Philips Az@lis 238 (Philips Az@lis 238)

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Product:	Philips Az@lis 238
Date:	13/07/01 (44 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: -

Disadvantages: -

Budget handsets need to be more user-friendly than more expensive phones because they are often bought by people new to mobiles. Philips has clearly recognised this and tried to make the Azalis as simple to pick up as possible.

The acid test of simplicity is: how much do you need to refer to the manual? Arguably Nokia sets the standards here and you sometimes think they could bring down costs by not printing a manual since most of its handsets are so intuitive to use. Philips has adopted a “carousel” menu system similar to the new Sony handsets and this is simple to use. In fact, the manual is even easy to understand.

The voice control is no gimmick on this phone: not only can you put voice tags on five names but you can put it on five menu commands. The intelligent system even tells you if the background is too noisy. The only question is: why limit tags to only five names?

SMS sending is made easier by a good implementation of the T9 predictive text system. But to send a message the system has an irritating habit of prompting you first for “New”, which actually refers to the recipient not the message. That said, you get a wide choice of precomposed message to select.

The big key in the middle gives the impression of being a four direction rocker key. However, it does not move the cursor up and down when you press the top and bottom edges since these are used for cancelling and OK.

From the point of view of WAP, the Azalis distinguishes itself by having a dedicated WAP launch button marked with an @ sign. One press and it not only brings up the browser but also connects while another press during browsing disconnects the line and closes the browser. Very smart and very welcome. There is even an option in the WAP menu called “help” which describes in scrolling text how some of the WAP functions work.

Design/Style



This reviewer is a particular fan of th
e build quality of Philips electronics and this handset is consistent with that expectation. Compared to its infamous Diga and Fizz ultra budget handsets that are now thankfully just bad memory this phone feels well made.

The handset is quite thick but relatively narrow and because of this almost square profile it sits very comfortably in the hand. Apart from the strange holes for the speaker at the top of the phone, the styling is conservative rather than striking.

The phone is made from hard-wearing good quality plastic and feels solid in the hand. The case hardly flexes at all when you squeeze it and the silver trim on the buttons and around the screen make it look more expensive than it is. The buttons are solid, rather than the all-too-common rubber variety, and make a firm reassuring click when you press them.

The screen is lit by a seductive orange glow but is rather cramped. Given the low resolution of the screen Philips has done well to design appealing graphics. The “WAP by Philips” screen that comes up after you press the @ button is really quite pretty.

The status icons for battery strength and signal strength are very difficult to read and inaccurate. Nonetheless, the carousel menu system is visually appealing and the icons are clear and simple.

The only real complaint about the design is the irritating use of the @ sign in the name. At first I was not sure whether it should be pronounced As-aT -liss or A-zay-liss. And then there is the unnecessary addition of the “238” to the rather meaningless name!

Vital statistics




Metric measurements
Dimensions: 119 x 46 x 28mm
Weight: 125g
Screen size: 23mm x 21mm/85 x 65 pixels

Imperial measurements
Dimensions: 4.68" x 1.81" x 1.1"
Weight: 4.o7 oz
Screen size: 0.9" x 0.8"/85 x 65 pixels

Browser: Phone.com UP4.1.16f
5 bookmarks

6 hours talk/ 500 hours quoted standby time
Dual band
Features: vibrate alert, five-address voice dial with five voice commands for menu, choice of three colours - dark blue, grey and dark green, T9 predictive text, alarm clock that stays on after phone is switched off, Bricks game.

WAP browsing



It almost pains this Philips-supporting reviewer to say this but the WAP browser on this phone is very poor. To be more accurate it is the ridiculously inadequate screen that means that you would have to be a masochist to bother pressing that little @ button.

The screen is quoted as a five-line display. However, the relatively informative status bar at the top of the screen occupies a complete line and the “softkey” options occupy a complete line at the bottom. This leaves a pointless three narrow lines to display WAP content.

This is a real surprise because the phone takes every opportunity to advertise its WAP credential: the start-up screen tells you it has WAP, the keyboard has the dedicated WAP key and the very first level of the menu has a specific WAP option. So it is no after-thought to include WAP. Then why did Philips not incorporate a better screen and software?

With an arrow occupying valuable pixels to highlight each live option in a list you are left with the most cramped screen we have seen on WAP phone this year. In use, this means that you are lucky to see two words per line! The faltering scrolling makes reading pages of text even more painful.

A quick press of the “Menu” button easily brings up all the options you might want while browsing, such as bookmarking. But five bookmarks? Are they serious? We complain when some phones have only ten while admittedly we have come across some pre-pay models or network-locked versions that only allow one - the home page.

The phone seems to log on quickly but demands a strong signal first. When it loads
a page it appears to pause, flicker and reload it again for every page.

It takes some while to get used to the misleading four-way rocker. You keep wanting to press the top edge to move up through menus but this simply takes you back a page or cancels the entry. The left and right arrows on the rocker move you up and down through lists of content.

WAP-related features


It is such a shame that the screen prevents some neat touches from shining through. There is an option to turn off the images which speeds up the loading of pages. With current download speeds on WAP, limited processing power and the virtual absence of visually attractive sites this could be very useful on other WAP phones.

In the case of the Azalis you have little choice but to switch off graphics since most of those you will encounter will be too big for the screen anyway. Images for all the major sites were clipped at the right edge so you could not see them properly.

At last a phone maker has made it relatively easy to enter the settings for gateway and dial-up. We emphasise relative but there are clearly labelled options to enter logon ID, “Phone number”, password and even an option labelled “Gateway”. This is rather refreshing after having to struggle through so many phone menus that give technical descriptions such as DNS, Primary and Dial-Up all deep into a difficult-to-navigate menu structure.

The Azalis gives two possible choices of gateway, effectively giving you a sixth bookmark. If only they had thought to give an option for an additional dial-up service provider.

Although the screen is dire, it features a timer that is visible at all times that you are browsing and indicates how long you have been online. Particularly useful as long as per minute cost for using WAP are so high.

OVERALL



It is a puzzle why Philips would want to put such poor WAP software in what
is otherwise an impressive budget phone. It says it is aiming for the youth market but with only one poor game - Bricks, a tiny screen and very average SMS usability it is not trying very hard. Combined with an almost sophisticated exterior it does not quite seem to know what it is and suggest the company has some way to go before threatening Nokia's or Ericsson’s market shares.

People buying this phone as part of a pre-pay package will no doubt be pleased by the handset quality and the voice capabilities. If they are buying it for its WAP abilities we suspect many will ask for their money back.

And dont forget, u can nominate this, or any other of my opinions for a little Crown fingy! ;o)

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