T-Mobile Pulse Mini
The T-Mobile Pulse Mini is one of the many newly-announced devices that hit reviewer’s and preview’s eyes at the recent Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona. In fact, T-Mobile have recently announced that they will be trimming the cost of the budget Android Pulse Mini, and it will go on the market for only £99.99 on pay-as-you go tariffs, designed to take on the HTC Tattoo. In terms of the specifications on offer on the Pulse Mini it houses a decent enough 3.2 megapixel integral camera, which usefully also features an LED flash – allowing the user to take photos even in darker lighting conditions. This is a good inclusion as devices don’t always come with an integral flash, much to the chagrin of a number of cell phone camera users. There is also a 2.8-inch resistive touchscreen as well as a 3.5 millimetre headphone jack, which is an improvement on the previous device – the original Pulse phone – which only had a 2.5 millimetre jack.
The device has measurements of 106×57x14mm, which shows that it is clearly not the most svelte phone on the market, although an Android phone at under £100 is unlikely to be too adversely affected by a less-than-slim set of measurements. The Mini Pulse also has a range of decent applications and specs, including an integral memory of 300MB, a microSD card slot allowing for memory and media expansion as well as the aforementioned and vital Android 2.1 smartphone operating system being the highlights. This will certainly allow users to fly though the applications, although the loaded software on the demo device in Barcelona was somewhat prone to crashing and did spoil things a little
The device’s home-screen configuration is a little unusual, featuring as it does 15 panels in a 5×3 grid design. Within this system users can swipe between home-screens by swiping up, down, left or right. Also by pressing on the D-pad controller’s middle button the view will zoom out in order to show all 15 home-screen panels in order that one can be selected. This is unique, as most home-screens are usually arranged from left to right.
Along with its Android specifications on paper the device may well look very appealing, although it doesn’t really play out all that well on a QVGA resolution screen and the resistive display is a little underwhelming compared to capacitive ones available on the market today as it is not especially finger-friendly, although it does come with a stylus for slightly easier inputting. The pay-off, though, is that the device offers all of the Android 2.1’s operating system features at a very low price, so users will receive very good value for their money.
It should be clearly noted by potential buyers that, much like the original, the Mini Pulse will not be sold by T-mobile in the US.
In terms of connectivity the device also features Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, affording the user wireless transfer of data between this and other such compatible devices. Perhaps disappointingly the device has no GPS capabilities, and without this some have questioned what effect this might have on its wider viability as all location-based applications would be rendered useless and inoperable without at least A-GPS. There are also questions as to whether it will launch with Google Nav, a mainstay and major selling feature of other Android powered mobile devices.
Overall, though, the Mini Pulse is a decent priced Android smartphone, but some questions as to some of the omissions and what its actual overall capabilities may be when finally released – no doubt related to the price and general available usage. Some have also commented on the fact that the device needs to come supplied with a stylus for inputting is an indictment of its user-friendliness, though this is to be seen once it hits the market and general consumers can get their hands on it themselves to try it out.
If you have not seen the 
Wouldn’t it be funny, right, if you went into a T-Mobile shop and said “hello shopkeep, I would like to purchase on this find day today something I read about on the interweb. It’s a phone, a cracking if somewhat ugly Google Android phone called the HTC Hero. That’s right, spotty young sir, the HTC Hero. Apparently it’s all very modern and efficient in connecting you to said interweb whilst also being able to fit into your hand, being as it is a mobile phone communication device. Now what, sniggering urchin, do you say to my request. Hmm?”
Ah, those giddy days when the HTC Magic was blogged about on these very pages. The date was 15th July 2009, a distant age of innocence and happiness when it seemed the summer would never end, and we were all excited about the possibilities that the various Google-Android-powered functions that phone could offer. How we could use it to find pubs and kebab shops, for example.