Huawei IDEOS - Review by a first time Android user

One fine day I received this email from the good fellows at Avian Media asking me if I'd like to review the recently launched Huawei IDEOS. As you can guess, I agreed. They sent me an IDEOS handset, I played with it for a good 2-3 weeks, and here's the review. But, first, a couple of quick clarifications:

• I think it's very hard reviewing an Android phone. You don't really know whether you're reviewing the phone or the Android platform. As a first time user of an Android phone, I don't really know which parts of the Android OS/UI are it's inherent traits and which parts are controlled by the phone manufacturer. Given the fact that Android is open and assuming that the manufacturer would have control over all aspects of the OS/UI, I'll state my opinions as a whole towards the phone, and not split between the hardware & the OS/UI.
• I did NOT use this handset as my primary phone. I had taken it along with me on my Thailand trip where, although it had a Thai SIM, calls were infrequent. It was used frequently for surfing the net over WiFi, checking emails, Google Maps + GPS, & tons of Angry Birds :-)

The Box

Huawei IDEOS came in a pretty standard box. It had the phone, a USB charger, a micro SD card, and a flyer/leaflet with some info on how to get started. Even though I was told it's a Huawei IDEOS phone, neither the box, nor the phone had any Huawei logo - nothing wrong with it, I just found the lack of any manufacturer branding surprising.

The Bootup

I managed to switch it on using the small button at the top edge of the phone after goofing around with the red-colored button used to disconnect calls. (In most Nokia phones the red button doubles-up as the power button as well). I was surprised to see an Aircel logo during the boot-up process - wasn't expecting it because none of the communication mentioned it being an Aircel phone. The bootup process takes about 90 seconds - fairly long by any standards!

Network, sound, & data

Upon seeing the Aircel logo, I thought this phone would be tied to the Aircel network and this entire review was a ploy to get me to buy an Aircel SIM - talk about being paranoid :-) Thankfully, popping in my Vodafone SIM seemed to work without any hassles. I tried making a couple of test calls and found the in-call sound quality to be pretty good. Much better than my Nokia E63, which is notorious for it's pathetic in-call sound volume.

I tried checking my mail using Vodafone Live, but it didn't work. I thought changing the handset messed-up the on-SIM network settings and called customer support to have it fixed. They confirmed that Vodafone Live would NOT work on any Android device. I'd have to use Vodafone Mobile Connect (an overpriced mobile internet service) instead. I let it be because I didn't want to use this as my primary phone because I wasn't planning to copy my contact list over from my Nokia E63 (Btw, does anyone know an easy way to copy the entire contact list from a Nokia to an Android?)

I switched on the WiFi and started browsing using the in-built browser. Absolutely no problems in surfing the net using this phone.

Other hardware stuff

The phone fits well in your hand and feels sturdy (I didn't go around testing the sturdiness by dropping a borrowed phone!). The battery life is adequate and IIRC it lasted about 2 days with WiFi used sparingly, moderate GPS usage, and heavy Angry Bird flinging! The touch screen is fairly responsive and has an adequate screen size + resolution. Not good, just adequate - you'll wish for a better screen resolution when you start noticing the fuzzy fonts on web pages & will always end-up zooming in for better text clarity.

The phone's speaker is brilliantly loud. The sound output to headphones via the 3.5mm jack is also good. The camera, however, leaves a lot to be desired.

The phone has a volume rocker on the left edge, a power button & a 3.5mm audio jack on the top edge, and USB/charger port at the bottom edge. It has hardware buttons for call-receive, call-disconnect, and a 5-way nav-pad. It has four permanent buttons on the touch screen one each for return/previous, menu/options, home, and search. This was one of my main grouses with the phone:

• What's the use of a 5-way nav-pad on a touch phone? The whole point of having a touch interface is to get rid of a cursor/pointer. The only time I found myself using the 5-way nav-pad was to accurately position the cursor between two letters during typing a message/email. This sole use-case doesn't validate the need for a a 5-way nav-pad, instead it just points towards the need for a better interface for text input.
• What's the point of having permanent soft buttons? If the four soft buttons (return/previous, menu/options, home, & search) were so important that they needed a permanent spot on the touch screen, why not make them hardware buttons instead? There's a distinct advantage in getting tactile feedback upon pressing a button. Getting to the home screen or the applications menu, in my opinion are the most common interactions and these, unfortunately, are the most counter-intuitive buttons. The biggest button on the phone -- the big round button on the 5-way nav-pad -- powers neither interaction as one would expect. Pretty disappointing!
• I'm still not convinced that four permanent soft buttons are really required. The least useful is the search-button. In most of the applications/screens it's just a dead button.

Processor: The phone is just below the threshold of acceptable speed/responsiveness. It's not that bad that you'll get frustrated during normal usage, but you do notice a split-second delay between tapping & the phone responding -- especially when a couple of apps are running the background. The lack of processing power is apparent when playing a complicated stage of Angry Birds - it's so slow that it renders the game almost unplayable.

Software/UI stuff

The IDEOS is on the Android 2.2 (Froyo) platform. I tried Settings > About phone > Online update and it said that the phone was up-to-date. I guess it was too much to expect it to install the latest Android over-the-air. 

You can't install any apps unless you plug in the micro-SD card. Nothing wrong with that, just saying.

The first app that I installed was the Swype keyboard, which unfortunately was not pre-installed. I wouldn't be able to survive a touch keyboard had it not been for the amazing Swype keyboard. Seriously, if you haven't tried it - do it now. Get the hang of gliding your thumb over keys and typing will be a breeze. Every single person I've demoed it to has been truly amazed at what it can do. I don't understand why it isn't pre-installed on the IDEOS when it's free.

I was pretty happy with the pre-installed Google Maps & the built-in GPS. In fact most of my Thailand road-trip was powered by it - saved me a good 200THB per-day on an add-on GPS with my rented car.

I didn't quite like the SMS interface. The UI is still rough around the edges and can use some work. For example, if you get a new message notification on the status bar and you open the messaging app, it doesn't show you the new message. It shows you the last message thread you were viewing instead. You hit the return/previous soft-button assuming it'll go to the message list and the app closes! Pretty irritating.

I wasn't a fan of the way the browser treats multiple windows either. Switching windows is a pain with no apparent shortcuts. I think they can pick a thing or two from how Opera Mini/Opera Mobile handle multiple windows/tabs.

Not happy with the telephone UI as well. The contact list requires an additional click on the "search" soft-button to start typing out a name. I don't normally scroll through hundreds of contacts to find the required name. I type out the first few letters to quickly reach it. Ideally the on-screen keyboard should be visible by default on the contact list. Second peeve, the call log tries to collapse multiple entries (missed calls, dial outs, etc) from the same phone number into a single entry. You click on the collapsed entry and it expands into the actual list. The display of this entire interaction is extremely non-obvious.

Conclusion

The Huawei IDEOS (official specs / GSMArena specs) is priced at Rs 8,499 in India. Would I buy it? I'd say not until I compare the Huawei IDEOS with Samsung Galaxy S5570. The S5570 matches it feature-for-feature and covers up on some of my pet peeves with the IDEOS: pre-installed Swype, faster processor, & larger screen.

One thing I still don't know is whether all the usability goof-ups are only with the IDEOS or are they common across all Androids. Anyhow, even with all it's faults I wouldn't write-off the IDEOS. It's feature packed and comes at an attractive price point. I'm just not sure whether (a) it's the best Android for the buck, or (b) whether Android/touch phones are as good as they're made out to be. (I still think one can't beat the feel of a QWERTY keyboard)