In the Box

So what's in the box, anyway? Well, before I go over that let me also say that the box itself is much smaller than your normal Verizon cell phone box and opens from the side rather than the top (evoking the side opening styling). In the box you'll find the phone all wrapped up and protected, the battery all wrapped up, and the charger. In addition, you'll find the Verizon CD about the 9800 as well as the manual and the FCC radio emissions notice. That's it.

Notably missing is the stereo headset that my 8940 came with. The 8940 headset works fine with this phone (as does the Nokia N-Gage QD headset, even in stereo and even though Nokia dropped stereo from the QD model).

Also missing is the belt clip (the 8940 came with one) and handset strap (the 8940 also came with one). Interestingly, there is no place to put any straps on this phone. I like to attach danglies every once in a while. I'll live without it, though. They just scratch things up. I never use belt clips, so this just reduces the number of clips on my lamp at work. ;)

Operation

The 9800 (as I'll call it) has two main modes of operation.  The first is with the flip closed.  In this mode it is much like a so-called candy-bar phone.  You've got your basic phone keypad, plus a full 8-way nav (up, down, left, right, ok, back (CLR), left soft key, right soft key), voice command button, and the standard send and end keys.  On the left side are the volume keys and a camera button.  The camera is on the back and the miniSD card slot and headset jack on the right.

(Like this image, many of the smaller thumbnails can be clicked on to go to a full gallery of screen shots. I can do some more by request, but only on certain evenings and only for a little while longer.)

Once flipped open you have a device that is much more like a small PDA (such as the Zaurus SL-C700) or the old Nokia Communicators.  All keys are on the bottom half (though the volume keys remain functional for page up and down in the browser -- a nice feature since they can be reached almost like shoulder keys) so my reference to sides isn't the same as above.   On the left side you've got a Fn key, Shift key, and Symbol key.  The function key seems to operate like a menu button (former name) or shortcut key.  The shift key is like that on an old Blackberry -- you press it then press the key in question.  This is only for making letters capital.  To access the symbols you press the symbol key.  The number keys are across the top and right below them is the three rows of QWERTY.  The enter key is where you would expect (and does seem different than the OK button)

External Functionality vs Internal Functionality

The outside has a full array of keys of most phones, but you can't access everything. You can do things like create text and picture messages, note items, change bluetooth settings, take pictures, make calls, view and add contact entries, and even play MP3s.

Most applications will keep their place if you open the flip. Many will also keep their place if you close the flip -- if they work on the outside. This is great for messaging, MP3 playing, etc.

You can see images of the outside menus here.

Communications

The phone can do basic messaging on the outside, including SMS and MMS (picture and video).

On the inside, however, the handset ships with Mobile IM installed. This gives access to AIM, MSN, and Yahoo! IM accounts. This isn't like the SMS stuff. This looks and acts like a real client. It even stays connected when the flip is closed, notifying you when you get an IM. It's absolutely a breeze to use on this handset. You'll be able to keep up, unlike with Mobile IM on classic handsets.

For web email access, you can get to things like Hotmail via the web browser -- and there is a link directly to that page from the messaging menu. You can also get to various online chat groups, too. Most are of the paid variety, so I haven't explored there.

The big new item, though, is Wireless Sync email. This has it's own top level menu item on the messaging menu. It claims to sync email, calendar, and contacts to your handset. I dont' know if it has it's own email, contact, and calendar manager or if it integrates with the handset apps. I'm guessing the former, though. However, it's a normal downloadable (BREW) application that costs 20 bucks a month. I won't be trying that any time soon. Ouch.

Camera - Photos

Here we have four images. None of them were retaken. I figure I won't try too terribly hard to make the pictures as best as they can be since that isn't normal use.

This first picture is of my lamp at work, giving a heavy contrast situation (black metal lamp shade and white desk reflections). The camera was on normal mode (non-macro). Click on any of these for the full size version unmodified from the camera.

This second picture is of my cereal this morning with macro mode turned on. The lighting is still dim and I didn't get the phone too close to the cereal. This clearly shows macro mode focuses up very close.

These next two show the difference between shooting with the flip open (landscape) and closed. Although this sort of rotation happens by definition given the camera is rotated 90 degrees the phone does orient the image properly. That is, it does make the JPEGs either landscape or portrait as can be seen by these pictures. I didn't have to further rotate them.
This set also shows the very small depth of field when macro mode is on. It is definitely a useful mode, though. Without this, these pictures would all just be a blur.
The landscape one came out better because the phone was resting on the magazine when I took the picture. Up front in it you can clearly make out the printing dots. That's impressive for a camera phone.

