Introduction

Hey, we have a delicacy here! We had a 100% Chinese handset drop in our office, completely unexpected, the type which even has R&D in China. XXL GSM called me to ask if I’m interested in this wonder, I received an email with its specs, and I just couldn’t say no. Based on my previous experience I had an exciting testing period ahead me, and I wasn’t disappointed at all.

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Almost all cell phones are made in China, but it’s sure that all have some parts that originate from this Far-Eastern country. Real Chinese devices, however, are not designed by large manufacturers, but they are fully Chinese, from design to manufacturing. Our experiences so far are quite disappointing, but we’ll see that some kind of development has started there, as these phones are getting better and better and they are also getting closer to a normal level, that is accepted by European people. However, the devil comes from the details.

Anycool T818. The box doesn’t even have the name of the largest Chinese manufacturer, CECT, on it, but Google helps in anything – until a certain point. That’s because when we get to see a picture of T818 on the net, than we have to face a phone that’s completely different from the one in the package, but if we search for T808, than we get much closer, as besides button layout everything is the same. It’s hard to obtain specifications, and no matter I’ve been using the phone for three days, there are still some things that are covered in darkness…

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No, it’s no mistake. I am really using it. Just like any other handset, as T818 can be used, it even has to offer some pleasant experiences sometimes. Before going into any details let’s check the phone’s price: it’s around €245-€290 EUR, and now we can start checking out what do we get for our money.

Box

This here is the king of all packages. Not because it’s design, since we’re talking about a simple prism, but because of the labels. There is no other phone to have such an amount of foolishness written on its box; there are so many lies as all political parties can tell during a campaign. On one side of the package the key features are listed, there are even small icons to help us understand them. Let’s take them one by one.

TV support. Is it true? Well yes, but… Dual-SIM, that’s okay. Dual-core CPU. Oh my God! Is it true? Well of course, it’s clear as daylight. Why not quad-core? FM feature: this stands for the radio, which is truly inside. Dual-Bluetooth, muhaha. So it’s stereo, that’s what it wants to tell. Super-long standby. I had some doubts about this one, but I was surprised. 3D stereo speaker: yeah, suuure, both of them are 3D, naturally. You shouldn’t have laughed at this one, as from this point of view T818 supersedes anything else. MP3, MP4, okay these are no features nowadays. 2 megapixel, dual(!) camera: now this is really false. There is also an icon for memory expandability, this really exists.

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Great. On the back of the package there are some more features: Incall firewire (until the present day I don’t know what does this mean), message firewall (at least I’ve found this one), anti-theft! Now it’s really time to take a look at this wonder-device, which comes with a battery, a charger that can be converted to a USB cable and a stereo headset.

Exterior

Well. It’s not bad at first glance. It’s a huge handset, with a 3” touchscreen and a really stupid keypad on which the 0 key slides to the right, along with the asterisk and hash mark keys. The phone is covered in shiny black plastic, which doesn’t look bad at all, it’s no shame taking it out on the street, and the size is really respectful. Did I already mention the devil? It’s in the details…

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Above the huge display there is (from left to right) an Anycool logo, a speaker, the secondary camera and a Bluetooth logo. Let’s take a look at these a bit, as the function of the secondary camera is not very clear for me. It has VGA resolution, it works, we can take pictures with it, but what’s the point, when there is another on the back? T818 is not a 3G device; hence it cannot be used for video calls, so I can’t think of anything else that the very purpose of this camera was to deceive the buyer, so he thinks that the phone has support for third generation networks.

When taking a look at the navigation keys, which were stolen from Nokia N95, we can get really amazed, as there are two extra features. On the left side of the D-pad there are two green keys, the leftmost being used for making calls with the primary SIM card, while the other is used for calls from the secondary SIM. On the left of the navigation key there is a dedicated key for the TV feature.

There is a silver stripe running along the sides of the phone, which is only broken by the rubber cover of the system connector. From the top right corner of the phone we can pull out the TV antenna, which is about 40 cm long and we can look really cool with it, as many will think that it’s used for enhancing signal strength. The stylus in the bottom left corner needs some force to be pulled out, but at least it won’t fall off. On the left we can see the “super 3D dual” speakers and the theoretically 2 MP camera.

Below the back cover the white battery is sitting, while underneath this we can find the two SIMs and the microSD card (included in the package), which is 256 MB large theoretically, while the phone’s software tells us that it has the widely-used size of 400 megabytes… We should note that this small cheating won’t do any good to the fact that the internal memory has a size of 200 KB.

