Phones

While touch screen smartphones take all the headlines, there is still a market for handsets with more basic feature sets.

Our friends at Doro have been particularly busy of late with several new models aimed at different market sectors appearing at regular intervals.

The Doro PhoneEasy 612 is an easy to use cellphone that incorporates emergency call facilities. It can enable a person to initiate an emergency call and so will be of particular interest to the elderly or infirm together with those who want to ensure the safety of their relatives. At the same time it is a versatile phone that is easy to use and incorporates a camera as well as the wide range of other features that today's users want.

The Doro PhoneEasy 614 is the first 3G phone from Doro. While it may seem rather late in the 3G lifespan it does mean a Doro phone user can benefit from what Doro is good at, loud ring tones, bright and large displays and now the things other phones have.

The Doro Comfort 1015 is an attractive DECT cordless phone that incorporates an answerphone and other features, such as hands-free operation, that a user will find useful. It is convenient to use and is available in a number of variants. As well as the single handset option, there are the two, three and 4-handset packages listed which also provide paging and intercom around the house.

Is your SmartPhone charged by micro USB? If so then this stereo speaker dock can allow you to listen to music while you are charging your phone. So just for a change the iLuv MobiDock is not an iPod dock but one designed for those with SmartPhones.

NASA technology and a branded set of ear-buds are just two of the features found on a new HTC smartphone.

Doro continues to increase the functionality of its handset. Following the introduction of a camera with the last model I looked at, this time 3G technology is added.

Originally developed for the business community the BlackBerry mobile device has now gained popularity with many young users who appreciate its messaging capability.

As with most recent small mobile phones it is touch, the only exception is the volume up and down controls and the on/off button. Just two visible connections the 3.5mm jack for earbuds and the micro USB to recharge it.

You could almost imagine a tiny voice whispering “Take me and hold me” as you open the box containing the Samsung Galaxy S III. Perhaps that’s a slight exaggeration but the Galaxy does have a certain appeal that makes you want to explore its functionality when you first lay eyes on it.

The Doro wired Comfort 3005 phone, with built-in answering machine, is easy to use and has the features needed by the mature people who form a large portion of the Doro target market. It has an extra-loud facility, is hearing aid-compatible and is a hands-free speakerphone as well as having an easy to read high-contrast display.

The latest do everything phone from Sony - the Xperia S. In a form factor little bigger than just a mobile phone you can surf the Internet, get your emails, make and receive phone calls and use third party Android software to keep in touch.

Over the years I have checked out a number of Doro mobile handsets but this latest model does offer some firsts with regards to this handset’s feature set.

In comparison to the tiny phones of not that long ago this Android offering is huge. But as a friend of mine said it can do ‘everything I want’ so I do not need a PC and if you are a light PC user then why not as the screen is huge.

Another item launched last year among glitz and glamour at no less a venue than Claridges. I was told it would be on sale in January – maybe is was – but review units only arrived with the UK agency at the very end of March.

The first of a new range of mobile phones from Doro. Doro from Sweden now have a good range of both mobile and home phones. The latter are great DECT units, the former as the one here they produce easy to use units.

When a mobile phone arrives in a green box you can be pretty certain it is a Doro product such as this new handset.

A lot of phones have naff sound and provide a naff set of cheap earbuds to allow you to suffer in private. Here the sound is better and they provide a set of Monster Beats by Dr Dre so listening to music can be a pleasure.

A phone from a service provider, not I think unique but certainly most seem to come from third party companies, often a phone – for a period anyway – are only available from a single provider, here the Vivacity from T-Mobile.

As part of its Home initiative, Archos has developed a DECT handset that uses Android software.

Nokia have recently jumped off the Simbian bandwagon and joined forces with Microsoft. Here is their first offering together Nokia’s phone expertise and Microsoft’s mobile operating system when Windows 8 arrives on the PC it is rumoured to lot a lot like this.

Adding to its range of handsets, Samsung has released its Galaxy S II handset to tempt you to part with your hard earned cash.

If you say BlackBerry to any one under forty they probably thing smartphone. If over sixty they thing of a berry growing wild picked in late summer. Here for all it’s the BlackBerry offering into the very crowded Tablet market place.

When taking part in strenuous activities you might prefer to have an appropriate communication device with you/

Aimed at users on a limited budget, Samsung feels a new member of its Galaxy family could be what you are looking for.

There cannot be many users of power-hungry portable devices such as iPads and smartphones, who have not seen a warning message that their battery is getting very low or have even had it stop working when the battery dies on them. The Proporta TurboCharger 7000, which is not much larger than a smartphone, can make this a thing of the past.

Generally Smartphones tend to come with a price tag that makes you think twice. Alcatel has bucked the trend with its One Touch series of handsets.

Put the words “Samsung” and “Galaxy” together in the same sentence and you could start thinking that the subject matter was going to be a tablet device. However by inserting the word “Mini” into the sentence, the device under consideration would metamorphosis into a smartphone.

A visit to one of theUK’s major distributors annual show brought to my attention a recently released smartphone that possessed a feature that I had not often seen in similar products.