Trium Cosmo :o) (Mitsubishi Cosmo)

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Product:	Mitsubishi Cosmo
Date:	18/07/01 (301 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: -

Disadvantages: -

Trium - the recently renamed mobile phone division of Mitsubishi Electric - offers some distinctive handsets and the Cosmo (when will handset makers realise the use of the @ sign in a name is tacky and redundant?) is no exception. It looks amazing, is wafer-thin and paper-light with an active flip cover. What is more, it comes with features such as a huge phone book and infra-red that are associated with premium-priced handsets. First indications are that this phone will be in the mid-price bracket, representing a potential bargain.

Ease of use


The four-way joystick gives quick and easy access to the many functions. The interface is remarkably intuitive and, combined with the soft keys below the screen (you can customise what these do on the standby screen) that vary their function according to where you are in the menu, you hardly even need the manual. Pushing the joystick into the phone selects the option highlighted in the screen. Click left and you have access to your phone book, which you can cursor up and down. However, the joystick tends to wobble in one of the four directions, moving the cursor, as you try to click.

The handset comes with a remarkably quick-to-charge but tiny battery at 500mAh. This capacity does not compare favourably to most modern phones with 700mAh but we were satisfied with the battery life we experienced. This is one way of keeping down the size and weight of the phone but is a big handicap when browsing WAP sites, an activity that consumes considerable power, much like a voice call.

The phone has its idiosyncrasies for text entry such as a strange system for upper and lower case shifting and the space option under the # key rather than 1 or 0. Special characters are accessed using a long press of the * key which brings up an image of the keypad and corresponding characters. Although initially complex, the system is quick when you get used to it. Turning the predictive text on and off is ve
ry easy using the joystick - this is a major hassle on most phones, especially Nokias. The 16 ringtones are all rather unappealing and there is no “boring” option.

The speaker was muffled for received speech, especially with the volume up. And the volume did not go up very loud. Reported speech was good and the phone hung on to the signals relatively well, although the retractable whiplash aerial made little difference in our experience. Voice dialling is noticable by its absence on the Cosmo.

Design/Style


Distinctive. That is the nicest thing you can say about the appearance of this handset. Few people who saw it liked it initially although it was generally agreed that it appealed more to women than to men. This was partly because of the strange shape of the screen, the chassis and the swirl on the earpiece. The aerial looks much like those on analogue phones several years ago and the silvery plastic fails to convey a quality image.

However, the actual construction of the phone does ooze good manufacture. The over-sized flip does protect the keys (although firm presses on the lid did activate the # and * keys) and it snaps shut like a VW car door. The chassis is well assembled and feels strong in the hand despite its whispy weight.

The number keys are well proportioned and give reassuring clicks after just the right amount of travel. The two soft keys are rocker keys for answering and terminating calls but are simply too small to work well as rocker keys. The joystick works well considering its tiny size.

Vital statistics




Metric measurements
Dimensions: 103 x 51 x 16mm
Weight: 69g incl battery
Screen: 31 x 23mm

Imperial measurements
Dimensions: 4" x 2" x 0.6"
Weight: 2.29 oz incl battery
Screen: 1.22" x 0.82"

Quoted standby/talk time: 80hrs/120mins
Battery: 540mAh Lion
Bands GSM
900/1800MHz
Bookmarks: 5 plus home page
Mitsubishi WAP 1.1 browser
Other features: T9 predictive text, vibrate alert, infra-red, 255 memories in phone, scratchpad, 2 games, diary, alarm clock, supports 14kbs.


WAP browsing


Trium really shows off its high definition screen with lots of lovely graphics throughout the menus including images of parrots, penguins and dice! However, our handset did have a problem with the contrast of the pixels with the background and the images were not as sharp as you would expect.

A full clear five lines of text are visible and text is easy to read with about 22 characters to the line. Links neatly work as underlined rather than any other pixel-wasting method of indicating them. The Cosmo also uniquely offer a “zoom” function that enables the letters to be enlarged for text pages whilst maintaining five lines per screen. A nice touch but of limited use in practice.

The joystick scrolls neatly and responsively up and down through the pages. A click selects the highlighted link while left and right scroll you back and forth through the pages you have viewed. A click of the call button brings up a feast of essential options including bookmarking. In addition, it neatly offers the option to “disconnect” - ending the phone call but leaving the page viewable or “close session” - shutting the browser and connection together.

Balancing the usability of the interface is the limitation of only five bookmarks and one connection setting/gateway. It surely would not have used that much extra resources to have offered two or three connections and 20 bookmark positions?

WAP-related features


Interestingly Yahoo’s mobile portal is the sole pre-loaded bookmark. This helps when you check your access settings to make sure that at least you are trying to reach a correctly entered page.

The Cosmo is anothe
r one of those phones that does not make entering your service provider settings easy. Not least because the phone mysteriously demands a pin code before you can even reach what is snappily labelled the “access parameters”. This is all the more annoying since the phone does not support “over the air configuration”, the system employed by Ericsson and Nokia that allows all the necessary settings to be sent to your phone through SMS. If only more manufacturers would offer this option in their browsers it would be so much simpler to set up phones to access WAP pages.

OVERALL


The Cosmo sets new standards for Internet access refinement in many ways: to have such a high resolution screen on such a diminutive phone is in itself a commendable achievement. To ally this with one of the most sophisticated WAP browsers deserves even higher praise. The excellent joystick navigation is simply icing on the cake. We may well be looking at one of the best WAP phone packages available today.

It is only for these reasons that the absence of OTAC, a paltry bookmark library and only one possible configuration can almost be overlooked. For many people the decision whether to buy this phone might come down to the esoteric looks. But any reservations there may be evaporate when youu see the expected low price of around £75 with an annual contract.

Summary: