The thin phone craze has reached its zenith, as we’ve come to expect newer phones to shed weight and girth in favour of pocket-friendly (and battery-unfriendly) form factors. Huawei, a relative newcomer to the Canadian market, has launched the Ascend P1 on WIND as a stylish and functional mid-range device. For $399 it has all the right specs to appeal to budget-conscious buyers, but does its slice of stock Android have enough firepower to convince people it’s a better deal than the Galaxy Nexus?

Specs:

- Android 4.0.3 with custom Huawei skin
- 4.3-inch 960×540 Super AMOLED display
- 1.5Ghz TI OMAP 4460 SoC with PowerVR SGX540 GPU
- 1GB RAM, 4GB internal storage (512MB microSD card included in box)
- 8MP camera w/ flash, 1.3MP front-facing camera
- 1670mAh battery
- UMTS 850/900/1700/1900/2100; GSM 850/900/1800/1900
- 110g
- 129 mm x 64 mm x 7.69m

Device & Display

The Ascend P1 is attractive – the black front is curved at the bottom and has limited bezel, with three capacitive buttons below the 4.3-inch qHD screen and a notification light just above it. We’re happy to see Huawei eschew the unnecessary Search button in favour of a three-button layout, but we’d have preferred no capacitive buttons at all. The white plastic casing is glossy and scratch-prone, picking up fingerprints and scuffs too easily. The black-white contrast is elegant, however, and the chrome buttons and camera lens, while plastic, provide the phone with a bit of needed classiness.

The device is slim — 7.69mm at its thinnest point — but there is a sizeable chin at the bottom, and the 8MP camera sticks out of the back like a symmetrical wart. We’re quite happy with the design overall, and its relative small nature makes the Ascend P1 very comfortable to hold in the hand. The 1670mAh battery is non-removable, and you’ll find a full-sized SIM card slot next to the microUSB charging port on top, while a microSD slot shares the right side with the power button.

Huawei’s Ascend P1 doesn’t try anything new when it comes to displays, either, but for the most part the choice works. The 4.3-inch Super AMOLED screen is lush, vivid and bright, with excellent viewing angles, deep blacks and an assured crispness that tries its best to make you forget its PenTile origins. Only when looking closely at the individual pixels can you tell there are slight aberrations on letters and a discomfiting moire pattern on certain graphics and images. It’s not distracting, and can be compared to the HTC One S in acuity. In all, the Ascend offers a very good display for a couple hundred dollars less than the One S, which is a nice compliment. The same can’t be said for the scratch-prone plastic body, but you’re unlikely to be disappointed in the design of the P1.

Performance & Software

The Ascend P1 comes with a fairly stock version of Android 4.0.3 — that is, if you use the included 2D Launcher. Huawei also throws in its own garish, sluggish 3D Home launcher that, while it may look good at first, bogs down the device with transition flourishes and unnecessary effects.

If you stick to the 2D Launcher, which is Google’s stock Trebuchet as far as we can tell, you’ll be quite happy with the zippy performance of the Ascend P1. The internal hardware — Texas Instruments’ OMAP 4460 SoC at 1.5Ghz and 1GB RAM — is still pretty fast for a modern smartphone. It’s the same hardware, clocked 300Mhz higher, as the Galaxy Nexus, but the aging PowerVR SGX540 GPU doesn’t have to push as many pixels. This makes it a really able gaming device and, if browsing is your thing, Chrome renders most pages with aplomb.

We found touch performance to be spot-on, and the compact handset felt just right when held in landscape; for that reason, we’d have no problem recommending the Ascend P1 to Android gamers, a growing community indeed. We managed to stream a good amount of 720p and 1080p video and the lower-bitrate stuff played fine but the GPU struggled to decode some of the more difficult stuff.

Camera

The Ascend P1 has a decent 8MP camera that won’t turn many heads with its soft photos and overexposed outdoor shots, but for the most part it is a consummate performer in most respects. Huawei has adapted Google’s stock hardware-accelerated real-time morphing abilities, expanding it to include not only face-related processing, but the ability to morph entire scenes a la Paper Camera. While these features won’t be widely used, they’re useful for playful photo sharing.

