AT&T Wireless made a huge splash with the recent introduction of the Nokia Surge, a consumer QWERTY smartphone powered by cheap mid-range hardware. Furthermore, the carrier recently introduced the Sony Ericsson C905, boasting a high-end Cyber-shot 8-megapixel camera. Three Samsung phones have also seen the light of day on AT&T this spring, including the Samsung Jack WinMo slab QWERTY phone, Samsung Propel Pro WinMo QWERTY slider, and the Samsung Impression consumer QWERTY phone with its shining 3.2-inch AMOLED screen. And lastly there's the top-rated Nokia E71x QWERTY smartphone, providing a powerful solution at a low price point for business users.
The Nokia E71x is an easy phone to recommend for business users looking for a powerful device in an attractive, slim shell. It's one of the better smartphones on the market, and certainly its near the top of AT&T's lineup. The interface could use a serious overhaul to make it more convenient, intuitive and downright pretty, and AT&T did little to improve this phone from the unlocked Nokia E71 besides adding a raft of trial software and carrier-specific extras. Still, the phone does a very good job at nearly everything, with e-mail, Web browsing and call handling as standouts. At twice the price, this would be a good choice, but with a starting bid of $100, we think AT&T and Nokia have a winner on their hands.
By keeping things simple and smoothing out the rough edges, literally and figuratively, Samsung has created another fine device for their AT&T Windows Mobile portfolio. In fact, the Samsung Jack may be our favorite device of the bunch. Its battery performance is unbeatable, and it packs all of our favorite features, including super-fast networking, Wi-Fi, GPS navigation and plenty of support for our messaging needs. We even appreciated the thoughtful extras like the turbo scroll navigation button and the ample supply of dedicated shortcut keys. Had Samsung improved the Web browsing experience a bit and tossed out the proprietary USB / headphone port, we might call this our favorite AT&T smartphone, over our current darling the Nokia E71x. Still, for serious business users, this phone is a great choice, and a worthy successor to the BlackJack name.
The Nokia Surge is something of an ugly duckling among the inexpensive, full-QWERTY messaging phone set. Actually, it's not even that ugly, and with its Symbian S60 smartphone OS, it's definitely more swan than duck. If you skip the junk that AT&T has piled onto this phone, you're left with a powerful device with business-class e-mail, contacts and calendar sync, a respectable, full-HTML Web browser and suite of multimedia options that were capable of handling our basic music and video needs. We loved the keyboard. It's our new favorite among compact messaging phones, and even though the aging Symbian interface doesn't compare to new-fangled, top-of-the-line smartphones, it still outclasses other, simpler messaging devices by a mile. We wish the phone had more built-in options for our favorite messaging addictions, like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, but that Symbian S60 OS means an intrepid user will find third-party options available. In the end, some messaging fans might prefer a friendlier QWERTY feature phone like the LG enV3 on Verizon Wireless or the LG Lotus on Sprint, but the Nokia Surge is the best compact messaging phone on AT&T's lineup, and a solid choice all around.
For Windows Mobile fans, we can easily recommend the Samsung Propel Pro, since its definitely our favorite WinMo device from Samsung (to check out Samsung's recent full-QWERTY WinMo phones, click here). It's a simple, yet powerful device all around. Don't let the lack of a touchscreen fool you. The Propel Pro still has all the powerful messaging and scheduling capabilities of Windows Mobile, and some of the fastest network speeds we've seen on AT&T's 3G network. We even like the design, with the chrome shell, the slide out QWERTY keyboard and the smooth joystick action. Where Windows Mobile stumbles, the Samsung Propel Pro stumbles, especially in multimedia playback and Web browsing. More adventurous and, dare we say, stylish users might want to wait for the Nokia E71x, a superthin Symbian smartphone that will offer similar capabilities, including MS Exchange support. But Windows Mobile fans looking for a slab alternative need look no further.
The Samsung Impression is probably the most advanced feature phone in AT&T's current lineup, and its one of the few phones on the markets with the brilliant, colorful AMOLED screen technology. For calling, media playback and even Web browsing, we found the apps to be very touch friendly, though not too advanced. The keyboard is a nice addition, but the phone lacks most of our favorite messaging options. Mostly, we wish that there were better video playback options to truly take advantage of the impressive screen. Still, the phone was fun to use, and some features came through for us. The camera was better than we expected, and pictures looked great on the 3.2-inch display. Also, GPS performance was good, and we liked being able to geotag those pics. Overall, the Samsung Impression is the best feature phone we've tried on AT&T, but we wish the carrier would go farther with messaging and Web browsing options and let these feature phones live up to their full potential.
The Sony Ericsson C905 is a phone that takes pictures that look fantastic, perhaps better than any other cameraphone we've seen so far. Unfortunately, that's about the only thing it does very well. For people who want to take print-worthy shots without carrying an extra camera, the Sony Ericsson C905 is a perfect fit. In terms of other features, it does an adequate job, especially in text messaging and GPS Navigation. But for a high-end phone, we were let down by the lack of a decent Web browser, and we were frustrated by the video playback that made our videos look foggy and poor. It's too bad AT&T is selling this phone without the included headphones and memory stick micro, as these proprietary formats are expensive, and a few features rely on these accessories to work properly. Still, cameraphone fans have found their king shooter at the top of the carrier pile, and AT&T has fired its latest shot in the burgeoning megapixel phone wars.
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