Here are a couple of outside pictures. One with flip closed and one with flip open. Obviously no quality difference. However, taking a pic with the flip closed is easier -- except for framing. The framing doesn't come out as it is previewed! The preview is full screen -- but the image is portrait, so it's clipping stuff at both the top and bottom. Doh!

After all of these, I can clearly see that the camera in this phone will be useful (which I knew ahead of time). It certainly is no Canon 20D, but then most cameras aren't. You could certainly get a better quality camera for less than this phone, too (and higher resolution). But can you blog directly from it?

I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that I could use the images directly after copying them to the memory card. The Audiovox 8940 did not allow this. The images would be encyrpted in some way so as to make them practically useless (although I didn't spend any time trying to figure out what it was doing -- it may have just been adding a header or something). I had delayed doing the pictures because I wasn't anticipating this at all.

The camera application is fairly normal for this type of handset. It does have macro mode, which has only been seen (by me, at least) on the VX8000. The quality is absolutely wonderful compared to the 8940. It's not great in low light -- but really only the 20D has been. ;)

The camera works from both the inside and outside. The outside actually makes it easier to use -- hands tend to cover up the camera too easily when open and it has to be fully open to work alright.

There is one new feature, though. It has a business card reader. This only works with the flip open and that makes it hard to use. I haven't tried it on the production phone but it was an absolute pain to use on the other one. When it worked, though, it worked really well. It wasn't the most intuitive of apps, though.

The image viewer (both internal and external) have a nice feature that allows you to zoom all the way into an image and then pan across the image. This feature is also very fast, pointing to the high performance processor the phone uses.

Camera - Video

So I finally got around to doing some video. There was at least one very cool surprise. First off, here are two links to some video taken outside, in the sun. Video 1 is a 176x144 resulotion video and Video 2 is a 320x240 resolution video. Both are in 3GPP2 format (.3g2) and can be played with QuickTime and a couple of other players.

Now there are number of things about this. First, you can record either resolution from the inside or the outside. When recording from the outside it actually asks you to turn the phone sideways -- and it shows which way is the proper way to turn it (such that flipping it open would be the right way). Playback for recorded video is available both inside and outside, as well (VCast video is only available on the inside). It records audio with the video. I didn't speak or anything, so there isn't much noise.

The video looks really good on the outide, especially the high resolution since it's being scaled down. The low resolution is not scaled in the normal video playback but is scaled full screen in full screen mode. The quality isn't great, but it isn't bad, either. The motion was continous in both of these, so it's a pretty poor scenario. It gets better with an image with less motion and, naturally, the more motion the worse it is. It wasn't all that bad in a dim environment, either.

Now, the big surprise was that videos can be set as wallpaper for either the inside or the oustide! It plays any time the screen is "activated" and only plays once, stopping on the last frame. So, for instance, if you flip the phone open and just watch, the wallpaper will play. Likewise, if you flip the phone closed, the wallpaper will play on the outside (if it's set for that).

Now why might you want to do this? Well, if you've ever watched Harry Potter and have seen the moving people in the images, this is the sort of effect you can get. Think of recording your significant other and placing their image as wallpaper -- have them move around, wave, smile, etc. just like in the movies and that's what it will feel like. This is actually very cool! You could do this with a pet, too. Of course, any recorded video will work, so you could do a race car, river, bird, whatever. I just found the effect of a moving person image to be cool.

I haven't found a way to get around the 15 second limitation, even when recording directly to the memory card. Obviously, images moved to or recorded to the memory card are not encoded in any way so they can easily be copied to a computer for viewing, emailing, and saving. The Motorola V710 had an option to record unlimited length video when aimed at the TransFlash card. Maybe a hidden setting somewhere can enable this. I haven't seen one yet, though.

Bluetooth

I won't go into this much because Howard Forums is all over this. I've successfully moved vCards in both directions with File Transfer. DUN and Serial profiles are exposed. I quickly tried to connect with the normal DUN settings, but it didn't work. I'll have to look up what's different. I didn't get anything over Serial -- not sure (some commercial tools and the like). I don't have a headset to try. Actually, I wish my laptop had the headset profile. That would be useful for some things (you know, recording conversations or something... heh.. well, many people could use that for podcasts like they use Skype).

MP3 Player

The MP3 player is great! It's much, much better than the one on my 8940. Well, maybe just much better.

