T-Mobile Pulse deals & review

In a word or two

The T-Mobile Pulse is the first pay-as-you-go Android smartphone and has a budget-friendly price tag and impressive features too.

The Design

Encased in glossy black plastic, the T-Mobile Pulse cannot compete with glamorous smartphones like the iPhone when it comes to looks. However, the phone looks smart with a simplistic layout of 3.5 inch touchscreen and minimal buttons of roller ball, menu and combined home and back key, on the front. It also manages to avoid looking chunky thanks to its rounded edges.

The 3.5 inch screen is impressive and is the biggest on any Android phone currently on the market – for example, the HTC Hero’s touchscreen measures 3.2 inches. The extra space makes a big difference to the phone’s user-friendliness and the display is bright and sharp, as well as a good size. The T-Mobile Pulse also features a choice of 3 keyboards – full QWERTY, an alphanumeric one, and a compact one – all available in landscape and portrait options.

Specifications

Run on Google’s Android operating system, the T-Mobile Pulse comes with access to the Android Market for downloading applications. The Market is easy to navigate and allows you to customise your phone with as many applications as you like, many of which are free.

The Market applications are in addition to the pre-installed ones on the T-Mobile Pulse, such as YouTube; Documents To Go which lets you view Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF documents; and DataViz Roadsync which securely synchronizes your corporate emails, contacts and calendar using the Microsoft Exchange Server. The DataViz Roadsync application also lets you reply and make changes or updates on the move while keeping Outlook on your computer updated.

The T-Mobile Pulse has a 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus, zoom and geo-tagging for labelling the location each photo was taken, although there is no flash. The phone also comes with a video camera, a music application which supports the display of cover art, and games. The ‘Wildcard Widgets’ on the T-Mobile Pulse let you customise the look of your home screen with widgets. You could choose to have your email, calendar and photos displayed, for example; and it is easy to move the widgets around and alter the layout.

Considerations

The feel of the T-Mobile Pulse is not as solid as the iPhone or Nokia E71 thanks to its plastic exterior. However, given the cheap price tag for the T-Mobile Pulse, you can forgive any aesthetic imperfections. T-Mobile – or rather, the manufacturer Huawei – has concentrated on creating a great user experience instead. Besides, the T-Mobile Pulse feels sturdy enough.

The T-Mobile Pulse only has a 60MB internal memory but it comes with a 2GB microSD memory card and can be expanded to up to 16GB.

Verdict

The T-Mobile Pulse is the first budget Android phone and has some great features. You certainly get a lot for your money considering it offers multimedia texting, instant messaging, GPS, Bluetooth, email, fast internet connection, Google Maps and access to the Android Market.