A few months ago, we welcomed a new player in the mobile handset market: Singapore based Verzio. These were some former Nokia and Sony Ericsson guys (we heard) who wanted a fresh start with a new company. Their flagship product was the Verzio Duplii a dual SIM phone that was aesthetially appealing as well.

Just recently Verzio entered the Windows Mobile market with the release of the Envii, a WM6 smartphone with up to date features and priced at about USD $600 – $700 depending on where you’re from. The Envii, to be honoest doesn’t bring anything too innovative to the playing field of smartphones. It has a decent lineup of connectivity options, SRS WOW speakers (a good addition but not absolutely necessary) and some customized apps such as the Flick Dynamic Menu similar to the HTC Touch.

Speaking of HTC, the Envii has the look and feel of one of their products. Remove the “Verzio” logo and you’d probably think of the device to be one of theirs.

The Envii is definitely top notch in the connectivity arena – not only does it have USB and Bluetooth options, but IrDA as well. Yes folks, infra-red is still a welcome addition in the Asian market despite its being phased out in the west. Wireless 802.11g LAN (WiFi) and HSDPA connectivity is also supported.

The Envii’s real estate feels like a dry bar of soap in your hands. It is robust and compact but we’re thinking its about time that smartphones started to do away with the circa-2005 all-touchscreen and have some other way of interacting with the user interface like a keypad or jog dial on the side of the device, which the Envii does not have.

No worries. Part of me thinks that this is a function of Windows Mobile as a platform rather than the device itself. I’ve yet to see a really good WM 6 device with a kick ass user interface (minus all the lag as well). The HTC Touch was something to look at but it wasn’t quite there yet.

Verzio’s Envii works fine with The Missing Sync if you’re a Macintosh user but craps out on some beta apps we tested. This could be an internal design issue as the Envii isn’t really known in the western side of the pond. All in all, you won’t go green with Envii entirely with this device if you’re all geeked out. It does have some neat features like built in FM tuner, HSDPA and WiFi — but with the pricepoint, we’re thinking you may opt for something else. We’re not saying the Envii is all that bad. Because it isn’t. Some gripes would include a screen time out when in sleep mode about one out of every four times I’d try to un-sleep the device. The solution would be to do a manual reboot or remove the battery to try again. In fairness, this should be fixed with a firmware update (taps fingers… dum dee dum). And yeah, just like most Windows Mobile devices plagued with a crappy camera system, the Envii’s battery life is also an issue. Be prepared to have this thing plugged in when you’re idle or carry an extra battery pack with you.

If you’re looking for a fresh new take on mobile devices, I’d definitely recommend the Envii just to be different. It isn’t lacking in features (I mean it even has IrDA which is obsolete in the West but still useful!) but it doesn’t shine in anything that can shut out the competition.

All images in this post were taken by yours truly on top of my antique tabletop chess set

Post from: Cellphone9

Reader US user asks what’s the use of a dual SIM phone if it isn’t quad band?

This question was made in reference to the new dual SIM technology of Verzio – which is now a mainstream feature of Samsung on some of their phones as well as some generic China models.

With single, dual, triple and now quad band phones emerging into the mainstream market, the “battle of the bands” is really a simple battle. The more bands a phone can support, the better it is when it comes to worldwide coverage. So yeah, objectively speaking, quad band is better than tri band.

I’ll say with confidence that in Asia, triband phones are really a mainstay and has become a standard for GSM 800 / 1800 / 1900 whereas 850 is usually used in some parts of the USA.

The point of having a dual SIM isn’t IMHO a function of being in transit between two countries. The dual SIM is meant to facilitate a more convenient (1) stratification of data and call plans or (2) to simply separate your work and personal calls in one phone. I’d say that the most useful application would be the first point where say, provider 1 has better free calls and SMS rates while provider 2 has a better unlimited data plan. This gives you the best of both worlds then – of having both the great data plan and maximize your calls and SMS.

