Toshiba TG01

[Chris_redfield]

Does anyone have the Toshiba TG01 phone?

After a really bad day it has now come to my attention that my jeans went into the washing machine along with my mobile in the pocket so I'll be needing a new one. :am: If you don't laugh you'll only end up crying I suppose.

I can get the TG01 for free on contract with Orange, they have good reception round me and I could just carry my old number across (the only other alternative service provider would be 02, because T-mobile and 3 are a bit iffy.) And I'd only be paying a tenner more a month than I would have been doing on pay as you go.

I'm basically after something that I can browse the internet on, I don't really care much for texting or talking so if anyone with the TG01 can comment or has any alternative suggestions (apart from the iPhone,) they would be greatly appreciated (I make about three calls a day.) I had a look at one instore and really liked the brightness of the screen but the ratio changing seemed really slow and its running on windows which makes me apprehensive.

[benko]

touch pro 2 but if you really dont type than diamond2, for me tg01 is tooooobig....

[Chris_redfield]

Dammit...

I really like the look of the touch pro 2, thats a fine looking phone, and I could have got one for free on the tarrif that I wanted to pay. Unfortunately I ran out and bought the TG01 today (I needed a phone pronto, I was surprised how much I actually relied upon a mobile as I hardly spend anytime calling people, but I also use it to tell the time, use it for an alarm, organiser etc.)

I like the size of the screen on the TG01, I know its massive but I like that amount of screen space for web pages as opposed to constantly having to scroll all over the place just to read text. But I would have sacrificied some screen space for the qwerty keypad that comes with the touch pro 2.

Not had a chance to turn the phone on yet as I have just got in from work, but I'll post my findings here for anyone else interested.

[diredesire]

Sad story :(

I know what you mean about the phone, though. I'm really excited to see the direction of the market within a few years. I think the my mobile will eventually become my primary computing device, but that's still a ways off...

[Chris_redfield]

Am typing on the tg01 now and i absoloutly love it. How have I lived with such a small screen before. The only thing its missing is the qwerty keys. Might look into seeing if its possible to do some ort of homebrew mod with a small keypad. Was thinking about the 360 keypad that attaches to the controller. If memory serves me right though that doesnt connect via usb.

[Xello]

Haven't tried that phone but i've been using an n97 for a few weeks and haven't looked back, best web browsing mobile experience i've seen.

[diredesire]

Hey Xello, any chance you can elaborate? Have you compared against the iPhone? One of my primary criterion for a mobile/smart phone is the browsing experience, since I moderate a forum, and sometimes need to respond on the go. Can you give me a brief summary of what makes it so good?

Thanks..

[Chris_redfield]

Well I've had the TG01 for a little while so I thought I'd post a few thoughts on it.

The web browsing is brilliant. The best I've ever come across on a mobile. You don't have to scroll all over the place in order to read posts in forums or zoom in and out too much. This is mainly thanks to the huge screen which is a curse and a blessing. The big screen is great for watching video or viewing photo. (You can remove the memory stick so you can actually carry along quite a few files with you for watching should you go on a large train journey or have quite a bit of music which is useful. I got a free 8gb one with the phone as well.) However its also incredibly easy to scratch (mine has two scratches all ready.) And because its not a hugely sought after phone I have been unable to find a case with a see through plastic front for it. If it is a sunny day outside as well it can be really difficult to see the screen as well.

The camera on it though is pretty useless if it is a really bright day. The camera will just refuse to take a photo, if it does take one the image is really washed out and you'll only get a small portion of the photo.

As a phone it has its good parts and its bad parts. The texting is awesome because if you send someone a text and they reply all correspondence is kept in the same folder making text messaging a bit more like MSN as opposed to sending a text. This means I never forget what i asked someone and don't have to tease apart a reply like its some sort of riddle. The actual talking bit is made a bit too complicated, and the ear piece is really quiet unless you manage to jam the earpiece right into your ear. As the phone is a tablet shape as well without a definitive ear part you can leave people going 'hello, hello, hello,' for a few moments while you wiggle the phone around your ear.

As for UI. Its windows but as I understand it Toshiba has shoehorned their own tab thing onto it. So you have these three big boards that you can spin around with basic options at the bottom which when pulled up reveal more complex options. Its a nice idea, but it would have been better to be either fully unique OS or just plain old windows. Because it can be a bit difficult to remember whether you have to go to the start menu to find an option or if you have to go through the silly paddles. Getting the paddles to spin around can also be a nuisance at times because if you rub your stylus across the screen too quickly they will just spin back around to the way in which they were facing.

All in all I'm not hugely impressed with the phone. For the internet it truly is amazing (it made me laugh though because Xtremesystems was blocked by Orange initially as it may have 'Adult Content,' so I had to ring them up and get them to unblock it.) and the battery life is quite good (unless you have wi-fi enabled but the same can be said with pretty much every single electrical device for that.) And the large screen also has benefits in other areas as well. However the screen is difficult to see in sunlight and scratches easily.

I'd give it a 6/10 if I was being honest, because as a telephone (apart from the texting which is brilliant, the large responsive touch screen keys mean I now respond to a text in seconds.) it falls a bit flat on its face. And the slightly confusing UI also causes the score to get dragged down a bit.

EDIT: Whilst 6/10 sounds a bit low, five is mediocre in my book. Does exactly what it says on the tin but doesn't do anything above the call of duty. So anything above 5 is positive in my book.

[benko]

well..not sure if there si a H-spl for this phone..but if there is you can easily flash wm 6.5 rom with tf3d2(form tocuh pro2) on it..

remeber one thing winmo 6.5 is much much more finger-friendly

what about speed do you actually feel 1GHz?

and battery what do you mean quite good? can you watch full movie on it and that there will be battery for a few phone calls?

[Chris_redfield]

TBH I've not tried watching anything other than a short 20 min episode of Death Note on it.

The battery lasted me three days though which included watching an ep of Death Note, fifteen collective minutes of wi-fi, and around about half an hour worth of calls with the speaker cranked up to full volume.

I'm going to put more films and stuff on it this evening so I'll run one through and then come back to you what the battery is like after that. The power saving on it is a tad over effecient as standard as the screen is switched off if you don't touch it for five seconds. Which can be annoying because it can take longer than needed in order to hang up the phone.

The phone only ever feels slow when activating the GPS for orange maps (though this is mainly a connectivity thing as the load up time varies for location to location.) and getting the screen to switch from horizontal to vertical for some reason can take up to seven seconds on the odd occasion. From what I've seen of the i-Phone the screen changing on the TG01 isn't as smooth but apart from that everything else is silky.