Grading on a curve (Toshiba G710 review)

We had a mini-trial of different smartphones at work. I was lucky enough to be given a Blackberry Curve for a few weeks. For my money, the Curve has it all: the pearl navigation is easy to use, GPS which works really well, the software itself is responsive and easy to learn, having a full keyboard makes it realistic to compose long messages, and the call quality is pretty good.

Then the trial ended and I had to go back to the HTC Vodafone 1240 – a WM5 device that suffers all the worst problems of the platform – huge call lag, over-designed animations which slow the whole interface down to a snail’s pace, really unintelligent pre-emptive text support.

So, the Toshiba G710 looked like a great halfway house: presumably a better processor (because its Toshiba), Windows Mobile 6, the pearl to get around, a full keyboard and GPS.

Well it’s been a bit of a let down. The GPS for a start doesn’t work at all. once again WM 6 feels like it is trying to run before it can walk, with common, painfully slow animations and transitions between pages, and noticeable lags when answering and making calls.

Yes, IE is a far better mobile browser than BB’s own, and setting it up with Exchange is certainly easier but otherwise the curve is better in all respects.

Call quality is ok, although the maximum volume is insufficient for noisy settings. the pearl is nice most of the time but too sensitive to vertical movement in some key interfaces, making it – at times – quite hard make the correct selection.

The case is small enough to go in a jeans pocket, and the keyboard is good and quick to type on, but not always able to accept all inputs which is frustrating. The side buttons cannot be programmed (a nice BB feature), and there is no headphone socket – forcing anyone who wants to use the device as walkman to carry around the crappy supplied mini-usb-connecting headset.

So overall, good, but certainly not great, and not up to the quality of the Blackberry.