Post from: Cellphone9

The Verzio Duplii is one of two phones (the other one is the Twinn) launched in the Philippines. It is the first “looks good like it ain’t hacked” phone that holds two SIM card slots active simultaneously.

Real estate shows off a fantastic phone design as the Duplii was engineered by former Sony Ericsson and Nokia engineers. You will notice similarities to both trademark designs with the menu screen and UI. Added eye candy to the menu is a GUI button that is animated with a tail as it moves about the grid navigation. Though it may be annoying at first, the two “i” and “c” buttons which return you to the menu and cancels actions respectively are a bit misplaced as they can accidentally pressed when making calls or navigating using the two menu buttons.

One thing to note is the odd keypad layout with the 0, pound and asterisk keys forced over to the right side of the phone. Thus instead of a 3×4 grid for the keypad, you’re presented with a 4×3 grid. Now is this convenient? Amazingly, as far as my opinion goes, yes it is. It makes texting with two hands easier as the 0 key serves as the space bar. The pound key does the symbols while the asterisk cycles through the possible dictionaries available (T9 included). With predictive texting turned on, the directional pad serves to cycle through the possible word combinations.

The two SIM slots are labeled as SIM 1 and SIM 2 with the primary SIM card being chosen through the Settings menu. This is usually the default number that will be used to send messages. Although when sending messages, the phone allows you to select which SIM to use to send out your SMS. Thus, let’s say you’re using a prepaid line on one end and a post paid on the other, you can use your prepaid line to receive SMS and reply using the other line seamlessly.

As for multimedia, the Duplii’s 2MP camera is nothing write home about as it doesn’t have an auto focus feature. Yes, this makes shooting fast without delay but good luck to getting nearby objects into focus. The camera is a look back into 2001. Here are some samples at QVGA quality. Maximum image size is 1600 x 1200.

Pros
Dual SIM done right
Very affordable at around less than USD $300
Bundled with two batteries

Cons
Backward camera (no auto focus)
Keypad layout needs to be relearned

Bottomline

Okay, here goes. In 2008 we will be seeing an influx of these dual and yes – even tri-SIM phones from Verzio. We will be seeing Windows Mobile devices with dual SIMs as well from what I hear. The Duplii and Twinn will be marketed as the entry level phones for the workforce as many people in Asia, especially the Philippines have two SIMs – one for SMS in the office (SUN Cellular) and their personal like (Globe or SMART). The Duplii gets the dual SIM concept right. There are a few things you may need to relearn like the keypad – SMS response can be a bit slow, but this is by far the easiest – and might I add, elegant dual SIM solution out there.

Post from: Cellphone9

Nice things happening in Asia. Singapore manufacturer Verzio, a new player in the digital market, has come up with the first batch of dual SIM phones. Called the Verzio Twinn and Verzio Duplii, these two phones come with two SIM card slots.

I have nothing bad to say about the phones’ design. What I do wonder though would be how battery life would perform given that the phone is emitting two signals at once. Nonetheless, the engineers and designers put in a lot of work in the user interface:

So how does it work? I managed to try the user interface and worked my way through the nicely skinned menu system resembling Nokia and Sony Ericsson design. What happens basically is that your SIM cards are assigned “1″ and “2″ accordingly and you can make calls and reply using SIM “1″ or “2.” In the same way, messages are labeled as coming from either phone number. I must stress — both SIMs are active simultaneously.

Duplii SRP USD $300
3G Tri-Band Dual SIM Phone
Candybar design
Simultaneous dual SIM standby
Bluetooth 2.0
Data transfer via USB
3G video conference and calls
FM Radio
2.0MP camera
microSD expandable memory
Available in metal black

Twinn SRP USD 200
Triband EDGE Dual SIM Phone
EDGE connectivity
Slider design
Bluetooth
Touch screen with stylus
microSD expandable memory
1.3MP camera
Available in Racer Black

Check out my coverage of the Verzio line here. Verzio makes more than just phones. They are into the development of laptops, digital still cameras, phones and PDAs.

Post from: Cellphone9