The XCute DV2 Mobile Phone
A cutie-cutie phone camera that’s compact and lightBy Paul Marc RañonWhat comes into everyone’s mind when they hear the “cuteness”? Some will say it is about youth, innocence, and helplessness. Some will even associate it with infants and puppies. But what about if it’s a mobile phone? Most would describe it in many words.
When I was told to review the XCute DV2 mobile phone, the first impression that came into my mind was, “Honey, I shrunk my N93!” It seems to me that this little kid from Hong Kong called the shots and went in the competitive mobile phone market. To tell, I was quite dumbfounded just by looking at it. Anyway, read along.
Out of the box, the XCute DV2 package includes the unit, two batteries, charger, audio / video out cable, hands-free headset, 512MB Mini SD card, software CD, and a user manual. From the looks of it, the package has lots of bundled extras in comparison to average box contents of other phones from the competition.
The XCute DV2 is a tri-band (GSM 900 / GSM 1800 / GSM 1900) phone, with size dimensions of 87 x 46.6 x 22 millimeters, and weighs 118 grams. It has a TFT 16M color display with a 640 x 240 pixel resolution. The XCute DV2 has a second external OLED 65K color display with a 96 x 65 pixel resolution.
The phone has a black glossy finish and silver highlights that looks impressive, but it gives a plastic feel and a magnet for fingerprints. It has a bulb that protrudes from the top left hand side that is quite odd at first glance. To tell, it doesn’t makes the DV2 lopsided when held because it serves it houses the phone’s camera module
The DV2’s keypad is based on a basic clamshell layout with a 4-way navigational button surrounded by 4 selection buttons at the top with the alphanumeric pad below. The shortcoming is that the keys are not raised well wherein fingers can slip on the wrong key for first-time users.
Although the build quality of the DV2 is good, the question remains as to how the rotating mechanism found at the base of the screen will last. Our guess is that this is just how it feels like for a rotating clamshell display. But the good side is that it allows the user to do great taking pictures and video recording.
Viewing pictures or videos on the DV2’s 640 x 240 pixel display is very crisp and has good vivid colors. One notable shortcoming is that the screen has an aspect ratio of 4:3 wherein the pixels are not exactly square in shape, thus causing texts to look slightly jagged.
What makes the DV2 unique among the competition? It has a round dial on the opposite side of the phone to the camera that has six different symbols, camera, gallery, video camera, voice recorder and MP3. At the center, there is a slightly raised round button used for taking pictures, start / stopping video clips.
The DV2 also has a long skinny button below the dial that is used to increase or decrease the volume and below that is a shorter skinny button that is known as the ‘shift’ key. This key is used to select phone functions and each time it is pressed it moves clockwise to the next mode that makes it quick and simple.
When it comes SMS, the DV2 has a SmartABC input system that is quite different from the usual T9 predictive input in other mobile phones. It works similarly to T9 but instead of inserting the word as you type, it displays a list of possible matching words at the bottom of the screen then press enter on the one you wish to use.
According to XCute, the DV2 is the first commercially available 6 MegaPixel camera phone. But based on our tests, the phone actually has a 3 MegaPixel sensor (2048 x 1536 pixels) that interpolates to 6 MP. On the side of the camera, there is a slider button that controls the camera’s manual focus.
When in camera mode, the phone is designed to be opened 90 degrees and then have the screen rotated 90 degrees so that it faces away from the camera. We had to hold the phone in a gun-like fashion using the thumb to press the record button and index finger to adjust the manual focus button.
A user can customize the camera settings that include exposure time, image size, image quality, white balance, flash and more. The DV2’s LED flash is located under the camera sensor, and based on our tests, it is only effective at an average range of 2 to 3 meters.
However, the images taken using the DV2 were surprising crisp, have no barrel distortion, and no focus problems were observed. As for videos, the DV2 can record up to a maximum of 640 x 480 pixels resolution, at 30 frames per second (fps). Video playback on the DV2 screen looks great.
As for its MP3 player feature, it is quite good actually. But the DV2 struggles much on sound quality. The sound lacks almost any bass and is generally of poor quality through both the loudspeaker and the included headphones. Transferring music files to the DV2 is done using a provided USB cable.