When you launch it, you get a list of files in the "My MP3" directory on the miniSD card. (The phone creates a few directories on the miniSD card -- but leaves everything else alone.) From here, you can select a song to play, delete, or delete all songs. You can also select one of many equalizer settings. These range from flat (just normal playback), to concert hall (extreme reverb, but funny and amusing), to 3D surround (a spacializer like effect), to your more normal rock, jazz, pop, and classical settings -- that most just change tone, although I think one or two of them may add in some reverb, too.

Once the application is running on the inside you get a view with the song playing, a cound of songs, a frequency type display, the current equalizer effect, a vertical list of songs to scroll through and choose to play, volume display and control, forward and back track controls, and the current position in the file with minutes elapsed and total duration. Pressing and holding the left and right keys is fast forward and reverse, which works really well and is really fast (4-5 seconds per minute, at least). You can mute the volume as well as switch the play controls between repeat all, repeat one, and shuffle.

The sound out of the speakers is actually really nice. They are far enough apart to hear the seperation (and the 3D effect does help some). With the volume all the way up, there is both distortion and vibration. However, a notch or two down sounds great. It's loud on the desk at work but nearly inaudible in the car. Through the ear phones, things are great though. I'm using the ear buds that came with the 8940.

Name Card Reader

The name card reader is an application that attempts to scan in a business card into the contacts application. As you'll see from the following set of pictures, the character recognition is pretty good but the selection of what is to be recognized isn't quite there yet. Given that the phone has a keyboard, this sort of feature would be far more useful on other phones, even with it's draw backs. With the keyboard, more time will be spent trying to line up the image, get light on the card, keep fingers from casting shadows, and get the image in focus than is worth. I went through this once, to take the pictures you see here, and it was a few minute process. I could have type all of the contact information in much faster and gotten more information in.

This image is to give you an idea of what the capture UI looks like. Flashing usually completely whites out the image. The focus is hard to keep full -- the bar will fill up and an OK button will go off. The angle (straightness) measurment is odd and the hardest to keep right. Holding still for the capture is also not easy. And the most annoying part is that your hands and the phone are so close to the business card (a few inches) that shadows are bound to be cast.

This is the number field -- uh, wait. Both number fields are selected?

Click on any of the above images to be taken to a gallery of all of the screen shots.

Text-to-Speech

So, after my initial lack of being able to hear anything, the text-to-speech feature seems to be working fine. If you receive an SMS (inside or out) and click to view it you can then hear it played back either through the earpiece (outside) or the speakers (inside) by clicking the voice command button (single purpose on the outside, shared with the space bar on the inside).

This also works when viewing notepad items or any other item with the voice command icon at the top. The quality isn't too bad. It's about on par with the stuff often built-in on desktop OSs these days. I'm sure a dedicate package could do better, though (but one doesn't exist on the phone). This would suffice to get the idea of an SMS while driving without having to glance down at it.

I don't know what caused it to not work for a while. If it happens again I may investigate further.

Another feature that uses the text-to-speech abilities of the handset is the voice announce feature. When on, the handset will read out the name of the person calling as well as play any ringtones you have. I do not yet have my contacts loaded, so I haven't tried this yet. When I get a chance, I'll record the announce feature and drop the audio here so you can get an idea of what it's like.

Battery Life

So, I don't have anything solid on the battery life. My initial impression (as you'll see in a comment before I wrote this) was that it was pretty good.

Well, the following happened since then:

I left work, where the phone had been on the charger, at about 415p. The 9800 was fully charged at this time. I spent some time looking around at things on it, reset it a few times trying to figure out what had muted the sound, and then later on I listened to about 45 minutes worth of podcasts, without headphones. The screen goes off, even while playing MP3s with the inside player. This is good for batterly life. Anyway, I then paused it hoping to keep my place until morning. About 3 hours after I paused it, it unpaused itself! It was now in the middle of the night, so I jumped up and turned the player off and set the phone back down.

This morning at about 830a the phone was off. I turned it on only to find the battery completely dead! The amount of usage doesn't justify the dead battery. The only thing that does is that the MP3 decoder, even though the MP3 was paused, was actually still active all that time and it was sucking battery. LG claims that it gets over 4 hours of use, depending on what you're doing with it. That's about what I got if, in fact, the MP3 decoder was actually active while paused. And it's also possible that it went off pause when the battery was about to die.

Well, the only to find out for sure will be to do that again -- and see where the battery life is when it goes off pause, assuming it will happen again.