The Ascend P1 takes photos fairly quickly, though unfortunately it doesn’t have the instant shutter that debuted on the Galaxy Nexus. This is surprising considering the two devices share not only a code base but a hardware base. The f/2.4 lens and 8MP sensor work quite well together, and in the right conditions you’ll get a good shot or two. The device is quite sensitive to shakiness, so a steady hand should solve any bluriness in lower light.

The device can take 1080p video, which is also comparatively soft when compared to newer devices, with a lower bitrate than the Galaxy S III and One X. The sensor also has trouble adjusting to lighting changes, causing a 1-2 second period of over- or under-exposure.

Battery Life

The 1670mAh battery inside the Ascend P1 is non-removable, so it’s a good thing the device isn’t too power hungry. We were able to achieve nearly 18 hours of continuous use from the Ascend on WIND’s network, something that can’t be said of most Android phones today. While we’re aware the relatively small battery was necessary to keep girth to a minimum, we wish Huawei hadn’t gone the “beauty contest” route and instead opted to put a 2000+mAh battery inside the device. We’d much rather have a full day-and-a-half uptime than a wispy smartphone.

Network Speed & Miscellanous

The Ascend P1 is a pentaband device capable of 21.1Mbps download speeds and 5.76Mbps upload speeds. With the network still in its relative infancy, we were not expecting to hit speeds anywhere near that on the Huawei and we were absolutely right. Download speeds in downtown Toronto averaged 500kbps to 2.2Mbps; upload speeds stayed between 90kbps and 880kbps. In other words, not very fast. The WIND network, while improving throughout the country, is a still a good deal slower than even Rogers/TELUS/Bell’s 3G network.

The device does come with a microSD card slot, but a meagre 512MB card is bundled. Along with an underserving 4GB of internal storage, you’re likely going to want to invest in a 8-32GB microSD card.

We noticed that the P1 sounds great over WIND’s network, and the back speaker is fairly loud and clip-free for a tiny mono crevice.

Conclusions

The Huawei Ascend P1 does everything mostly right, and its weaknesses are built into the price. A decent performer with a mostly-stock version of Ice Cream Sandwich, the $399 handset is one of the fastest, thinnest, and most attractive mid-range devices on the market.

While WIND still sells the Galaxy Nexus for $499, there’s a chance they will lower it to the $299 mark set by Mobilicity in the coming weeks. If they do so, the Ascend P1 becomes much harder to recommend despite its all-round goodness. Still, the Ascend P1 sits nicely below the Galaxy Nexus and Galaxy S III in WIND’s back-to-school roster and is a great device for someone looking to simplify, downsize or merely save a few bucks.

Another day, another inexpensive Android QWERTY device. Last week we took a look at the slightly more expensive Motorola Pro+, and today we have the smaller, slower and significantly cheaper in price Huawei U8350 from WIND Mobile.

The device retails for $135 outright, or for free on the WIND’s Tab+, but either way you slice it the phone, known as affectionately as the “Boulder”, is a far cry from the high-end Android scene. Can the versatile operating system be adapted to run well on a device such as this? Read on to find out.

Specs:

- Android 2.2 Froyo
- 2.6″ 320×240 display, 65k colours
- 528 MHz Qualcomm MSM7225 processor
- 256MB RAM, 512MB ROM
- 3.2MP camera
- WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS
- 115 x 62.8 x 9.9 mm
- 105g

The Phone

We were shocked when we first picked up the Boulder to discover its bezel was actually made of aluminum. With a smooth, uniform finish and high-quality plastic keys, it is a relatively well-made device. The keys don’t rattle, and are sprightly to the touch; the right-side volume rocker feels lively, and for such a small device it possesses an assured weight to it.

The keyboard in many ways surpasses the quality of phones three times the cost: we were able to touch-type on our first try, and each button has a satisfying click. Their rounded shape makes it easy to delineate between keys, and the placement of each is first-rate.

