever you are installing an application from ActiveSync or from a CAB package. I did not see an option to set the phone as plain storage mode so you can use it as external harddrive without having to install drivers on the host computer. On board memory is more than enough to run many applications at the same time.
Camera:
The phone has a mediocre 1.3 MegaPixel camera. It has the little “vanity mirror” on it which you can use to check yourself when you are taking a picture. The camera is just OK, it is there for you to take a snap of stuff that you don’t want to miss, or stuff that others won’t believe you just saw. The software for the camera is pretty straight forward, it has many options as if the phone was a professional grade camera. When it is running, you can press a number on keypad, with each one referring to a setting, for example Still/Video Mode, Resolution options SXGA, VGA, QVGA, QVGA with Night Mode. Picture quality (Low, Middle, High), Destination (Phone/Storage), Light Source, Timer Countdown with 3, 5, 10 second settings and Color Effects. I am not sure how you can use the countdown, since it is impossible to set the phone down on its side. Also there is no Flash or Focus Options, so when you are taking pictures in the dark, you better have steady hands, otherwise all you will be taking a picture of blurry lines, in the Night Mode. This was disappointing, another disappointing feature (or so I thought) was that you coudln’t keep camera open for a long  time, probably to save battery. The camera software  will close itself and return to the home screen, this was pretty irritating, until I went deep into the settings, and found out that you can set “Time Out” function 1-2-5 Min-Never. If you couldn’t adjust this, like in other phones, when you wait for something to take a picture of, only to find that it is back to to the home screen, and that it takes almost 4-5 seconds for camera software to boot.
When will phone manufacturers start putting independent shutters on these camera phones? Just use the monitor, rest, put a small camera on the phone, is that so difficult?

Sample Pictures:

Operating System and the Works:
Windows Mobile Standard (WM6 Smartphone) is what powers this gadget. It works well with the hardware, since the phone has 416Mhz Processor, one of the fastest processor you can find on a non-touch screen smartphone. It is not Intel Processor, but it works just as well. When you have many programs running, it takes about 1 second for it to switch from portrait mode to landscape mode. I thought it would be faster, but that’s how windows mobile works on these devices. T-Mobile Wing has 200 MHz processor, it also runs at about same speed, so it feels like it is how it’s designed. WM6 supports PUSH MAIL and Exchange Server synching for over the air software and data synchronization. This is a big plus for those with Exchange powering their business. You will have a complete link. Although I don’t see Microsoft catching up to Blackberry when it comes to OTA data management, Microsoft is working hard to catch up to that. The phones e-mail functions are pretty simple, good thing about this version is that you can view HTML content in e-mails, unlike WM5 where you could only view plain text. You can also retrieve your POP account or corporate e-mail, but it is a bit slow since it has to connect and check all the e-mails each time and match up to what you have on your phone so that it doesn’t download same things again and again. This version also includes Auto Keylock and Task Manager. One problem about the Task Manager is that they removed a few functions, so you don’t have “Close ALL” and “Close all but Selected” under the options. You also cannot clear memory or cache in fly using Task Manager. It is more like a task viewer and closer than a manager since you cannot set priorities with this. This version also comes with Voice Command which you can use to make calls, answer calls, open files, etc. once trained. Since this phone is also made appealing to the teens, widely popular social-website MySpace has it’s own application on the phone, with 3 day trial period. I am not sure how much it costs, or how well it works, since I don’t have a myspace account. There is also MobiTV which comes with 3 days trial period, and boy, does it work! It is a great software, with 3G on the phone, you can view full screen TV without a lag or synchronization problems. I don’t know MobiTV’s FPS, but it sure was smooth. The phone comes with bunch of games, including classics like Solitaire and Bubble Breaker, but also has 5 more games to entertain you, including Demo Versions of Tiger Wood Golf, and Midnight Pool. Yahoo, MSN and AIM comes pre-loaded, but be careful, even with data plan, you may be charged per message using these tools. There are also PDF and Office Suite viewers/editors. There is not much left to say about Windows Mobile, there are many websites where you can download and install software for Windows Media, the possibilities are endless with Windows Mobile as long as you have a storage card in place. I had my SDA full of software and games, and I loved every bit of that phone, this phone has the same potential, so go ahead and load it up, it can take it. Luckily, WM6 already updated daylight savings time date on this unit, so you don’t need any patch or modification and it will adjust automatically.

Pros:
- Great Sound Quality
- High Speed Processor
- Great Reception (I always had 3-4 out of 4 bars!)
- When you shake the phone, you do not hear any moving parts or squeaks
- WM6 Operating System which is very software friendly
- Bright, Beautiful Screen
- Bluetooth
Cons:
- Does not come with any type of Memory Card
- It does not use regular USB port, so you cannot just charge it anytime you feel like it
- I still cannot believe the phone does not come with cheap headphones or microphone set.
- No screen protectors available for the device yet
- Camera Quality
- Keyboard Slide-Out may get worn-out quickly if you do not handle it properly
- Vibration should have been stronger
- Some may complain it is thick, so I will give it that it is thicker then other phones
- No WiFi or IrDA
Here are some screenshots:

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Specs of the phone:
    * Windows Mobile® 6.0 with Direct Push
    * Dual slider keypads – Standard and QWERTY
    * 1.3 megapixel camera with 4x zoom
    * Bluetooth® Wireless capable with A2DP
    * Weight: 3.88 ounces
    * Dimensions: 4.02 x 1.97 x 0.83 inches
    * Talk Time: Up to 3 hours
    * Standby Time: Up to 10 days
    * Bluetooth® Wireless capable v.12 with A2DP
    * Quad-band world phone – 850/900/1800/1900 MHZ
    * Dual-band domestic UMTS/HSDPA
    * Powered by 416 MHz Marvell Bulverde
    * 128 MB Flash ROM plus 64 MB SDRAM
    * MicroSD(TM) memory slot, expandable up to 2 GB
    * 11-pin mini-USB (USB 1.1)/ audio jack in one
    * 1.3 megapixel camera with 4x zoom
    * 2.2″ QVGA LCD with LED backlight
    * Edit Microsoft® Word or Excel files & view PowerPoint files
    * AT&T Music, Billboard, Music ID, XM, Napster, Yahoo
    * Cellular Video capable – Get news, sports, and video
    * Microsoft® Office Outlook® Mobile and XpressMail capable
    * Instant messaging using AOL®, Yahoo!® and Windows Live®
    * Internet Explorer Mobile for surfing the Internet
    * Telenav Maps and Navigator(TM) support
    * Windows Media® Player 10 Mobile
    * Simultaneous voice and data capabilities
    * Text, picture, and video messaging
    * Simultaneous voice and data capabilities
    * Communication Manager 6.5 supoort
    * 5-way navigation key
    * Speakerphone
    * Warranty: One year warranty on phone and accessories
    * All talk, data & standby times depend on network configuration

Review by Huseyin Yedipinar for MobilitySite (www.mobilitysite.com)

Original Review : Pantech Duo Dual Slider Phone

Chris Leckness (3549 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

Chris Leckness is the Owner/Administrator of Mobilitysite. He is a Microsoft MVP, Mobile Devices and a member of the exclusive focus group, Mobius. Chris runs a Mobilitysite, GotZune, and a few other smaller sites and blogs. His personal blog is chris.leckness.com.