“Don’t judge a book by its cover.” I have learned once more. Mee and I had been criticising the day we got our hands on 3 SkypePhone but I have totally changed my point of view since I started using it.

The First View
At the very beginning, I knew something was not right when I saw the logo “Amoi” on the SkypePhone manual. The very next day after we signed a contract with 3, I started looking for comments on forums and blogs. My first thought was that I had made a mistake. I should have googled for reviews before deciding to choose SkypePhone.

Well, we could have gotten ourselves a better phone if we added £3 each month to our 3 contract. I had very less confidence in this phone and thought that those reviews praising this phone were rubbish. I had even posted a comment on one of the site.

The Comment
January 17th, 2008 2:31 pm myi4u

First of all, I agreed with John Smith.

I’ve just signed up for 3 yesterday and chosen the Skypephone. At a first glance, I thought it’s not a bad phone. When I tried putting in the battery, sim card and mmc, I felt that it is fragile and plastic.

The battery cover doesn’t fit properly, I believe it is due to the mechanism where there’s a magnet at the bottom of it. When I read the manual, I saw a Amoi logo and I have a feeling that I had made a mistake.

I regret for not making research on the internet. I regret for not trying out the display phone. Well, anyway, no one to blame but myself. I am just wondering how long it will last and how long it will take for the usb port cover to break. Personally, even 6630 is a better phone. Yeah, I am talking about an old model which I am using it now as my alarm.

Haha … I regretted for making that comment and would like to apologize to those who read my comment. Do not be mistaken. I was not bribed by anyone.

The Unit
I should point out that the quality of the make is indeed fragile than other mobile phones in the market. And honestly, I would not pay £49.99 (the current price) for this phone.

The screen resolution is terrible. The 2.0mp camera without flash is just standard. Pictures do not look good on the phone itself but they are still good when uploaded to computer. The keypad is quite cramp too and has a plastic feel. Well, it is plastic but some keypads have the keyboard feel. The menu is simple with only 9 plain icons and the icons will glow when selected. The front menu buttons are not customizable as shortcuts or goto functions, thus the only way to access applications and such is to drill in to the menus.

The user interface could have been better. Some of the options, when chosen, have no indication whether the options are saved or otherwise. On some rare occasions, notepad and messaging exited while I was still typing.

The Battery
First, the battery life is quite amazing. One charge could last for a week for me. I must admit that I did not make much calls myself and I only text most of the time. However, I had previously used SE W850i and Nokia 6630 which only lasted about 4 to 5 days the longest. I believe part of the reasons lie on the screen saver and brightness. The screen saver is plain and simple, with the options to display time and date or a picture. The unit does not illuminate until it is in unlock mode where Nokia and SE illuminate when any buttons are pressed.

The Functions
As the name suggests, SkypePhone, connecting to Skype is effortless and a huge button is positioned right at the middle of SkypePhone specifically for launching Skype. Mee had tried connecting to Skype effortlessly during Chinese New Year’s eve and chatted with her friend in Edinburgh for more than an hour while experiencing 3 disconnections. However, I believe that could be owing to low network coverage in our area. 3 network is also offering free MSN based on fair use policy and SkypePhone has MSN preinstalled. There are only two trial version of games; Tetris Pac-Man.

Other than that, it also has notepad, calendar, profile settings, alarm and calculator. The sound quality is acceptable and louder than the mobile phones I had before. One thing which I should also give credit to is the easiness of typing SMS messages. The T9 prediction is standard but the response between each button pressed is fast.

The memory card sits underneath the battery but somehow it is compensated by a USB connector. Thus, Skypephone can be easily connected as mass storage with any USB cables. It comes with Bluetooth connectivity but I always avoid using Bluetooth to transfer files to my PC because setting up my PC’s Bluetooth dongle is real painful.

Verdict
Overall, it is quite a fast phone when typing messages and manoeuvring the menus. I would say that it is a standard but light-weighted phone. I would rather not have the camera but improve its functionalities and quality of the phone. By the way, the camera’s sound cannot be turned off.

The second edition is in the market and I doubt that I will be interested in it. However, if someone were to ask me about mobile phones which are easy to use, small and handy, I will definitely recommend SkypePhone.