Above the keyboard is the standard Android quartet: Home, Menu, Back and Search, and between them in a four-way directional pad with a selection button in the middle. Each of these is dramatically oversized, but nothing compared to the massive Call and End buttons right underneath the screen. It seems like they padded out the size of each function key because they didn’t want to invest in a bigger screen.

Said screen is exactly what you’d expect from a device that costs $135: grainy, colourless and flat, with narrow viewing angles and extreme fuzziness. Due to the awkward 3:4 aspect ratio (as opposed to 4:3 or 16:9, which is what most Android devices have) the screen is stuck in landscape mode. While other devices such as the HTC Status got away with the same design, their screens were of significantly higher pixel density. As it is the Boulder can barely fit anything on its screen: you’ll barely get through two lines of text on an email before scrolling down.

Responsiveness is pretty bad, too, which is likely why Huawei stuck a four-way directional pad on the front, BlackBerry-style. Though not well used, Android supports analog movement and selection, and it actually comes in handy on this device. The Boulder’s design is appropriate for basic text-based communication. For anything else, we’d recommend going with something more powerful and touch-friendly.

Performance

There isn’t much “performance” to speak of inside this device. With specs akin to the original HTC Dream circa late-2008, the Boulder runs stock Android 2.2 at a pace only a mother could love. It manages to wheeze its way through five home screens and a sparse app drawer, and but for access to the Android Marketplace we’d have sworn this was a feature phone.

It does come with all the stock Android apps that we love, including Gmail, Maps and a browser theoretically capable of rendering full web pages, though we painfully waited for a few to load and decided to stop the torture. One thing we always say about entry-level Android devices, though, is that they’re cheap GPS replacements: the Boulder includes Google’s excellent free turn-by-turn Navigation software, and with WIND’s cheap data plans it’s a pretty good alternative to a dedicated Garmin or TomTom.

We found typing on the device to be easy enough, and the processor was thankfully able to keep up with our presses. By default there is a very intrusive and screen-occupying predictive text bar that appears as you type; it ebbs and flows with the movement of your fingers, constantly repositioning the input box in the process. We’d recommend turning that off and trusting your instincts.

The phone has a useful feature in its ability to assign keyboard keys shortcuts to open various apps. Each letter or, if you’re so inclined, number can be combined with the Search button to effortlessly open the camera, browser or your favourite music player.

Facebook and Twitter, along with an app called Social Streams, are pre-installed if you want to do some socializing, and there is notepad alternative called Richpad for your various riveting thoughts. Social Streams is actually integrated into the Dialer app, appended to the right-most tab, and consolidates both Twitter and Facebook into a single feed. Quite helpful if you’d rather browse than participate.

Many apps don’t run on a device with such a low screen resolution, and the ones that do are so squashed as to be barely usable. Proceed with caution if you’re intending on using the Boulder to satiate your Android app appetite. If you are an app fiend, keep in mind that there is only 150MB of storage on-board.

Another great use for the Boulder would be as a music player. Capable of holding a microSD card up to 32GB music from the headphone jack sounds great. Calls sound fine, too, through the earpiece and the speakerphone is adequately loud for the occasional conference call.

Camera

The 3MP camera on the Boulder comes without a flash, and we found it to be about as poor as we’ve ever seen on a smartphone. Detail is barely perceptible, with most edges blending into the next in spectacular abstract fashion. The Boulder can also capture video at its native resolution.

Battery Life

For such a meagre phone, we’d expect decent battery life from the 1200mAh cell. Unfortunately even that is not the case, as it depleted quicker than any device in recent memory. From being fully charged, we’d have around two to three hours before it died on us. Perhaps we got a lemon, but it was quite unnerving to see the meter drop minute by minute.

Conclusions

The Huawei U8350 is to a smartphone the way that KFC is to chicken. It’s neither gourmet nor special, but it’s delicious for the price — or perhaps because of the price. It really only fulfils the very basic needs of someone who needs a phone that can text, tweet, email and occasionally browse.

The Huawei U8350 is available from WIND Mobile for $135 outright, or for free on the WindTab+.

Pros:

- Well-built, with metal accents
- Keyboard is springy and well-designed
- It has big buttons

Cons:

- Excruciatingly slow
- Poor screen quality and camera
- Bad battery life

We know, we know. It’s hard getting excited for the Nokia 500′s of the world when there are so many smartphones to choose from. But everyone has a mom, brother or cousin who just doesn’t care about pixel density, megahertz and aperture size. Often, these folks want a phone to, you know, call people and, occasionally, check their email or open a web page. Rarely, if ever, does this group want to spend over $200 for a device, and, ideally wants to keep the monthly bill below $40.

These folks are a diminishing bunch, but an ample herd they still are. Which brings us to the Nokia 500. I had a chance to check out Nokia World in London this past October, and let me tell you, outside of North America the brand is still very much a big player. And it’s devices like this, in that important sub-$200 category, keeping them in business.

And while the Nokia 500 runs Symbian, it’s the C^3 Anna version “optimized” for touch screens — we stress the quotes — and purports to offer similar functionality to smartphones hundreds of dollars more expensive. Does it deliver? The short answer is Yes but there are a lot of sacrifices. Read on to find out if it’s still the device for you (or your cousin).

Specs:

-  Symbian Anna OS
-  3.2″ 360 x 640 pixel capacitive LCD display
-  1Ghz ARM11 processor
-  256MB RAM, 512MB ROM, 2GB microSD card included (max 32GB)
-  5MP camera, VGA video@15fps
-  WiFi, A-GPS, Bluetooth 2.1 w/A2DP, Compass
-  Stereo FM radio
-  111.3 x 53.8 x 14.1 mm, 93 grams
-  1100 mAh battery

The Phone

For lack of a better description, the Nokia 500 looks like a Nokia device. It’s a candybar, thick and narrow, three buttons below a deeply-recessed 3.2″ screen. There is a power button on the right side which sits below a single-button volume rocker. All the buttons are cheap, with barely any give, and feel like they could fall off at any moment. The top portion, amply-spaced, houses a headphone jack, microUSB, and proprietary circular charging port.

The back of the 500 actually fares quite a bit better, and appeals to the matte plastic lover in me: it is smooth and grippy and simple. The camera lens is deeply recessed and covered with glass that dirties very easily. The Nokia logo, arrayed vertically, stares at you warmly; “I am the last of my kind,” it seems to say. We can’t say we’re sorry for the loss.

For a 3.2″ display the capacitive screen performs well. You will rarely find such a high-density screen at this price point, and Nokia does well to furnish its three home screens with playful round icons and plenty of helpful widgets. Colours are muted; all yellows appear mustard; all reds a dappled fuschia. Nonetheless, the backlight is strong so whites are bright and accurate. Blacks are more grey than I’d like, but viewing angles hold up remarkably, and the screen performs decently in sunlight. What more could we ask for?

Symbian & Performance

Incredibly, the Nokia 500 wipes the floor with your N8 or E7. Indeed, I noticed this the moment I booted it; it took around 30 seconds, nearly half the time of the former flagships. Symbian Anna is a capable operating system if you give it the right guts, and the 500 is able to keep up with our gestures, for the most part.

Like previous C^3 versions of Symbian, there are three home screens bedecked with widgets and icons. These widgets can be moved to any grid of three icon spaces and, like Android, can update intermittently. By default your main home screen gives you access to the most important tenets of the OS: Camera, Contacts, Nokia Store, Nokia Maps, Messages, Email and Browser. Scrolling through them or, when you enter the app drawer by pressing the middle button below the display, vertically through a list of apps, is no longer an arduous, painstaking activity. Nokia have also improved the look of its icons immeasurably, creating squared-off ovals (or rounded-off squares) where before there was just noise.