Although the DV2 has a bundled 512 Mini SD card for added juice, the GUI of the DV2 is quite slow, because it takes almost 10 seconds of pressing and turning on the phone. Another is that it has no Bluetooth, IR, EDGE, 3G, or even Wi-Fi. It only has GPRS Class 10 and WAP 2.0 / xHTML.
The DV2 is powered by a Lithium Ion 700mAh battery that has a charging time of 3.5 hours, talktime time of about 2.5 hours, and a standby time of 4 days, depending on the usage.
To sum it all up, the XCute DV2 mobile phone is a good phone camera because it shows they have designed the phone around the camera. Despite its shortcomings, the DV2 has a high megapixel camera and it is compact and lightweight. And by the way, the phone is available here at the Technews Lab.
The DV2’s keypad is based on a basic clamshell layout with a 4-way navigational button surrounded by 4 selection buttons at the top with the alphanumeric pad below. The shortcoming is that the keys are not raised well wherein fingers can slip on the wrong key for first-time users.
Although the build quality of the DV2 is good, the question remains as to how the rotating mechanism found at the base of the screen will last. Our guess is that this is just how it feels like for a rotating clamshell display. But the good side is that it allows the user to do great taking pictures and video recording.
Viewing pictures or videos on the DV2’s 640 x 240 pixel display is very crisp and has good vivid colors. One notable shortcoming is that the screen has an aspect ratio of 4:3 wherein the pixels are not exactly square in shape, thus causing texts to look slightly jagged.
What makes the DV2 unique among the competition? It has a round dial on the opposite side of the phone to the camera that has six different symbols, camera, gallery, video camera, voice recorder and MP3. At the center, there is a slightly raised round button used for taking pictures, start / stopping video clips.
The DV2 also has a long skinny button below the dial that is used to increase or decrease the volume and below that is a shorter skinny button that is known as the ‘shift’ key. This key is used to select phone functions and each time it is pressed it moves clockwise to the next mode that makes it quick and simple.
When it comes SMS, the DV2 has a SmartABC input system that is quite different from the usual T9 predictive input in other mobile phones. It works similarly to T9 but instead of inserting the word as you type, it displays a list of possible matching words at the bottom of the screen then press enter on the one you wish to use.
According to XCute, the DV2 is the first commercially available 6 MegaPixel camera phone. But based on our tests, the phone actually has a 3 MegaPixel sensor (2048 x 1536 pixels) that interpolates to 6 MP. On the side of the camera, there is a slider button that controls the camera’s manual focus.
When in camera mode, the phone is designed to be opened 90 degrees and then have the screen rotated 90 degrees so that it faces away from the camera. We had to hold the phone in a gun-like fashion using the thumb to press the record button and index finger to adjust the manual focus button.
A user can customize the camera settings that include exposure time, image size, image quality, white balance, flash and more. The DV2’s LED flash is located under the camera sensor, and based on our tests, it is only effective at an average range of 2 to 3 meters.
However, the images taken using the DV2 were surprising crisp, have no barrel distortion, and no focus problems were observed. As for videos, the DV2 can record up to a maximum of 640 x 480 pixels resolution, at 30 frames per second (fps). Video playback on the DV2 screen looks great.
As for its MP3 player feature, it is quite good actually. But the DV2 struggles much on sound quality. The sound lacks almost any bass and is generally of poor quality through both the loudspeaker and the included headphones. Transferring music files to the DV2 is done using a provided USB cable.
Although the DV2 has a bundled 512 Mini SD card for added juice, the GUI of the DV2 is quite slow, because it takes almost 10 seconds of pressing and turning on the phone. Another is that it has no Bluetooth, IR, EDGE, 3G, or even Wi-Fi. It only has GPRS Class 10 and WAP 2.0 / xHTML.
The DV2 is powered by a Lithium Ion 700mAh battery that has a charging time of 3.5 hours, talktime time of about 2.5 hours, and a standby time of 4 days, depending on the usage.
To sum it all up, the XCute DV2 mobile phone is a good phone camera because it shows they have designed the phone around the camera. Despite its shortcomings, the DV2 has a high megapixel camera and it is compact and lightweight. And by the way, the phone is available here at the Technews Lab.
posted by LuskHeart @ 7:03 PM
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