Tim's Pulse Review

[Guest Timmmm]

Introduction

The T-Mobile Pulse (actually a rebadged Huawei 8220) was recently released in the UK and is currently one of the cheapest android devices available. You can buy it now from T-Mobile's website and stores for £186 (that includes a PAYG SIM with a forced £10 top-up). Unfortunately it is locked to T-Mobile, but you can pay £23 to get it unlocked now, or £15 (part of which can be the forced £10 top-up) three months (not one as many people say) after you buy it.

Even after paying to unlock it it is an excellent deal so I bought one. Every other android phone is at least £350. I've only had it for a week or so, but these are my impressions so far.

Hardware

The phone is a touch-screen only device like the iPhone, and text entry is only by an on-screen keyboard. It has a 3.5 inch (plastic sadly) capacitative touchscreen. I've found that it can be difficult to press buttons when they are near the edge of the screen. In fact I did a simple test with a paint program, and it is impossible to touch parts of the top right and bottom right of the screen. This can be a problem for pressing the delete key.

Charging and data transfer is via a proprietary (I think) USB cable that is included. A USB charger is also included which is useful. Both the USB port and a 2.5mm audio jack are behind a cover at the top of the device. It would have been nice if there was no cover, and they used 3.5mm, but at least they include a short adapter cable.

The microSD port is also behind a cover, but is accessible without removing the battery which is nice. The physical buttons are the usual ones for android, except the home and back buttons are integrated. Hold the back button to go home. The trackball feels a bit loose but you will never use it; perhaps they should have omitted it entirely.

There are two cameras. The main one on the back is 3.2 megapixel autofocus. Predictably bad photos for a phone, but hey, it's cheap! I was also surprised to discover the front-facing camera for video calls. I'm not sure of the specs but they are definitely very very low! Still, nice touch and easily good enough for video chat.

The battery is pretty big at 1500 mAh, 3.7 V, 6.5 Wh (not sure how they did that maths considering 1.5*3.7=5.55). I haven't really had it long enough to properly test the battery life, but it seems to be adequate. I get about two days of moderate use from it. It does take ages (about 5 hours) to charge though so you'll probably want to charge it overnight.

The loudspeaker unfortunately is rather noisy, and pops slightly when it turns on and off. It sometimes does this even in silent mode which is a little annoying, but I may just be being picky here.

The build quality is actually quite nice. The entire back is plastic and comes off quite easily. It feels fairly solid. Not iPhone-solid but close. It's about the same size as an iPhone by the way.

Software

The software is a mildly customised version of Android 1.5. Aside from changing the home screen to 3x2, the only other change seems to be making all the highlights pink. They have also replaced the default on-screen keyboard with an alternative that isn't nearly as responsive. Fortunately it is easy to switch back to the android one.

Unfortunately until you can't connect to the phone using adb from Eclipse. This isn't that much of an issue though really.

The Pulse has already been rooted with a very simple two minute procedure, however as of yet the kernel source code isn't available so it isn't possible to update it to Android 1.6 or 2.0. Hopefully in time this will be solved, if only for WPA2 enterprise support (actually you *can* connect to WPA enterprise networks by manually editing a configuration file, but UI support would be nicer).

Conclusions

It may seem like I have listed lots of bad points, however it really is a decent phone and for the price it is an absolute bargain. 4/5 stars.

Good points

Cheap! Way cheaper than any other android phone - ~£200 vs ~£350 for anything else.

Large capacitative screen.

Nice form factor.

Secondary front-facing camera (even if it is budget).

Charges over USB (you need the cable, but no bulky transformer).

USB transformer included - been meaning to get one for a while.

Comes with 2GB MicroSD card.

MicroSD card is externally accessible (behind a cover)

Very easy to get root.

Physical buttons are quite nice.

Speaker is pretty load and clear.

Very good battery life.

Bad points

Trackball isn't very good, thankfully you don't really need it at all.

Only 60MB space left! You can't remove anything it comes with, e.g. the crap breakout game.

2.5 mm headphone jack (although they provide a converter cable).