Menu

After switching on the phone, the user is greeted by the magnificent landscape of the Sun going down at an ocean, and after some Anycool animations we find ourselves at the main screen. There can be no complaints about the QVGA display, as it has a clear, nice picture. The static shortcut icons, characteristic for CECT devices, are in the bottom row. These let us access the main screen, the phonebook, messaging, the dial screen and musical features.

On the standby screen there are lots of icons in the top row, in front of the customizable background. On the left there are two signal strength indicators, and then there is an icon to tell us which SIM card is the primary one. The following are optional, like the envelope that reminds of new messages, the small bell for the alarm clock, the symbol of vibration mode, the keypad lock icon and the Bluetooth icon. In the center of the main screen there are two network labels. Touching the screen at any point takes us in the main menu, which has 12 icons.

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There are some color schemes (which are only color schemes, no matter the software calls them themes) that let us change the design. The icons are quite self-explanatory, and no matter of the dual-core CPU (or not), the phone has a decent speed. We shouldn’t even be dreaming about multitasking; tapping the quicklaunch bar in any menu makes the phone ask us if we want to close the currently running application.

Basic functions

The phonebook has some interesting things. Although it has a capacity of only 500 entries (plus the two SIM cards), its extra fields can be switched off, if we don’t need al 14 types. Contacts can have pictures, sounds and even videos attached to them. Searching is simple and fast, the contact list has no serious issues. It’s a nice thing that when we have a missed call, there is a huge silhouette appearing on the screen, and there is a question mark blinking in the place of the head, even if the caller is known.

Messaging, however, has some serious issues: to begin with, there is no email client. Due to the button layout text entry is a bit difficult, but we might try handwriting recognition – though it won’t solve our problems. Writing an MMS is quite strange, as there are separate menus for entering the addressee, the subject and the slides. Incoming messages make a huge mailbox appear on-screen, so there’s no chance we’ll miss them. This time text entry is not helped by T9, but by the multilingual EZi system. Its efficiency is far from the good old T9, that we are already accustomed to.

The calendar is a very basic one. It has only month view, we can have only one kind of entry, but at least they can repeat. The alarm clock is similar, but there is a serious problem with it: the volume of the alarm cannot be changed. It can vibrate (you should try waking up on this) or it can shout like an animal (this will surely make the whole neighborhood wake up). In the mornings I had the phone in my reach, and just as the alarm went off I immediately shoved the phone under my pillow. The world clock has a map, the default city is Bangkok; there is a currency- and unit-converter too. The calculator has basic functions, and there is a stopwatch.

There are, however, some features that I have never seen on a phone. Call filtering is based on a red- and a blacklist, the first only lets those calls in that are from a specific group, while in the second case we can set up a list of people who we would like to filter out. The phone has the same features for SMS messages too, but the best thing is remote controlling. There are some keywords that, if sent in an SMS, make the phone do what we want, for example we can turn off the phone or activate call diverting from a distance. And it works! I asked my colleague Bocha to send me a message with the text “POWER OFF”. We couldn’t see the message arriving, as the phone turned off. I’ve called him after this to tell him how cool it is and than he started sending me the message again and again, but he had bad luck as we can assign filters for this feature. The built-in answering machine is also worth mentioning, as it is simply genial. We can assign it separately to the SIM cards, we can record different kinds of messages, and the phone plays back the one we have selected when someone calls. The network operator’s answer phone is nothing compared to this.

Multimedia

Two megapixel camera? That’s hilarious! Both cameras can take pictures of VGA resolution at most, this is the greatest lie from the package (well okay, the dual-core processor is also a nice one). Everyone should judge the pictures’ quality as he wants, there are some examples below. We can set lots of things in the options, like brightness, environmental settings, or self-timer. It’s okay that all these are present, but this whole camera thing is a joke, beginning with the fact that we only get quarter the resolution we were promised.

The musical part, however, is something that any manufacturer could learn from. The volume, and the clarity that comes from the speakers on the back, is something that is better than even B&O Serenata; I just didn’t hear anything like this from a phone. It has a simply unbelievable sound quality and I am inclined to not even take the “Super 3D dual” label in consideration. As for me, they could have even used a Sokol chipset, as it is really that good. There are some equalizer presets (the factory default is the best), the player can run in the background and there is stereo Bluetooth support. We should be happy until we don’t see some youngsters running wild with this phone, playing some musical crap on the bus.

