Vodafone's first 3G phone reviewed
We recently got the chance to play with the Samsung Z105, which is being groomed by Vodafone to feature as its launch phone for its consumer 3G service that’s expected to be announced at the start of May.
Overall we were impressed by some aspects of the phone but a little cool on others.
The good stuff
Size – Well the clamshell phone is about average for 3G phones. It is roughly the same size as the NEC e616 (available via Three) and slightly larger than LG’s upcoming U8100.
Design – It is very simple to use. The buttons are kind of half Samsung and half Vodafone (the lay out is a little reminiscent of Voda’s Sharp phones). The interface is fairly simple to use and access to Vodafone Live! service is a one-button press.
Battery – At 240 minutes talktime and 110 standby time, it is good for a 3G mobile.
Video Calling – This is the phone’s strong point in that it sports an excellent 256k colour screen, which delivers top quality moving images. It does seem a bit bizarre though that Vodafone appears to be majoring on person-to-person video calling when it has been a comparative flop for Three.
The bad stuff
No features – There’s no Bluetooth, POP3 e-mail or MP3 playback. The LG U8100 has all three.
Headset – To make video calls you have to don a headset, which is highly annoying as you have to carry it around with you everywhere.
Storage – There’s only 3MB and no expansion card slot. I imagine that the 3MB will fill up very quickly with videos and images.
Overall
This isn’t a bad phone. The screen and the video quality are great. However I think it will have sand kicked in its face by upcoming handsets from LG and Motorola. If you are Vodafone customers and are thinking about upgrading to 3G it might be good to hang on a while until other handsets are available.
Incidentally we have taken Vodafone’s 3G Mobile Connect Card to several areas of the UK. We had a great 3G signal in both north and south London, but strangely not in the centre of town.
There was no 3G signal at all in Yorkshire, North Lancashire, Derbyshire and Sussex.
9 comments
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hello,
i will like to order for some nokia 7610 and samsung z105 gsm mobile phones gooods,10 pieces which the total cost is what i dont know and send it down to a cousin in nigeria,and i will like to do my payment with a CC .i wlll be glad to hear from your company. smitcommuncation co.ltd.
hello,
i will like to order for some nokia 7610 and samsung z105 gsm mobile phones gooods,10 pieces which the total cost is what i dont know and send it down to a cousin in nigeria,and i will like to do my payment with a CC .i wlll be glad to hear from your company. james smit.
10187,broad road,
wyoming,ny,
88654.
u.s.a.
hello,
i will like to order for some nokia 7610 and samsung z105 gsm mobile phones gooods,10 pieces which the total cost is what i dont know and send it down to a cousin in nigeria,and i will like to do my payment with a CC .i wlll be glad to hear from your company. james smit.
10187,broad road,
wyoming,ny,
88654.
u.s.a.
I’ve got a sgh z105 trial sample.
These trials came with 16mb for storage
(not 3) but the phone itself sucks….
Interesting to see that both this handset and the LG one have lower-res screens and cameras than the Sharp GX30.
I’ll be very curious to see how Vodafone argues that 3G+LowRes is somehow an improvement on 2.5G+HiRes. What are people going to do with the extra bandwidth?
Only obvious ways I can think are video calling, use as a modem for a laptop, music streaming….
Dean Bubley
Founder
Disruptive Analysis
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