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| Innostream INNO A10 |
| General |
| Network | Gsm 900 / Gsm 1800 |
| Announced | 2004, 4q |
| Status | Available |
| Size |
| Dimensions | 90 X 43 X 24 Mm |
| Weight | 86 G |
| Display |
| Type | Tft, 256k Colors |
| Size | 128 X 160 Pixels |
| | - Second External 65k Colors Cstn Display (96 X 64 Pixels)
- 4-way Navy Key |
| Ringtones |
| Type | Polyphonic (64 Channels), Mp3 |
| Customization | Composer, Download, |
| Vibration | Yes |
| Memory |
| Phonebook | 800 Entries, Photo Call |
| Call Records | 20 Received, Dialed And Missed Calls |
| Card Slot | No |
| | - 128 Mb Shared Memory |
| Data |
| Gprs | Class 10 (4+1/3+2 Slots), 32 - 48 Kbps |
| Hscsd | No |
| Edge | No |
| 3g | No |
| Wlan | No |
| Bluetooth | No |
| Infrared Port | Yes |
| Usb | Yes |
| Features |
| Messaging | Sms, Mms, Email |
| Browser | Wap 2.0/xhtml |
| Games | Yes + Downloadable, |
| Colors | Silver, Blue |
| Camera | 1.3 Mp, 1280x960 Pixels, Video, Flash |
| | - Java Midp 2.0
- Mp3/3gp Player
- T9
- Voice Memo
- Bio-rhythm
- Stopwatch
- Built-in Handsfree |
| Battery |
| | Standard Battery, Li-ion |
| Stand-by | Up To 160 H |
| Talk Time | Up To 4 H |
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Innostream - INNO A10Innostream A10
Camera: 1.3-megapixel CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor)
Display (internal): 1.8in 262,000-colour TFT LCD (thin-film transistor liquid-crystal display), 128 x 160pixels
Screen (external): 0.95in, 65,536-colour STN (Super-Twisted Nematic) LCD, 96 x 64pixels
Messaging: MMS (multimedia messaging service), SMS (short message service), e-mail
Connectivity: Infrared, GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), CSD (Circuit-Switched Data), USB, fax, WAP (Wireless Application Protocol)
Phone memory: 128MB
Battery types: 3.7V 830mAh (standard) lithium-ion and 1,000 mAh (extended)
Standby/talk time: 201 / 5 hours
Other features: MP3 and audio player, videoplayer, Java applications
Weight: 85g (with standard battery)
Dimensions (w x d x h): 44 x 23.8 x 90mm
MOST cellular phones these days look pretty much alike and most clamshell phones more or less have the same keypad layout and style, with the only difference being in their features.
The subject of this review, the Inno A10, looks like most other clamshells but otherwise packs many more features than the nine icons on its main menu suggest.
It has something for everyone. There are lifestyle features like pretty graphics, videoplayer, camera, music player, and picture messaging. There’s also utility features like POP3 (Post Office Protocol) or IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) e-mail, WAP and HTTP (HyperText Transport Protocol) browsing capabilities.
Included are the usual functions like personal organiser, unit converter, and phone book for a total of 800 entries.
While the display is not as sharp or as clear as some other models in the market, the phone still holds its own, thanks to its features.
Sync it
like many South Korean phones, it does not support Bluetooth but comes with an infrared port and a USB cable.
Unfortunately, it does not come with any software for synchronising data with a PC.
However, the A10 works like a USB drive when connected to a PC. So you can just drag and drop files to and from the phone.
Under its Games and Media submenu, there are three games, an option to run Java applets, a biorhythm indicator, timer, voice memo, melody composer and unit converter.
The voice memo only records for up to one minute and saves it on the phone as an AMR file. Its melody composer creates melodies of up to 200 musical notes and saves them in RTX format.
Its unit converter is really cool. Not only does it convert common metric and imperial units, but also rarely used and even archaic units.
For example, it converts between teaspoons and tablespoons, bushels used by farmers, and even °Kelvin used by scientists.
Media on the go
Its regular audio player only plays MP3, AMR and MIDI files, while its MP3 player only plays MP3 files selected individually or collectively from one of its folders. Besides AMR, it also includes HR (Half Rate), FR (Full Rate) and EFR (Enhanced Full Rate) speech codecs common in most GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) phones.
Besides using the provided earphones when playing the MP3 and audio players, you can also use the phone’s internal earpiece. However, it sounds more like a pocket radio or tape player with louder treble when the phone is open and with mellow midrange when the phone is shut.
The MP3 player may work with the phone shut or open but its regular audio player cuts off when the phone is closed, which is too bad for those who like listening to ringtones and MIDI files while on the go.
Moving pictures taken with the A10’s camcorder are stored as Motion JPEG files of around 704KB size or up to one minute in length or longer, depending on picture quality.
Unfortunately, one would need to install an appropriate motion JPEG player to play them on one’s PC.
However, the videos can be set as a video wallpaper on the phone’s main screen, which would play each time the phone is flipped open.
Animated GIFs, static JPEG, up to 24-bit BMP files and VIS Mobile Flash animations can be viewed on the phone and used as wallpaper.
The camera took reasonably good pictures outdoors without any over-saturation of colours or bleeding, but fine details appeared blur even within a three-metre range. This was worse at greater distances, while pictures taken indoors under a combination of artificial and natural lighting appeared dark. However, it must be noted that most camera phones do not produce fantastic photos.
Easy config
The A10 comes pre-installed with user-selectable GPRS, CSD, MMS, WAP, Web and e-mail settings for Celcom, DiGi and Maxis. This means that you don’t have to go through the lengthy configuration of IP (Internet Protocol) addresses, access point names, usersIDs and passwords.
However, users will have to manually configure their POP3 or IMAP and SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) server addresses used by their respective e-mail accounts.
I did that and was able to access both my personal and office e-mail on the phone.
Creating and sending e-mail was simple enough. However, retrieving e-mail was more convoluted and involved several menus and connecting to the server.
Having said that, if you stick with it, it might actually be worthwhile because the phone allows you to download e-mail from up to eight accounts without having to change your default account.
WAP and web
The Inno A10’s version 1.2.1 WAP browser could only display the menu options of my service provider’s WAP portal line by line. It could not display them in iconised form as this would require support for xHTML (eXtensible HyperText Markup Language).
The WAP browser could, however, access regular HTML pages but the user experience was unsatisfactory as I had to manually skip through many options requiring user input like userID, password and other hurdles not normally experienced when surfing on a PC.
I could read text files (.TXT) easily on the phone, followed by plain e-mail (EML) files without embedded pictures, while webpages heavy with pictures made no sense. The number of HTML tags visible even in plain, printer-friendly HTML files made them impossible to read.
The A10 can be used as a wireless data fax modem via its infrared port but I didn’t try that out.
Before I forget, the A10 performed admirably with crisp and clear voice conversation on the handset, speakerphone and headphone modes.
Conclusion
Overall, the Inno A10 is an elegant, high-featured, versatile phone which would probably suit students and young professionals with its combined lifestyle and business features.
While it does well with lifestyle apps, it seems to be a bit weak in business apps – especially its limited ability to read popular document file types and the poor user experience when surfing certain websites.
Pros: A good, versatile, value-for-money phone for power users.
Cons: Could certainly do with better document support and browser. |
| Common misspellings on this brand: innlostream , innbostream , innostdream , innmostream , innostream , innoatream , ionnostream , innostre4am , innpstream |
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