New cell phone and smart phone Ratings for Black Friday

The Samsung Instinct HD

They may not be among the most sought-after electronics products for the Black Friday weekend, but cell phones and smart phones will still be on shopping lists of a hefty 10 percent of gear shoppers in the days following Thanksgiving, according to the latest Consumer Reports Shopping Poll. And we’ve just updated our Ratings, available to subscribers, to add several models to what is already our largest-ever array of tested wireless phones.

Here’s a rundown of interesting capabilities and select test findings on four of the more interesting new phones. Clicking on their names takes you to the model page for the phone, where you’ll find additional information, including some specs and a model overview. (Subscribers who are logged in will also see full test results.) Prices are with a two-year contract from the indicated carrier, including rebates.

Samsung Instinct HD, Sprint ($250)
Though pricey for a cell phone, this is one heck of an image-taker, with the best video capabilities we've seen on any phone, even they’re not quite up to the high-def quality Samsung claims (images look more like those from a decent pocket camcorder). In our tests, the Sprint was no slouch as a still camera, either, and boasts a flash, manual ISO settings, face and smile detection and multi-shot mode.

Garmin Nuvifone G60, AT&T ($300)
Made by a leading name in GPS, and with one of the best navigation applications we've seen on any phone, this talented cell phone a fine stand-in for a dedicated portable navigation device (PND). It boasts spoken turn-by-turn directions and street names, along with automatic re-routing, preloaded maps of North America, a trip computer, and a helpful "Where am I?" option for emergency assistance.

First Impressions: Samsung Behold II smart phone

Samsung Behold II

Usually successor phones bear a fairly close resemblance to their earlier namesakes. But the Samsung Behold II, $230, available Wednesday from T-Mobile, looks and behaves little like the first Behold.

While that predecessor is an advanced phone with touch screen and a 4.9-megapixel camera with advanced controls, the Behold II is a smart phone, with a larger screen (3.2 in. vs. 3 in.) and more buttons at its base for accessing the phone's more advanced features. Measuring 4.57 in. x 2.2. in. x .48 in., the Behold II is about average in size for a smart phone. It includes built-in Wi-Fi, a full Web browser, virtual QWERTY keyboard and a 2GB MicroSD storage card, which you can upgrade to 16GB. The phone runs on the Android operating system, but the older 1.5 version. That aging OS lacks the native support for Microsoft Exchange Server, Facebook, and some of the advanced e-mail capabilities built into the 2.0 version of Android found the Motorola Droid, Samsung Moment, and other phones.

Our telecom engineers are currently testing the press sample we received from Samsung, but I've already had a chance to use the phone for a few hours. Overall, I found the phone decent enough, though not up to the standard of the Droid and some of the other smart phones that have hit the market recently, which offer better performance for less money. Here are my first impressions:

Display. Its 3.2-in. active matrix organic light emitting diode (AMOLED) display is pretty sharp: about 185 pixels per inch. Images seemed crisp and the colors were vibrant. Videos, including those I shot with the phone's camera, appeared smooth and sharp.

Phone controls. Where some smart phones lack hard phone buttons, and bury virtual phone controls on the desktop, the Behold has a well-located phone button on the bottom left corner of the phone. The virtual dial buttons were also easy to see and use, too, and buttons for voice mail, speed dial, contacts, and call log were conveniently displayed on the bottom.

What's new in iPhone navigation apps

Two items of note from our friends at the Consumer Reports Cars Blog:

• TomTom to update, improve iPhone navigation app

TomTom has just announced improvements to their iPhone navigation app, some of which address shortcomings we have criticized in the past. The upgrade adds three key features routinely found on TomTom stand-alone navigation devices. More...

• Test Drive: Live traffic data on Navigon Mobile Navigator iPhone app

Navigon was the first major GPS maker to offer a downloadable iPhone navigation app, porting over its graphic interface and features to the popular cell phone. Today, the Navigon Mobile Navigator stands as the top-grossing application in the Apple iTunes store, though until this week it has lacked one key feature: traffic information. More...

Verizon's sky-high ETF: Do the math

Bloggers have speculated that Verizon's fat new $350 fee for breaking its smart phone contracts is intended to thwart phone flipping, a scheme in which you take the two-for-one deal, quit the contract on the second phone, then sell the handset on eBay at a profit, even after you pay the old $175 early termination fee (or "ETF").

