This unlocked phone from the Silicon Valley startup has a shiny design reminiscent of the SLVR L7. Is it worth dropping your SIM card into?
Review summary of the Latte Slim 11B:
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 It was probably a mistake for Latte to position this phone against the Motorola SLVR L7, since the only advantage it has over that phone is more megapixels on the camera sensor. Otherwise, the Slim 11b can be had for $200, while the L7 can be found, unlocked, for $150 or less. With all its flaws, especially the tight keypad and poorly designed interface, we can't possibly recommend this phone over the SLVR. An MP3 player and the included headphone adapter are nice, and we had no problems with call quality, but in every other way this phone was disappointing, and possibly even offensive. Release: April 2007. Price: $200.
Pros: Slim, shiny design. Calls sounded good. We like the included 3.5mm headphone adapter.
Cons: Few calling options. Searching is difficult on the spare phonebook. Messaging is a pain on the tiny keys. Interface requires too many menu clicks. Tiny buttons make navigating, typing and dialing difficult.
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Full review of the Latte Slim 11B:
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When we were originally approached by Latte Communications to review their unlocked, GSM phones, we were intrigued by some of their upcoming models, including a touch-sensitive device that has yet to be released. They sent us the Latte Slim 11b, a phone that the company has admittedly positioned against the Motorola SLVR L7. We tested the phone using a Cingular SIM card in our lower Manhattan office.
Design - Good
The Latte Slim 11b takes some obvious design cues from the SLVR L7, but we wouldn't go so far as to call it a knock-off. It is a thin candy bar phone with a single-sheet metallic keypad, and it shares some of the same rounded edges as the Motorola phone. Physically the Slim is not as wide as the SLVR, and just as thin, though it is a bit taller. The Slim is a very shiny phone, with lots of polished mirror surfaces on its face, ready to attract your fingerprints. The keys are tiny and cramped, and though a raised bit of plastic separates them, we still found ourselves pecking with the tips of our fingernails to type accurately.
The interface is unique in its styling, but not in its organization. The phone's options are fairly standard, but Latte seems more fond of submenus than most manufacturers, so we found ourselves clicking endlessly just to reach simple functions. Because the navigation button on the phone is so small, this caused some frustration. We have no complaints about the screen, which was tall, bright and colorful, though the default wallpaper, an animated jetliner passing over a tropical island, reminded us a bit too much of the first episode of "Lost," and we found it a bit disconcerting.
Our favorite: Very slim, sleek design. Nice and shiny.
Our request: Bigger buttons.
Calling - Good
Though the Latte Slim 11b makes phone calls that sound good, a lack of calling features plagues the phone. Calls sounded generally clean, though we could have used more volume on the listening end. Reception was good as well, about a bar shy of full signal strength wherever we checked it. The speakerphone was a bit soft for our needs, though, and we missed advanced features like Bluetooth and voice dialing, both of which the competing SLVR L7 has . The contact list on the phone was not only spare in its available fields, it was also difficult to use. This is one of the few phones we've seen recently without live searching, so every search through our contact list required multiple menu hits, a real hassle on the phones tiny, flat 4-way button.
Our favorite: At least the calls sound nice and clean
Our request: More features, and a better address book
Messaging - Poor
If you must send a text message from the phone, it is certainly possible, though it isn't a pleasant experience. First of all, the keys are so tiny, flat and slick that typing requires real concentration and long, sturdy fingernails. Second, as we mentioned above, searching your contact list for a recipient is made more difficult by the lack of live searching, so expect more typing and navigating with the tiny keys, and plenty of digging through the menus. If you press the phone's dedicated menu key, you are taken to the messaging inbox, and not a "create message" screen, so be prepared for even more menu digging just to send a message. Finally, should you be so inclined to send a multimedia message, good luck, because you won't be able to send directly from either the camera or the image viewer, which is a real flaw in the phone's OS. Receiving messages wasn't so bad, as the phone's message viewer fits a full 160-character SMS on screen at once. Still, the experience sending messages was abysmal.
Our favorite: The phone can display a full SMS text message on screen
Our request: Every other aspect of messaging needs improvement
Odds and ends
In addition to its basic calling and messaging features, the Slim 11b can also handle some multimedia content, especially MP3 files. The company has graciously packaged a headphone adapter with a 3.5mm headphone port so you can use whatever phones you like, and though no memory card is included, the phone also has a side-loading microSD slot. The 1.3-megapixel camera takes below average pictures, like most camera phones, and includes a variety of effect options, including some cool embossed and sketch filters. Web browsing via the WAP browser is handled via GPRS, so expect slow downloads.
In exploring some of the phones additional options, we uncovered a very strange option under the "Health" submenu. There are two health "apps," a Body-Mass Index (BMI) calculator, and an option that simply says "Menstrual." Click on Menstrual, and you are greeted with a picture of, we kid you not, a witch flying across the sky, with a moon in the background. Another click lets you enter your last menstrual period. Okay, we get the relationship between lunar cycles and menstrual cycles, but a witch? Really? While we're not sure of the use for a menstrual calendar on a phone, we feel that the picture of the witch could easily be considered sexist and inappropriate, and in addition to all the other issues we had with this phone, we think the OS designers need to seriously rethink their choices.
Price and availability
The Latte Slim 11B is currently available unlocked from the Latte Fone Web site for $200.
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