Slow and inaccurate text input has been improved in this new version, offering a full QWERTY option in portrait mode where before there was only a keypad. Predictive text has been beefed up and, as long as you go slowly, is remarkably accurate. While the narrowness of the screen offsets the portrait keyboard’s usefulness it is a dramatic improvement over S60 and the original C^3 versions of Symbian.

You also have access to Nokia Store, the evolution of the now-defunct Ovi Store. Apps can be downloaded to either the 512MB of ROM or the 2GB microSD card, and though the fare is pretty meagre — you won’t be using your favourite iOS app on here anytime soon — there are some multi-platform favourites to choose from. Mainstays like Skype, Slacker Radio, WhatsApp and, yes, Angry Birds, are available from Nokia Store and while you’re there do yourself a favour and download Swype. It will be the best texting decision you’ve ever made.

Nokia bundles some decent native apps, too: Mail for Exchange now works, which is the first time we have been able to say that, well, ever. That means Gmail, Hotmail or corporate Exchange users can sync their mail, contacts and calendars without receiving an error every ten minutes. (Yes, we’re a little bitter.) The browser has received an overhaul, rendering pages much faster and more accurately than previous versions. For those of us used to an iPhone or Android browser, this is most definitely still a WAP experience — expect wait times in minutes, not seconds — but at least Javascript no longer locks up the phone and desktop pages can be scrolled through and zoomed in on.

The rest of the phone’s offerings is pretty standard Nokia fare: Maps has recently been updated and for many people is reason enough to buy a Nokia device. You get free turn-by-turn navigation, offline map caching, detailed driving and walking maps, and tie-ins with tons of services such as Lonely Planet, Michelin and Trip Advisor. While these may seem to be little more than advertising in the guise of features, being in a foreign country with a context-aware Lonely Planet guide at your fingertips could be invaluable.

There is a very capable music player, which is bundled with Nokia Music, an unlimited streaming service that hasn’t quite launched yet so we didn’t get to try it out. It looks to be like a Zune Pass where you can download tracks to your device and keep them for up to 12 months. Shazam, everyone’s favourite song name hunter, is pre-installed, along with a stereo FM radio.

Social networking is covered by integrated Facebook and Twitter support. The apps are clunky, slow and frustrating, but lacking official third-party apps makes Nokia’s built-in option the most convenient. If you’re really truly sticking with Symbian for the long haul, I’d recommend the excellent (and pricey) Gravity app  for Twitter. It may in fact be the best app on Symbian as a whole but at $9.99 is also one of the most expensive.

Incredibly, we’re not done with the Nokia 500′s built-in features. As with any good smartphone OS there are dictionary, calculator, voice recorder and note taking apps, as well as popular third-party voice-to-text solution Vlingo. Also hidden in there is the F-Secure Anti-Theft app which, once activated, allows you to find your lost phone through GPS or, if it’s truly gone forever, remotely wipe the memory. It also offers browser protection and attachment scanning.

Camera

There really isn’t much to say about the Nokia 500′s camera. While it claims to be 5 megapixels, and I have no reason to believe otherwise, pictures look to be of about the same quality as my Motorola RAZR. No, not this new Android version, but the one from years ago.

Colours are muted, detail is lacking and despite being thick enough to support an auto-focus mechanism there is none to speak of. Add to the experience a barely-usable camera UI and a “Please wait: deleting data from memory” message every time I open the app there may as well not be a camera on the back of the device. Oh, and the device takes VGA video at 15fps. Go figure.

Drawbacks

What, you mean besides the camera? Yes, Symbian Anna does have some outstanding issues. Firstly, connectivity: Symbian does not deal with multiple APNs and WiFi networks very well. Every app stores its own settings, and prioritizes them based on your last selection. Used a WiFi hotspot when last in the browser? It will attempt to reconnect to it, regardless of whether you’re a thousand miles away. Instead of dynamically selecting the best option — if no WiFi, move down the APN list until one connects — it explicitly asks you to choose, every time. It’s like a nagging six year-old.

And while the overall performance is dramatically improved over previous Symbian devices the Nokia 500 is by no means fast. It saunters along at its own pace, and slows to a crawl when you have more than a couple apps open. Forget about streaming music and browsing at the same time, or doing anything else while you’re downloading and installing an app from Nokia Store. It just won’t happen.