Dial-up Networking

This has been one source of dissapointment, at least so far. The earlier version of this handset didn't have any problems with cable or BT DUN. My real handset does neither. Both are turned on and enabled. But both die on a username and/or password failure.

And reading this PDF from Verizon's site, I don't think this is going to get better any time soon. Even the upcoming Samsung A970 won't have it on, at least from Verizon's point of view.

The technical capabilities of the listed handsets don't match with what Verizon's lists -- but the list does provide a warning for those trying to hack it.They really don't want you using their network with a PC Card and the $60/month charge.

Web Browsing

The web browser on the 9800 is a "Mobile Web 2.0" browser, as Verizon likes to call it. In reality, it's Openwave's browser version 6.2 that supports XHTML-MP. In general, this allows you to browse to nearly any page you can find. You won't be able to use sites that are heavy on the client side scripts or flash or the like. But most basic sites will work great.

The standard 4:3 aspect ratio screen makes the browsing experience a familiar one to that on a desktop. The screen resolution and high pixel density makes graphics look great and text easy to read.

Verizon's own "Mobile Web 2.0" portal has been modified to fit to the handset screen size. The images are larger and the layout is different. This makes browsing their content very pleasurable. I'll post some screen shots of their sites and some other sites as I get the opportunity.

The speed of the browser when the handset is in 1xEVDO mode as absolutely amazing. 1xEVDO networks have a much lower latency than standard 1xRTT networks as well as a much higher transfer rate. This makes browsing small and mobile sites extremely fast. Sometimes it even feels faster than on the desktop. With potential burst rates of up to 2.4 Mbps, in theory it could be faster than the more standard 1.5 Mbps of a traditional (American) DSL line.

Entering arbitrary URLs is now an easy matter with the keyboard. On a standard phone, URLs are one of the more difficult items to enter because of the number of symbols and lack of predictive text help. Now it's barely more difficult than entering a URL on a desktop keyboard.

Overall, the browsing experience is quite good and quite usable both because of the hardware features of the handset and the Openwave browser itself.

Little Nice Things

It's nice that you can "double-click" the OK button on the outside to clear the keyguard.

It's nice that an incoming message removes the keyguard for using the softkeys to directly view it.

Little Naughty Things

It's not nice that the "OTA capable" sticker is right where my middle finger lands and is already curling up. I'm going to have to remove it before it cuts me or collects all kinds of nasty bugs. (The prototype I had was really bad in this area.)

It's not nice that twice now I've completely lost the volume on the phone. Videos play, sounds seem like they're playing, people call and the ringer seems to be playing but there is absolutely no volume. So far, only pulling the battery for a bit has reversed this. Even just resetting the handset hasn't helped. I'm trying to figure out the root cause of this so I can avoid it. It's only happened after I've tried Bluetooth stuff and then turned Bluetooth back off. But I don't know if that's related. Update: I've found a "fix" for this problem. All I have to do is make a voice call and the volume will return once the voice call is done. This can easily be done by calling up voice mail or some other number. I don't even think it needs to pick up on the other end. This bug has now presented itself to me about 4-5 times.

It's not so nice that there is no camera cover and it happens to be right where a finger goes in thumb-typing mode.

It's not so nice that the memory card is recessed so far that I have to use my pinky to get it to click into place. I often miss-click it a few times -- this hasn't caused any problems, but it's annoying.

It's not so nice that when you're listening to an MP3 and you get a text message, read it, and hit CLR to return to the MP3 player that it's no longer there or playing or anything. (This just happened to me during the last 2 minutes of a 64 minute podcast. Even with the pretty fast forward, that's too far in to bother. *grumble*)

There's no flashlight feature. My Audiovox CDM-8940 had a flashlight ability where it used the camera "flash"-light to, well, light the way. You could press and hold the down button when the phone was closed to turn on the light. It was nice and bright and was great for use like you might use a keychain flashlight. Alas, this does not exist on the VX9800. Maybe a firmware upgrade could fix this.

Tips & Tricks

(Let me know yours and I'll put it here and credit you.)

Press a side button to light up the display to see the time without the keyguard notice blocking the time.

What else?

A full gallery of the screen shots can be found here. I used a Canon 20D with flash off on a tripod to get these shots. If anyone wants a full resolution of any of these, let me know. It's not really needed for seeing the screen shots, but is amusing. The full sized images are the full 8 MP of the Canon 20D. I used Picasa 2 to import the images from the memory card onto my computer, crop them, and then exported them into this web gallery. I then edited each of the HTML files to add a link back to here. Overall, not a bad process. It was a little time consuming, though.

More to come by request...