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| Mitsubishi Trium Eclipse |
| General |
| Network | Gsm 900 / Gsm 1800 |
| Announced | 2001, 3q |
| Status | Available |
| Size |
| Dimensions | 123 X 48 X 29 Mm, 100 Cc |
| Weight | 110 G |
| Display |
| Type | Cstn, 256 Colors |
| Size | 120 X 143 Pixels |
| | - Picture Menu
- Softkey
- Icons, Menu, Wallpaper Personalisation |
| Ringtones |
| Type | Polyphonic, Monophonic |
| Customization | Download, |
| Vibration | Yes |
| | - Ascending Ring Tone
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| Memory |
| Phonebook | 250 X 5 Fields |
| Call Records | 10 Dialed, 10 Received, 10 Missed Calls |
| Card Slot | No |
| | - 20 Voice Dial Slots
- 2 Min Voice Memo
- Detailed Call Duration Reports |
| Data |
| Gprs | Class 8 (4+1 Slots), 32 - 40 Kbps |
| Hscsd | No |
| Edge | No |
| 3g | No |
| Wlan | No |
| Bluetooth | No |
| Infrared Port | Yes |
| Usb | |
| Features |
| Messaging | Sms |
| Browser | Wap 1.2.1 |
| Clock | Yes |
| Alarm | Yes |
| Games | 2 - Rayman Bowling, Rayman Garden |
| Colors | |
| Camera | No |
| | - Business Card Exchange Via Irda
- Voice Dial
- Voice Memo
- T9
- Organizer
- Calculator
- Scratchpad
- Currency Converter
- Built-in Handsfree |
| Battery |
| | Standard Battery |
| Stand-by | 180 H |
| Talk Time | 3 H |
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Mitsubishi - Trium EclipseA high-value color phone - the Trium Eclipse
g control on the side of the phone where the index finger of a right handed person would normally rest when speaking on the phone that, oddly enough, does not seem to have anything to do with changing call and ring volumes as one might expect (it allows you turn the ringer and vibration alarm on and off).
It is for certain not a high-end phone, even though it has a high-end color display. It lacks a lot of features that somebody like me would want, or demand. It isn´t really well connected with other devices. You can´t sync to MS Outlook on your laptop, for example. No Bluetooth wireless connectivity, either. But it does suit the needs of its target market. That being the "typical" user.
People like me have PDAs to deal with complex mobile tasks like reading email and web browsing. Normal people just carry a phone with them. The Eclipse allows those people to get what they expect out of a phone and to get some of the things that the tech types get from a PDA.
For example, the calendar system is really nice. You can assign tasks or events to future dates and then see them all neatly arranged in month, week, or daily formats. And it is VERY intuitive. It has its shortcomings, such as the task/event titles being limited to a very short maximum length, but nothing that really keeps the system from being useful. I mentioned earlier that you can´t sync the system with MS Outlook, but you can transmit and receive VCal (calendar) and VCard (contact) information between other IR devices like a Palm Pilot.
A nice built-in speakerphone function makes it easier to talk to those contacts when your hands are full, too.
The SMS system is really nice, and that is important to most people. The large screen makes it possible to read an entire 160 character message at once. The device supports message templates to help speed up message creation.
The main menu is quite colorful
The T9 predictive text input system is very good. And it works in most every place where you can enter text, much like the MagCom Communicator. The Eclipse´s T9 system is pretty straightforward to use, and works quickly. The intelligent punctuation system is very nice, too. You can just enter a punctuation character like a normal letter, and the system will try to guess what character you want - be it a comma, period, or apostrophe. very nice. It also requires just a quick tap down on the joystick controller to switch between T9 and normal multitap text input. It automatically saves new words into the device´s internal dictionary so they will be there when you use them the next time. A couple of minor quibbles, though. For example, it does not seem possible to have the phone default to T9 input. Hitting down on the joystick is not a major effort, surely, but until you get into that habit you are likely to start a few messages incorrectly since you will be in multitap mode. The phone also doesn´t deal with automatic capitalization of the first word in a new sentence.
Unlike many lower-end phones on the market today, the Trium Eclipse has full contact management built in. You can save multiple phone numbers, and email address, and a land address for each contact. These contacts can then be beamed over to another IR and VCard enabled device - like many new phones and PDAs. There is also the option to assign a voice dialing tag to a contact. Once setup, you only need to hold down the dial key for a second to be prompted to speak the name of the person you wish to call. It works pretty well.
The Eclipse has a nice, and simple, world clock function. This is nice if you jump between different time zones often. Takes just a couple of joystick movements to swap between the home and away cities.
All of that stuff is nice, of course. But what people really seem to like about their phones is how they can personalize them. The Eclipse won´t disappoint. The graphical themes supplied have animations in them, and some use interesting methods to offer information. For example, the Tree theme shows varying amounts of trees on the left and right hand side of the display to show battery and signal strength. The phone also has really wonderful polyphonic ring tones. They sound great, worlds ahead of what Sony Ericsson and Nokia have offered. This is much more in line with what has been available in Asia for quite some time, and is no surprise when you consider that Trium is actually Mitsubishi´s Mobile Phone division.
All of this great functionality wouldn´t be of much use if it couldn´t be accessed easily. Luckily the interface on this Trium is very simple to use. From the main screen the joystick gives one nudge access to the main menu, the contact list, voice record or playback (depending on how long you hold it down), and business card beaming. The card beaming function will be great for those people running around bars as you only need to line up the IR ports of your phone and that of your future spouse´s phone and then hold up on the joystick. You contact info is automatically sent. No rummaging through menus is needed.
Bowling, anyone?
If you are one of the three people in the world that uses WAP, you will likely find the WAP browser quite adequate. It supports v1.21 of the standard, and while it does not support color directly, the browser does make use of color to make the browsing experience as painless as possible. If you purchase the GPRS version of the Eclipse you will have access to class 8 speeds (typically 53kbps download) for your WAP surfing experience.
Lastly, and for some people most importantly, are the games. UbiSoft was hired to create two games based on their Rayman character for the Eclipse. These are Bowling and Garden. Bowling is a decent bowling game that lets you pick your position, the curve of your throw, and speed of your throw. Kinda fun. The Garden game is a simple "eat stuff" game with a bit of a memory exercise tossed in there. Not bad, and nice to look at.
So, have I missed anything? Absolutely. There are a lot of great things to say about this phone. It has a lot going for it. It won´t satisfy the hardcore technophiles for long, but most people will find this to be a delightful phone to carry around. It has a bit of a bulky shape to it, but is relatively light - and it has a fantastic display and navigation system.
I recommend that you give it a test drive. Until you get the chance, I have included a few pages of screen shots. Enjoy. |
| Common misspellings on this brand: jmitsubishi , mitsubidhi , mitsubvishi , imtsubishi , mi6tsubishi , m9itsubishi , mitsubishoi , mitsu7bishi , mjitsubishi |
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