Living the digital lifestyle

I recently wanted to buy a new GSM Smartphone but I had a limited budget of around Rs 10,000 I knew I wanted to buy a Smartphone phone that can easily sync with my address books, notes, contacts etc and works easily with outlook. I was not even considering HTC Smartphone as I always thought their phones were upwards of 15,000 and my budget was around 10,000 but to my surprise I found this little wonder known as HTC P3400i

HTC P3400i  is a windows mobile touch screen phone and its around the 10,000 mark and its much better than many expensive phones in the market a phone that is true value of money.

HTC – P3400i is a new model  launched in the second quarter of 2008 running Windows Mobile 6 Professional, the earlier model was called HTC - P3400 and ran Windows Mobile 5, as this is the most affordable phone by HTC it doesn’t have some exotic features like GPS, 3G  and Wi-Fi but apart from that all other features that you expect from any modern Windows Smartphone, I purchase this phone for Rs 10,700 with bill and warranty plus a free Bluetooth headset it was not a HTC deal but a deal going in the shop from where I purchased, if you don’t want the bill etc you can get is for around 9.5 - 10k.

What you get in the package?

Handset, Battery 1250 mAh, Power adaptor, USB  Sync cable,  USB  Stereo earphones , Leather pouch, Manuals, 2 CD’s containing the software, User Manual which is very comprehensive , 2 Styluses, Warranty card and a Screen Protector.

The phone is a Quad band GSM phone and has a 201 Mhz processor with 128 MB ROM and 64 MB RAM which runs the phone satisfactorily not a speed blaster but not a slouch too, fortunately this phone has an SD Memory card slot and you can easily add more memory I also purchased an I GB SD Card for Rs 350, it’s a good idea to buy the SD card because there is hardly any memory left in the phone to add extra applications or music.

Installing

Installing the phone on my Windows Vista PC was a breeze I just inset the starter CD and it installs windows Mobile Sync Center and in a few minutes you can sync your contacts etc with outlook, the USB adapter can also charge the phone apart from Syncing your data, I normally charge the phone via the USB cable connected to my PC so it also syncs while charging, the sync process is pretty fast for me it syncs in about 2 minutes.

 Ergonomics / Performance

The phone is pretty basic looking but don’t get me wrong it’s not ugly but also won’t win any awards for its sleekness, the phone easily fits in your hand and weighs 126 grams but feels even lighter, the screen is 7.11cms touch screen with takes up around 70% of the phone as seen in the picture, this phone also has a 2 MP camera which is just okay as it doesn’t have a flash,  as this phone has a touch screen a stylus is provided with the phone but I have managed to use my fingers for most of the common tasks with the phone, the good thing about this phone is it has more physical buttons than some other Smartphone phones in its category which is a good thing, I saw another HTC phone that did not have the OK button and to close any application you would have to pull out the stylus what a pain, the phone also features a 5 way navigation button via which you can use the phone using a single hand, the phone has a Mini USB connector for charging, syncing and also to connect the hands free / stereo headset , a mini speaker is there on left hand side and has decent volume output this speaker also acts as the speaker phone, surprisingly the speaker phone functionality  is very good and I often use the same while driving, the phone also supports voice dialing.

The call quality is pretty good and call volume can be adjusted to your liking, the data transfers

using GPRS EDGE were pretty fast one thing that surprised me was the Music playback I did not expect it to be so good it’s as good as a standalone MP3 player and using the Audio booster application you can set the bass, treble and 3D sound to your liking, the only damper is that the headset also uses the  USB connector so to connect your standard earphones you would need to buy a adapter, on the other hand if you are an SMS freak then this might be a little damper coz you would need to use the stylus to type your messages via the virtual keyboard which is kind of tiny it took me a week to get used to the same.

Applications

Being a windows mobile Smartphone there are a ton of applications provided, like Mobile office which contains Excel Mobile, Power point Mobile and Word Mobile, Mobile Internet Explorer, Adobe Reader LE (PDF reader), Audio Manager, Audio  Booster (a great app through which you can adjust bass, treble and surround while playing music) Media Player (can play video and audio files) ,  2 Games, Messenger, Zip as it’s a windows mobile there are a tons of applications available I also installed Google Maps and Opera browser.

Battery Performance

As with most HTC phones the battery performance is really good, the battery supplied with this phone is 1250 mAh and it lasts me easily for 4 days with still 2 5% charge left (I am not a huge chatter normally use the phone just about 20 – 25 minutes day) the charging time is around 2 – 2.5 hours, the rated time according to the manual is Standby time 150 – 200 hrs, talk time 3.5 -5 hrs.

Conclusion

P3400i is a great affordable windows mobile phone from HTC if you can live without GPS, 3G and Wi-Fi it’s a great business phone which can easily sync data with your windows PC and I have to say it’s much better than the other Sony Ericsson or the Nokia phones that sell for a lot more than this and offer a lot less, if you planning to purchase a Smartphone or and are on a limited budget do check out this phone from HTC.

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Filed under: Telephone / Mobiles