Reviewing the new ASUS phone
Part of my work entails doing press releases and advertorials for our clients. Sometimes I get lucky when I have to do a writeup for our client’s product… and they’d allow me to use it.
Yesterday I had to do a rush PR for ASUS’s new phone (time: about 1 hr 30 min, including editing and layouting in Freehand). It was just given to me yesterday, with a material deadline of 6PM. It’s their new phone, a light, clam-shell phone with dual colored LCDs, 1.3 MP camera with flash, mini SD card slot, MP3 player and stereo speaker. What on earth have they been doing to phones lately…?
Anyway, I get to test this phone for a while (maybe for a week? hehehe!!!). Tell you the truth, it’s got really nice features, especially the camera and MP3 player, though it also has its downsides (which of course I didn’t write in the PR, coz I’m paid to promote it, right?) like the SMS feature. If you had the old Ericsson phones then (not the Sony Ericsson, but the old ones that were big and had casings like that of the old Motorola… you get it right?), you’ll probably have to remember how to type your messages with them when you use the ASUS phone. Texting is not as user-friendly as with your trusty Nokia, but when you get to practice with the ASUS phone, you’ll get the hang of it.
Another thing about this phone is it has this particular setting that when you type a phone number, a voice will say what number you are dialing (which is not a very good idea, especially when you’re trying to call someone in public). In this case, the default setting was that of a child’s voice. So imagine dialing 687— while a child’s voice echoes the numbers you are pressing. Damn creepy.
And one more thing, I think if you buy this straight from the manufacturer, it would be a very good idea to have a Chinese friend with you… because the manual is in Chinese, with absolutely no English translation. So just think how I had to write about this one… well, thanks to the Internet, I found a website containing its specifications. Whew!
Anyway, if ever you encounter the ASUS M303 in stores, just ponder about these few things. It has its plus points too, especially if you’re the type of person who wants a lot of features packed in a single phone unit. I dunno how much this one costs, but it’d probably cost the same as its competitors (10K above?) Well, we’ll see if this hits the market…
