The T-Mobile myTouch, LG's first foray into T-Mobile's myTouch family, is not to be confused with its brethren, HTC's myTouch 4G (4.5 stars) or myTouch 4G Slide ($199.99, 4.5 stars). Whereas those are super-high-end Android smartphones, the new myTouch is far more modest, beginning with its price: free with a two-year contract. It's a solid device, and a good starter phone for first-time Android users on T-Mobile.
Design and Call Quality
The myTouch measures 4.8 by 2.5 by 0.4 inches (HWD) and weighs just 3.8 ounces. It's extremely lightweight and comfortable to hold. My test model was black, but it's also available in white. The phone is made mostly made of rubbery black plastic, with shiny black plastic used to outline the display. The 3.8-inch AMOLED display looks great, and sports an impressive 480-by-800 pixel resolution. There is a slightly noticeable stippling effect thanks to the PenTile pixel layout, but it didn't bother me, and I was happy to see a high-res screen on a low-cost device. I was able to type on the on-screen keyboard without an issue, but if you're looking to do some heavy texting, you may want to check out the keyboarded myTouch Q (Free, 3.5 stars).
The myTouch is a quad-band EDGE (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) and dual-band HSPA+ 14 (1700/2100 MHz) device with 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi. It also supports T-Mobile's UMA-based Wi-Fi calling, which is a great fallback in areas with less-than-optimal T-Mobile coverage and a good way to save some money on your phone plan.
Voices sound full and clear in the phone's earpiece, though they distort a bit at maximum volume. Calls made with the phone also sound good, with just a touch of echo. Calls sounded clear through a Jawbone Era Bluetooth headset ($129, 4.5 stars) and voice dialing worked well over Bluetooth without training. The speakerphone sounds fine, but isn't loud enough to use outdoors. Wi-Fi-based calls sounded good as well. Battery life was average, at 5 hours 47 minutes of talk time.
Android and Apps
The myTouch runs Android 2.3.4 (Gingerbread) along with some very minor customizations from LG. There are five customizable home screens you can swipe between that come preloaded with a bunch of different apps and widgets. There's also some non-deletable bloatware, but no more than you'll find on most other Android devices nowadays. You get free Google Maps Navigation for voice-enabled, turn-by-turn directions, and TeleNav's own GPS Navigator app is also on board. The phone should also work with the 250,000+ third-party apps in Android Market.
The 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S2 MSM8255 processor moves this along nicely for the most part, but I ran into some hang-ups that lasted several seconds. The delays weren't any worse than on comparable phones, and this isn't a high-end device, so I don't expect flawless performance.
Multimedia, Camera, and Conclusions
The myTouch comes with .93GB of free internal memory along with a preinstalled 2GB microSD card; my 32 and 64GB SanDisk cards worked fine as well. There's a standard-size 3.5mm headphone jack on top of the phone, and music sounded great through wired earbuds as well as Altec Lansing Backbeat Bluetooth headsphones ($99.99, 3.5 stars). The phone was able to play AAC, MP3, OGG, WAV, and WMA test files, but not FLAC.
All of our standalone video test files played back fine, at resolutions up to 720p. One hitch: Audio for videos worked fine through wired headphones, but was slightly out of sync over Bluetooth.
The 5-megapixel auto-focus camera lacks an LED flash. Shutter speeds are a bit slow, at an average of 1 second. Photos snapped show average detail, but colors appear washed out. The camera also records 720p video at a stuttery 17 frames per second indoors and a smoother 25fps outside. There's also a front-facing VGA camera for video chat.
The T-Mobile myTouch faces plenty of competition at this price point. There's the HTC Wildfire S (Free, 3.5 stars), which features HTC's useful Sense UI layer, but is powered by a significantly slower CPU and gets weak reception. There's also the LG Optimus T (Free, 4 stars), but you'd be facing a step down in processing power and display size and resolution from the myTouch. If you're willing to spend some money, the Samsung Galaxy S 4G ($99.99, 4 stars) features a larger display, longer battery life, and faster HSPA+ 21 data speeds. Otherwise, the T-Mobile myTouch is a pretty solid budget bet.
0 comments:
Post a Comment