Speaking of Nokia Store, I continue to have problems getting apps to install. For every success there are three failures. Eventually the app will just snap to life and work, but it’s a frustrating endeavour to say the least.

Network, Sound and Battery

WIND has done a great job picking devices that support their HD Voice protocol, and the Nokia 500 is no exception. Like the C5-04 before it, when calling another WIND or Mobilicity user with a supported device (which, admittedly, is pretty unlikely) sound quality is crisp and lag-free.

Network speed is decent, though after using LTE devices like the Raider and Optimus LTE, WIND’s network seems slow. In reality it’s operating at a crisp 14.4Mbps, but due to Symbian’s inherent speed limitations it never feels as such.

And what of the battery? Well, it’s no surprise it lasts forever, at least in comparison to most modern smartphones. I was able to eek out three full days of use from it; Nokia claims seven hours of talk time and 18 days of standby.

Conclusions

I’ve said a lot about a phone that probably won’t appeal to you. But it may, and I hope it appeals to your mom, brother or cousin. The Nokia 500 is one of the best deals currently available on WIND, and the more people that don’t buy cheap Android devices and instead opt to buy decent workhorses like this one, the better the industry will be. Let’s give credit where it’s due: Nokia has done a fantastic job catering to the budget-friendly phone buyer who just wants something that works, lasts a long time and makes really great sounding, reliable phone calls.

The Nokia 500 is available from WIND Mobile for $179 or $29 on WINDtab.

Pros:

-     Sharp, responsive screen
-     Small and light, well-constructed
-     Symbian Anna is fast and much-improved from previous versions
-     Nokia Maps is the best free mapping software available, anywhere
-     Browsing and text entry improvements are notable
-     Inexpensive smartphone alternative
-     Excellent messaging and email solution
-     Fantastic call quality

Cons:

-     Terrible camera
-     Slowdown is common
-     Nokia Store has meagre selection
-     Finicky connectivity settings
-      Slow network speeds
-     Browser is still way behind iOS and Android, even BlackBerry 7

Straight from the internal doc that was forwarded to us here are the details: “All customers that port in their number between March 3rd and March 31st will be eligible for an account credit worth up to $25 or $100: Customers that choose a plan valued at $45 or higher will receive 5 monthly account credits of $20 for a total of up to $100. Customers that choose a plan valued at less than $45 will receive 5 monthly account credits of $5 for a total of up to $25.”

Thoughts?

(Thanks tipster!)

Certainly good news… check out the coverage map above or here
(Thanks Aileen!)

AESTHETICS
The Tribe is very light (only 152g), compared to other Android devices on the market, and easily fits into the palm of your hand. The device is covered in a soft, black, plastic bezel with a silver trim, which is resistant to fingerprints and minor cosmetics scratches. The front of the phone sports a 2.8” touchscreen with five hard-key shortcut buttons located underneath (Phone, Options, Home, Back, End/Power). I really enjoyed the shape and size of this device, and was a nice alternative to other larger Android phones currently on the market.
SIDE NOTE: Upon observation, it seems that Alcatel could have offered a bigger screen by lowering these buttons on the face of the device, or even including them as soft touch keys (similar to HTC).

The right side of the device houses a 3.5mm headphone jack, volume rockers, and a microUSB port for charging/computer connectivity. It should be noted that the top, bottom, and left side of the device do not house any features, making the lack of a camera button/shortcut and truly annoying. The back of the phone houses a small 2.0MP camera with video capabilities, as well as a small speaker for speakerphone.
SIDE NOTE: Alcatel has included two cables for the device, an AC charger, and a USB cable to connect to the computer. The AC charger is your typical “old school” charger and not similar to the more recent option of a USB cable with a removable AC-wall adapter component.