Propietary (afaict) USB connector.

Both the USB connector and headphone jack are behind a cover. Not sure how long that will last.

Touch sensor should really extend beyond the edge of the display - sometimes it can be hard to press buttons on the edge of the screen.

Android doesn't have a very responsive UI - that's google's fault though and not unique to this phone.

Locked to T-Mobile.

T-Mobile's virtual keyboard is worse than google's. Luckily you can easily change it.

Android 1.5 - no WPA enterprise.

Camera is dubious!

Speaker noise is quite loud.

[Guest Tomvd]

I'm almost sure that this is just a standard microUSB (not the much more common miniUSB) and coincidentally MicroUSB will be the new standard mobile connector.

Cheers,

Tom

Bad points

Propietary (afaict) USB connector.

[Guest mapero]

Its micro-B USB

On 17 February 2009, the GSM Association announced[38] that they had agreed on a standard charger for mobile phones. The standard connector to be adopted by 17 manufacturers including Nokia, Motorola and Samsung is to be the micro-USB connector (several media reports erroneously reported this as the mini-USB). The new chargers will be much more efficient than existing chargers[38]. Having a standard charger for all phones means that manufacturers will no longer have to supply a charger with every new phone. The basis of the GSMA's Universal Charger Solution (UCS) is the technical recommendation from OMTP[39]

From Wikipedia

So i think its not that bad in future!

Edited November 4, 2009 by mapero

[Guest Timmmm]

Yeah, I wasn't sure about the usb because I have no other microusb devices. I have a camera that has some kind of tiny, smaller-than-miniusb connector but it is different to that of the pulse.

[Guest Timmmm]

Oh, one thing I forgot - as far as I can tell there's no notification LED. You can't tell at a glance whether you have any messages...

[Guest twe]

Hi, was wondering if you could let me know how good the GPS is on the device please?

My Nokia 5800 takes about 5-10 minutes to get a signal whilst my Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 takes about 1-2 minutes.

[Guest Timmmm]

Definitely in the 1-2 minute range, as long as you have a decent view of the sky.

[Guest twe]

Thanks. Yeh those are the times I get with direct sky.... So good to know the sensitivity is good on the Pulse.... Might be ordering one soon.....

[Guest demusss]

The 2.5mm headphone socket. Is it just for plugging in a pair of headphones or headphones with a mic?

Thanks

[Guest bounty123]

The 2.5mm headphone socket. Is it just for plugging in a pair of headphones or headphones with a mic?

Thanks

It can handle headsets, with a mic. It even comes with one.

[Guest twe]

I had a feel of a dummy one today. It is similar size to the iphone apart from being a little thicker. I think I will be buying one soon though.

[Guest kubelka]

Definitely in the 1-2 minute range, as long as you have a decent view of the sky.

IS there some softwate for pulse that dont required internet for gps maps??

[Guest Alien*46*UK]

CoPilot I think have a release for Android. Not been officially tested as of yet though I beleive.

I will be trying it out in the next week or 2.

Edited December 7, 2009 by Alien*46*UK

[Guest klutsh]

CoPilot I think have a release for Android. Not been officially tested as of yet though I beleive.

I will be trying it out in the next week or 2.

CoPilot works great, you may want to get a larger SD-Card though and put a MCR rom on it, even more so now the custom kernel with Swap & Ext3 is available.

[Guest adeonline]

ive had my pulse since being avalable and cant deside if i could ever love my poor mans iphone (pulse). yes it looks good feels good but i hate that the search with voice dont work, the bar code scaner works if i point the camara at a 300watt light first! and theres no charge light or notification light, it dos'nt like talkin to my car stereo via blue toofy( the tunes off my memory card play thou! Pluss point gps works well for geochaching . Im a geek with no brain so struglin to understand the benifit of ROOTIN OR ROM THINGY

could this help my love for the sexy pulse?

:D

can any1 make a video tuturial for dummies or step by step with pics lol please

[Guest twe]

IS there some softwate for pulse that dont required internet for gps maps??

am sure i read in the settings of copilot that you can switch off data usage.