Cool as ice
O2’s Ice is an exclusive handset, and it represents an attempt by the operator to cast its 3G net out into the fashion sector. The Ice is a slender, white mobile that certainly has the looks to appeal, but does it match these with features?
Up to a point the answer is ‘yes’. If you don’t need anything too sophisticated or fancy then the Ice has the bases covered. As far as its 3G capability is concerned there is a front facing camera, which is not something we can say of every 3G handset.
Making video calls is therefore no problem, though if our experience during testing is born out in the wider world you will need to contend with slightly dark images and not altogether smooth video. Switching to the back camera, you can show the people you are talking to what you can see, which is nice.
Shooting stills and movies is again achievable, though you have to be content with 1.3 megapixel images – that’s a maximum resolution of 1280 x 1024. We found a bit of shutter lag during testing meant sometimes blurred images, and, because the Ice lacks a flash, indoor shots weren’t always wonderful. On the other hand, you can control the white balance easily via the handset’s navigation button, so it is not too difficult to tweak image brightness.
There
is an MP3 player built in for music listening – and we mean an MP3 player.
It only plays MP3 format. In these days of multi format support that might
be too restrictive for some. On the other hand, if you aren’t one of
those users with reams of downloaded music, then MP3s are perfectly fine to
use. And if you aren’t particularly techy minded, you might even find
the restriction a little comforting in a way!
A diary and task manager are built in and, interestingly enough, O2 provides some desktop software and a synch cable so you can share data with your PC. The Ice will synch with Outlook, or, if this is simply too much for you to cope with, you can use a provided scheduler to manage diary, tasks and contacts, backing up and managing the phone’s SIM.
You can also use the provided PC software to edit the Ice’s profiles, work with images and videos, compose MMS messages, and copy files onto the handset memory. There is 32MB of this built in, and you can extend it with microSD cards. If you have a microSD card you can use the Ice as a Mass Storage Device – the microSD card will appear like an ordinary disk drive when the Ice is connected to your PC, and you can copy and paste files to and fro.
If you don’t want to use the cable for connecting to a PC you can use the Ice’s Bluetooth capability. The benefit of the cable is that it will charge the Ice during any PC connections, and you also of course get a mains power charger. The connector is proprietary, so you’ll need to remember to carry the cable you need around. It would have been so much better had O2 managed to build mini USB into the Ice instead.
A similar comment can be made about the headset connector which is a 2.5mm jack. A 3.5mm connector would have allowed the use of any headset you like, but as it is you are restricted to the provided headset or a rather unwieldy 2.5mm to 3.5mm converter.
With additional software such as voice recorder, calculator, unit converter, stopwatch, and Web browser, as well as all the goodies O2 Active offers, there is certainly enough here to keep many users happy. Note, though, there is no email client.
But it is the hardware design that will attract you, and probably, given that in general this is a fairly average handset, the hardware design that will keep you interested.
The Ice is tall, thin and decidedly good looking. At 117 mm x 49 mm and just 14 mm thick it feel very good in the hand. The 92g of weight mean it is kind to the pocket too. Its whiteness is certainly sleek, and the O2 blue of the screen wallpaper adds to its wintery blue/white appeal.
Sometimes good hardware design is achieved at the expense of usability, but not here. The Ice has a sleek design with minimal side buttons – just an embedded volume rocker and the headset jack on the left and a covered microSD card slot on the right. There’s no dedicated camera button, but you can activate the camera using the navigation button easily enough, as well as get to O2 Active links this way.
Meanwhile the main number keys are large, well spaced and raised slightly from the surround so that they are very easy to use. The same goes for the rather nicely shaped two softmenu buttons and call and end buttons. It is all pretty minimal, and gratifyingly easy to get to grips with.
The Ice does its job pretty well, though it falls over a little if you start to get too sophisticated. The limitations of the music player and camera might reduce its appeal, for example, and you won’t want to go beyond O2 Active onto the Web very often because the handset doesn’t render Web pages into a ‘fit to screen’ viewing mode.
But taken as a mid range 3G handset with PC synchronising and a sleek and appealing design, O2’s Ice is certainly one cool customer.
This review covers the above mobile phone only and does not address the performance of any 3G Network. The score is based on a 3G mobile phone checklist.
Copyright : You are advised that this material is the copyright of www.3G.co.uk and is our own personal view only. (C) All rights reserved 2005. Whist every care has been taken in the preparation of this review, the author nor 3G.co.uk cannot be held responsible for the accuracy or authenticity of the information it contains, or consequence arising from it.
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