After this I have taken a look at the FM radio. I took the headset, plugged it in, it worked. There is no RDS, reception quality is quite good, and then came the surprise: I couldn’t find any play through speakers option in the menu. I’ve thought that the designers have omitted radio fans from the target group of users; than I have unplugged the headset and the radio went on functioning: through the speakers. What can antenna be good for…

TV and other

I had some experience with a TV-phone, Nokia N77 showed what it is good for. But while that one supported DVB-H broadcasts, this Anycool wonderphone tries to tune in conventional broadcasts.

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That’s why there is the antenna with a funny size, and then we just have to press the TV button and we can see the big nothing. Well of course, let’s just start automatic tuning first. The phone found a couple of stations, but I just couldn’t get a good reception, even though I have tried at least in five different places around town. I have managed to get some picture, but instead of sound I could only hear some faint hissing. In China there might a 50X powerful broadcast, but I think this is unusable in these parts. We might use the antenna for showing off, but we can only hurt someone’s eye with it at most.

There are two familiar applications in the list of games, one of these being Mahjong, even though it’s called LianLianKan this time (I’d rather think that this is Lion King), while the other is the good old Bejeweled. I’ve played along for hours with this latter one; it offered me the experience of Bubble Braker.

There are some other minor features left to mention. MP4 playback has some meaning on such a large display, and even viewing pictures is better than on the back of a compact camera. I couldn’t find the keylock during the whole testing period, and this is something very important in case of a touchscreen phone, so I don’t think that I just overlooked it. There are, however, environmental profiles, the phone can ring and vibrate at the same time, but I’ve been afraid even at volume level 1, that my neighbors will leave their homes through the balcony in panic.

Data transfer, battery

There is not even EDGE support, only GPRS. We have such a huge display and a WAP browser – strange couple, I must say. We shouldn’t want to view HTML content, as we can’t. Theoretically the phone also works in CDMA networks, but we didn’t have the opportunity of trying this. The USB cable functioned properly; after connecting it, the phone asks if we want to use it as an external drive (meaning that it will display the content of the memory card), as a modem, or as a webcam. This latter feature has been proprietary of Alcatel (can you guess where are they made?) phones until now.

The battery has a very powerful number written on it (1800 mAh), which is in accordance with the “super-long standby” label. Wow. No matter how doubtful I’ve been, the phone still had some battery power after two days of intensive use (2 hours of talk, lots of poking around with the TV, Bluetooth turned on). It’s shocking.

Summary? This stuff is aggressive. It made some heavily mixed impressions on me. There are some features in which it is completely unique (control from distance, sound quality, display size, battery), while in other terms it is very weak (camera, data transfer, button layout). My hands were shaking to give the phone a Cool product award, but the price of €245-€290 EUR is very much, even if it’s a unique handset.

One thing is sure, however: if the Chinese will be coming, they will be coming with full force. It looks that they have new ideas, and although they can’t copy everything perfectly from the large companies, but they can already some phones that are an example for other manufacturers.

Bog

Translated by Szaszati

CECT Anycool TV T818 has been provided by XXL GSM.
The phone can be bought at:
Budapest VI. Jókai tér 6.
Budapest VI. Teréz körút 18.
On-line at www.xxlgsm.hu.

Specifications

CECT Anycool TV T818
	General
	Technology	GSM, CDMA
	Size	114 x 53 x 17 mm
	Weight	110 grams
	Available colors	Black-silver
	Display
	Display size	3” diagonal
	Display resolution	240 x 320 pixels
	Display type	TFT
	Memory
	Phonebook capacity	500
	SMS memory / max. MMS size	200 / 295KB
	Internal memory	200KB
	Memory expandability	microSD (max 2GB)
	Data transfer
	Frequency bands	GSM 900/1800 MHz
	GPRS / EDGE	present / none
	UMTS / HSDPA	none / none
	IrDA / Bluetooth	none / 2.0 A2DP
	WiFi	none
	Push-to-talk / RSS	none / none
	GPS receiver	none
	Basic functions
	Profiles	present
	Vibra function	present
	Built-in handsfree	present
	Voice dialing / voice commands	none / none
	Sound recorder	present
	Alarm clock	present, also when turned off
	Predictive text entry	EZi Text
	Software
	Platform	CECT
	WAP / HTML browser	present / none
	E-mail client	none
	Java	none
	Games	2
	Currency converter	present
	Extra software	control from distance, message filtering
	Multimedia
	Main camera	VGA
	Secondary camera	VGA
	Video recording	QCIF
	Music player	present, runs in background too
	Equalizer	presets
	FM radio	present
	Battery
	Main battery	1800 mAh Li-Ion
	Standby time	130 hours
	Talk time	6 hours
	Other
	Dual-SIM, NTSC/PAL TV, webcam