Verizon didn't directly answer when we put that theory for the $350 ETF to them. "Our general reasoning is that it reflects the higher cost associated with the phone," said Tom Pica, a Verizon spokesman.

That suggests Verizon is giving customers bigger savings in the form of a bigger subsidy for those devices out of its own pocket, right?

Wrong.

Droid vs. iPhone: Them's fightin' words

A fight has broken out over last Friday's boxing-themed preliminary head-to-head comparison of the brand-new Motorola Droid and Apple's iPhone. The post has drawn scores of comments, and more readers continue to weigh in. The overwhelming majority of commenters feel our review gave short shrift to the Droid, though one reader, Robinson, noted, "this is a blog comparison not a formal CR review. So, don't trash what CR still does so well." Our testers continue to evaluate the Droid and our in-depth review will be posted in the coming days. In the meantime, some  thoughts on the issues raised by commenters:

Critics: The Droid's display is clearly better. Commenters are puzzled by why I called the display comparison a tossup even though I acknowledged that the Droid's display is bigger, boasts higher pixel density, and appears sharp and bright. (When comparing two identical Web pages side-by-side, text on the Droid's screen was noticeably sharper.) A key reason for my judgment: I wasn't able to test the Droid's display in the myriad of different lighting conditions, modes, and apps that our testers used to arrive at their scoring of the iPhone 3G S display (available to subscribers), the highest they've awarded to a phone screen. We'll see what our testers have to say about the Droid's display.

Critics: The Droid's camera is the better-equipped. I called this feature for the iPhone 3G S, in large part due to the camera's appealing interface and rich features. In addition to describing the Droid's camera as "well-equipped," I should have also have cited its flash and 16x9 (widescreen) video recording, both missing from the iPhone. Critics:

The iPhone's GPS isn't demonstrably better and costs more. On the first point, our Cars colleagues, who test GPS on all its platforms, demurred in their first impressions of the Google Maps Navigation found on the Droid, as I wrote. Since my post, there's now a full review on the Cars blog, which calls GMN only "adequate," and says the app should not be "the leading reason to purchase" an Android 2.0 phone, such as the Droid. But the review also acknowledges that the free software does "eliminate the need to pay for GPS and traffic services," including the cost of buying the pricey iPhone navigation apps and services. A couple of parting observations about the passion of the comments about this phone:

• They suggest the Droid has quickly emerged as the phone around which iPhone critics have coalesced. It's emerging as the preeminent un-iPhone or even anti-iPhone.
• The comments are further evidence that no community of observers takes a closer and more critical interest in how we test and assess than smart-phone fans. We've experienced that in the past, when we updated the methodology and presentation of our smart-phone Ratings (available to subscribers) in response to the changing nature of these devices.

Even though it sometimes hurts to be hit with repeated jabs, we love to hear about your hands-on experiences with and technological insights on smart phones.—Mike Gikas

Buying the Verizon Droid: My pre-dawn odyssey

A line outside the Verizon Wireless store Friday morning, shortly before opening.

It’s not easy to find a decent cup of coffee—or any kind of coffee, for that matter—before the sun rises in the suburbs of New York City. If it hadn’t been for Verizon’s new Droid phone, I might never have known that (which would have been fine). However, in the interest of seeing the Droid for myself, and gaining some insight into the bizarre, early-morning rituals of the mad-for-mobile crowd, I decided to meet a Consumer Reports secret shopper at 5 a.m. in a dark, empty parking lot outside a dimly lit Verizon Wireless store.

The Droid has sparked all manner of hype in the weeks leading up to its release today, which prompted our secret shopper to get in line early to ensure he’d get a phone for our testers. (Last year, when he went to buy the similarly hyped Blackberry Storm, the line stretched around the side of the building.) A day ahead of he launch he tried to find out how many Droids the store would get, but the most he could squeeze from this store’s salesperson was “we’ll have more than five.”

Fear, hype, and (for me) a small sense of adventure had us racing alongside airport limo drivers and insomniacs to a Droid stakeout. In the end, there was little to fear. We were among only a handful of very early risers, as Engadget can confirm. Others showed up just before opening, but no one was denied a phone for lack of stock. Here’s a rundown of the morning:

5:10 a.m.: Met our shopper at the Verizon Wireless store. We sip burned, acrid coffee. There are four other cars in the lot with passengers, waiting like us. We have an unspoken agreement to stay in our cars for the time being. No reason to line up in the cold just yet.

