Hands on Review of the Made-in-China ZTC 8898

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in case you are wondering
the ztc 8898 is sitting on top of my samsung f700
on the above photo

take away the 5 silk-screened icons from the screen
and it looks like the nokia e90
but looks can be deceiving...
here's how it compares to the real mccoy

quite a bit of difference, dont you agree
in fact if the nokia e90 has such a good form factor
i may still be keeping it!

actually, compared to the samsung f700
it is almost the same size

still, the most surprising thing about the ztc
is not with the touch screen cover,
but inside the flip open keyboard

really very nice, well spaced out
now it looks more like the lg voyager or env

here's how the phone fits the hand
perfect fit, eh?

the outside of the phone
unlike the nokia e90
is a touch screen!

here is the home page
interesting - like the samsung f700
you can assign a pic for the home page
and another for menus - nice

top line: usual signal, 3g, profile, battery

this must be sold as a business phone
because calendar events are highlighted
(cant be switched off as far as i know)

fonts arent pretty
but some china phones have worse

bottom, 5 silkscreen icons
so small, you will need a stylus
surprise again - the phone comes with a stylus

here are the 9 menus
like the samsung f700
all nicely presented in a grid format

and the sub-menus
this is from the movie and music menu

this camera comes with 2 games
minesweeper and tetris
games that i liked

btw there is a pretty good review of this phone at
http://symbioosi.blogspot.com/2008/01/ztc-8898-nokla-e90-review.html
however, the one i got addresses all the shortcomings pointed out
including the delete key on the qwerty pad
both very well done

ok, here's the inside of the phone
actually 2 different phone inputs
with the same data

here's a shot of the larger screen in idle mode

and the animated 9 menus in grid format
showing 6 at a time

and the nes emulator in action
playing my fav game, battlecity

bottomline:
well built phone with nice keyboard
good for those who uses it as a phone and sms

camera, wap, email, mp3 players are bonuses
but nothing to write home about

Network: 900 / 1800 MHz
Dimensions: 108×51×18MM
Display Type: 260 thousand TFT,QVGA display

Display Size: 2.5-inch + 2.8-inch

Ringtones Type: 64 chord

Ringtones Amount: depend on the memory

Ringtones Customization: support

Vibration: Yes

Phonebook: 500 groups of phone books

Card slot: microSD (TransFlash)

Internal Memory: 256MB TF card

Connectivity: GPRS

Data transfer: USB cable,U disk and Bluetooth

Messaging SMS, MMS

Messages & Multimedia messaging: 200 SMS/MMS

Games: Yes

Camera: 2MP

Additional Features:

Single card standby phone
Six speakers
MP3 / MP4 player

Battery: 2200mah(2 pieces)

Stand-by time: 400—900 hours

Talk time: 200-500 minutes