i-mobile 101  

At A Glance:

In The Box
- i-Mobile 101
- 101 charger
- Manual
- 3.5mm headphones

The i-Mobile 101 is a Thai mobile handset which is a pure text and call phone with some entry-level features.

Design
The Hitz 101 has a basic design reminiscent of so many candybars that have come and gone, and reminds us of the older Nokia phones, especially the 2210. The phone’s covered with hard plastics all around and a two-tone colour scheme. The screen looks scratch-proof with a hard plastic glass. The screen is rather small, standing at 1.5 inches with 65K colours and 168x168 pixels. The screen is bright and does well under direct sunlight.

The soft plasticky keypad is a little unintuitive, not to the point of frustration but it just isn’t fun or easy typing into the keypad. The keypad has Thai characters and would be useful for those of us who know the language. The D-pad is a nice touch, but feels awfully stiff. Do be prepared to flex your finger to work the keypad here.

The charger port is located at the bottom of the phone, the port’s is a micro-USB port. Beside it is the 3.5 headphone port. Opening the rear of the phone was a slight challenge, the plastic is latched hard and like tight drawers will need a few tugs before it slides open. Crack open the rear of the phone and you’ll see the 680 mAh battery. Remove the battery and you’ll see the SIM slot.

Features
The proprietary software on the phone is functional, with access to your phonebook, and messaging service, profiles and other services. The default phone profiles here are hampered by the lack of vibration in the phone.

The phone also sports a Body Mass Index counter- which strangeness we already gotten used to, countdown, and a stopwatch. The D-pad has shortcuts to various programs from calendars to messaging.

PIM wise, the 101 has a calendar, to do list, world clock, calculator, unit converter and a currency converter. For the text enthusiast, the lack of T9 truly will be a grind. However those adept in Thai will be able to take advantage of the Thai characters here. The FM radio will be your gateway to music here, and presets are available.

The phone has a good amount of battery time, with standby time lasting up to four days.

Connectivity
The phone has dual-band connectivity (GSM 900/1800). That pretty much sums up this entry-level handset.

Games
The 101 has two games loaded, Elf and Snake. Elf which is a Pac-Man redux with a different name, its still wildly entertaining controlling a yellow orb, it does leave us wondering how the original Pac-Man would feel about it. Snake is much like the earlier iterations of Nokia’s snake, controlling a pixel rectangle eating pixels-in colour.

Verdict
The i-Mobile 101 is an entry-level, unpretentious handset with simple features. The phone is well-priced at RM 168, however, the fact that the phone isn’t armed with anything more than text and call function might be a bit inadequate in this day and age. With the market getting increasingly competitive, they might want to throw in a few more things like a few MP3s and maybe Bluetooth functionality. We felt a slight port from the Thai version (the OS, keypad) to cater to Malaysian users might be a prudent move, removing some of the Thai features might simplify the phone even further- in a good way.

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