Droid vs. iPhone: A 10-round bout

[Update: See the author's response to commenters in his follow-up post: "Droid vs. iPhone: Them's fightin' words'" —Ed.]

The Motorola Droid, available today from Verizon for $200 after rebates, is the latest in series of phones, including the Blackberry Storm, T-Mobile G1, and Palm Pre, to be floated as a potential threat to Apple’s iPhone, the undefeated champion of the smart-phone world. Other media who’ve weighed in on the showdown include Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal, Gizmodo, and Engadget.

I liked what I saw when I put a press sample of the Droid through its paces. (See the Droid review here.) Now, as our testers complete their extensive tests on the Droid, here’s my 10-round preliminary take on how the new Verizon smart phone fares against the iPhone 3G S, which remains—at least for now—the highest-rated smart phone in our Ratings (available to subscribers).

Ding ding:

Round 1. Touch screen. Advantage: iPhone. Both phones have highly responsive touch screens. But the iPhone's is multitouch for all functions, allowing you to zoom in and out of photos and Web pages by pinching or spreading your fingers. The Droid has such multitouch functionality only when running certain applications, according to Engadget.

Round 2. Interface. Advantage: Droid. A tough call, since both phones have a terrific icon-based interface that makes finding and launching their many features a snap. However the Droid, which employs the latest 2.0 version of Google’s Android operating system, allows a higher degree of personalization via widgets and other tools, and you put all of your e-mails from different accounts (except Gmail) under one view.

Verizon's fee hike: A surprising slap to its best customers

By choosing to boost its early-termination fees (ETFs) to as much as $350 for its smart phones, like the Blackberry Storm2 and the hot new Motorola Droid, Verizon Wireless has chosen to (literally) penalize some of its best customers.

The hike is a slap to Verizon’s “advanced device” owners, which are every carrier’s biggest prize because they tend to buy more services than most customers—voice minutes plus lots of data downloads. Indeed, Verizon itself told us last year that Blackberry-type customers drop twice as much revenue into the till as traditional voice-only cell users. “Those customers generate about $100 in revenue per month whereas the average customer is only $50,” Lowell McAdams, President and CEO of Verizon Wireless told us last year in an in-depth interview.

Yet Verizon is doubling the fees for these big spenders while keeping the current $175 maximum ETF for owners with less-sophisticated standard and feature phones and modems.

Verizon said to hike early-termination fee for smart phones

Verizon Wireless is planning to boost its early-termination fees (ETF) as high as $350 (from the current maximum of $175) for advanced devices like the Blackberry and its new Motorola Droid.

Following a report from Boy Genius Report, a Verizon spokesman confirmed to me that they are in fact raising the fees to as much as $350 for smart phones, netbooks and other advanced devices.

Verizon was first to pro-rate early-termination fees, way back in 2006, while the last to do so was Sprint in 2008.

We’ll have more on what this ETF means—and Verizon’s official response—tomorrow. —Jeff Blyskal

TwitterPeek: “Epic fail of the week"?

TwitterPeek

For Twitter addicts who relish the thought of having another expensive mobile device clunking around in their pocket or bag, TwitterPeek is for you. Released yesterday by Peek Inc., TwitterPeek looks like a smart phone with a full QWERTY keyboard but connects only to Twitter. No phone. No emails. Just Twitter. Price: $100 for the device including 6 months of wireless service. After that, service runs $8 a month. (For $200 you can get the TwitterPeek plus a lifetime service plan.)

Peek seems to be building a name for itself as a maker of single-function mobile gadgets. The company’s Peek Classic ($20 plus a $15/month service plan) just sends and receives email. The Peek Pronto ($60 plus service plan) emails and also allows unlimited texting.

You could make a case for the efficacy of the Peek Classic and Pronto, given the high cost of many data plans for smart phones. The idea behind TwitterPeek, on the other hand, is one even some of the Twitterati have trouble understanding. From the Wall Street Journal:

“On Twitter, it’s attracting its fair share of skeptics. “TwitterPeek is my vote for epic fail of the week,” Josho2001 tweeted. “I don’t see this having much demand. Two words: Smart. Phone,” wrote Marie Goltara. A third Twitter user, Nelanka, added, “TwitterPeek is the final sign that the end is near. I figured this would have come out around 2012.”

If you’re savvy enough to be a dedicated Twitterer, isn’t it also likely you’d be capable of tweeting (for free) from your cell or smart phone? —Nick K. Mandle