The battery door/back panel of the device can be easily removed via the small notch in the top right corner. This is another welcomed alternative to the usual battery door on other smartphones, which require the user to fiddle with interlocking groves. The Tribe comes with a 1150mAh battery, which advertises 360 minutes of talk time, and/or 400 hours of standby time. The Tribe also has a microSD slot, which supports up to 16GB. Wind has included a 2GB microSD card with the purchase of this device.
SIDE NOTE: In order to input/remove a microSD card, the battery door must be removed, since there are no exposed ports on the sides of the device.

The front of the Tribe slides up to reveal a nice, rubber-button, raised QWERTY keyboard. The hinge and sliding movements on this device feels very safe, stable and durable (it requires a violent swing to fling the Tribe shut while holding the sides of the phone). The raised rubber keys on the QWERTY keyboard allow the user to easily type messages and emails with comfort and accuracy. A virtual keyboard is also present for touchscreen use (see PERFORMANCE). It should be noted that the keyboard can be illuminated with a backlight, which automatically turns on when the lights are dimmed.

PERFORMANCE
The Alcatel Tribe comes preloaded with Android 2.1 (Éclair), along with 512MB internal memory, and supports AWS 1700/2100 GSM 1900, 1800, 900, 850 MHz networks. The Tribe advertises network speeds of up to 7.20 Mbps (download) and 5.76 Mbps (upload). The phone is powered by a 1150mAh battery, with up to 360 minutes of talk time, and/or 400 hours of standby time. The Alcatel Tribe supports GPS, +AGPS, and Bluetooth, while housing a WiFi 802.11 b/g card for WiFi support. It should be noted that most new smartphones ship with wireless “N” capability for increased speeds/connectivity and the lack of this support on this device is unsatisfactory.

In order to navigate the device, the user must utilize the touchscreen, which proved to be very unresponsive and inaccurate. I tested the accuracy through gaming and text messaging activities, and I was very disappointed. Playing Mah-jongg proved to be very frustrating as I had trouble selecting the desired tiles. Text messaging or any sort of typing on the virtual keyboard was impossible. The keys were not spaced far enough apart, making it very difficult to type a coherent message after numerous attempts. I even had a friend with smaller fingers test the virtual keyboard, and they also were unable to type properly. However, the physical QWERTY keyboard solved these problems and allowed me to easily type anything I wanted. In the end, I must say that my experience with the touchscreen on the Tribe was lackluster and disappointing, and I hope that Alcatel addresses these issues for any future touchscreen devices. The battery for this phone performed very well, and came close to the advertised specs by Alcatel, with average phone call/messaging use, and light browsing. I was never able to hit anywhere close to the network speeds as advertised by Wind Mobile and Alcatel.

SOFTWARE
The look and feel of the software on this device seems very cartoony and more user friendly driven. It was very easy to navigate through the various menus and screens of the Tribe and the use of multiple home screens give the user many options for customization. The Tribe does come preloaded with many useful apps for everyday use, including Facebook, AccuWeather, Radio, Games, Documents, Twidroyd, etc. Android 2.1 comes with a Gmail app for IMAP/POP3 email support. The Messages app allows for multi instant messaging, SMS and MMS support, and threaded conversation capabilities.

The browser was able to smoothly load various web pages and the “Windows” function allows the user to open multiple websites at the same time. This functionality greatly enhanced my browsing experience and allowed me to open my email, news, sports, and tech websites all at once, as if I was on my computer. The only thing missing was pinch-zoom integration, which is vital for any touchscreen device.

CONCLUSION
The Alcatel Tribe is definitely a step in the right direction for Wind Mobile, in order to expand on their Android offerings and increase their attractiveness as a new service provider. This device is geared towards lower end users, looking for an easy to use smartphone, with all the basic features currently being offered (Android OS, touch screen, sleek/compact design, WiFi capability, cost effective etc.). The Alcatel Tribe is the perfect device for any consumer making the jump to a smartphone and anyone looking for a compact phone with slide out keyboard. The Alcatel Tribe OT-981 is currently available with Wind Mobile in Canada, under the following pricing structure:
• $190.00 (outright)
• $40.00 (WINDTab)