The petite T720i fits in a pocket but still offers some big features, such as a large, color screen; GPRS data transfer that supports EMS, SMS Chat, and MMS; and downloadable games, graphics, and ring tones. Possibly the most exciting feature of the T720i, however, is the included digital camera attachment, which lets you take photos from the phone itself and wirelessly send picture messages.
This phone has a sleek metallic gray exterior and a delicate clamshell design that requires a little more care than Motorola’s more rugged phones, such as the V66. When the cover is closed, an external LCD screen conveniently displays the date, time, and caller ID, plus signal and battery strength. When the flip phone is opened, the stunning 4,096-color screen is revealed.
The 7- to 9-line screen is a large enough palette to take advantage of some of the phone’s key features, such as viewing photos, surfing the Web, or playing rich Java 2-powered games. (MotoGP is included, but more are downloadable from Motorola’s Web site.) A button centered just under the screen takes you to the main menu, which has an intuitive iconic interface. This button is flanked by two other navigational buttons and another round, multi-directional button below helps you navigate through the menu or get right into four different features from the main screen according to your preference. Buttons are well-spaced but the multi-directional joystick-like button was a little bit difficult to control, even for small fingers.
The T720i was one of the easiest phones to set preferences for that we’ve encountered. We programmed all of our buttons to go to the features we used the most and found it very handy. In addition, we customized the color of the main screen to pacific blue, a color choice that offered the best contrast, and set our screen saver to an EMS file of a devil. For our ring tone, we chose Deep Purple’s "Smoke on the Water," which, with the rich harmonies of polyphonic ringers, sounded almost like the original. The phone comes loaded with 50 different ring tones, so you can choose a more conservative ring or download additional choices.
The sound during calls was a little bit tinny but not overly so. Our tests of the voice-activated dialing proved excellent. We recorded the name of our contact with a child screaming in the background and the phone still detected the contact’s name later in a quiet room and dialed her number. The 720i holds up to 500 phone book entries, which is a large amount for the average caller. However, phone numbers and email addresses for one contact are stored as separate entries, filling up those 500 slots much more quickly. While a small letter icon designates which of your two entries is the email address, we still found it confusing.
We sent a text message from the 720i to a friend from our address book and got a quick response, confirming that data transfer was fast. Inputting the message was tedious, but the phone includes a handy list of 10 Quick Notes with common text phrases, such as "Where is the meeting?" and "I am late and will be there in __ minutes." You can even compose and save your own phrases to save time on keying them in.
The hot feature on this phone is its ability to take photos using the camera attachment. The picture-taking feature seems more fun than functional, but might be appealing for professionals such as home inspectors or insurance adjusters who need a cell phone and lightweight camera for their work. The camera snaps onto the bottom of the phone and has an 180-degree rotating lens to photograph everything from shoes to sky and store them as jpeg images in 640 x 480 resolution. It stores up to 48 pictures at a time, which you can then e-mail to friends or view on the T720i’s color screen as a photo album or slideshow. The only downside is that the digital camera shares memory with other digital applications on the phone, so storage space is limited.
Overall we think this is a great phone for early adopters who want all the most recent innovations in one phone—Web access, Java 2 games, MMS, and a digital camera. It’s great for business use but the hip features will likely appeal more to the social cell phone user. --Cristina Vaamonde
Pros:
- Separate camera attachment for taking photos and sending picture messages
- Fast GPRS data transfer
- Java 2 for playing graphically enriched games
- Easy to customize
Cons:
- Phone number and Web address for one contact are separate entries in phone book
- Camera attachment shares phone’s digital memory
How We Tested Battery Talk/Standby Time
When reading our reviews, you should view the test results of mobile-phone battery talk time and standby time as relative information only. Many variables, including carrier signal strength at your location, signal consistency (including incoming and outgoing calls), display and ringer settings, and battery charging methods and history, will affect performance. When handset manufacturers and mobile phone carriers list talk-time and standby-time ratings, they usually include disclaimers about variable performance and often refer to the times they publish as maximum times. Some quote expected battery life ranges, and in this case you're probably safe to assume you'll experience at least the minimum rated range. Note that manufacturers of dual-mode digital and analog handsets publish battery-life rates for both digital and analog modes, as analog mode consumes much more power than digital mode.
Our Tests: We tested digital-mode talk and standby times with each phone. Prior to each test, we fully charged the phone's battery according to the manufacturer's directions. To test digital-phone talk time, we turned the phone on, established a digital carrier signal, dialed a number in our test lab, and, when the call rang through, took the receiving phone's handset off the hook. When all went well, we didn't do anything else except record the time when the phone died. In a couple of cases, the phones lost the signal and dropped the calls. If we were right there and could redial, we did so immediately and continued running the test. Otherwise, we halted the test, recharged the battery, and started the test over. Assuming consistent carrier-signal strength, this test should represent best-case talk time. And it's worth noting that several phones' talk-time performance significantly exceeded the manufacturers' ratings.
To test digital-phone standby time, we turned the phone on, established a carrier signal, and left the phone in standby mode. We checked the phone every few hours (for what was often days on end) until the phone finally cut out. Since no outgoing or incoming calls occurred during testing and because the phone was not moved, this method should represent best-case standby time, again assuming consistent carrier signal strength.
