| NEC N410i |
| General |
| Network | Gsm 900 / Gsm 1800 / Gsm 1900 |
| Announced | 2004, March |
| Status | Available |
| Size |
| Dimensions | 101 X 49 X 24 Mm, 103 Cc |
| Weight | 118 G |
| Display |
| Type | Tft, 65k Colors |
| Size | 240 X 320 Pixels, 33 X 45 Mm |
| | - Second Stn, 65k Colors (108 X 80 Pixels)
- Incoming Call Led With 12 Colors
- Wallpapers
- Downloadable Wallpapers, Animations |
| Ringtones |
| Type | Polyphonic (64 Channels) |
| Customization | Download, |
| Vibration | Yes |
| Memory |
| Phonebook | 500 Entries, Photo Call |
| Call Records | 10 Dialed, 10 Received, 10 Missed Calls |
| Card Slot | No |
| | - 32 Mb User Memory |
| Data |
| Gprs | Class 8 (4+1 Slots), 32 - 40 Kbps |
| Hscsd | No |
| Edge | No |
| 3g | No |
| Wlan | No |
| Bluetooth | No |
| Infrared Port | Yes |
| Usb | Yes |
| Features |
| Messaging | Sms, Ems, Mms, Email |
| Browser | Imode |
| Games | Yes + Downloadable, |
| Colors | |
| Camera | 1.3 Mp, 1152x864 Pixels, Video, Flash |
| | - Java
- Mpeg4 Player
- T9
- Todo List
- Voice Memo
- Profiles
- Calendar
- Currency Converter |
| Battery |
| | Standard Battery, Li-ion 950 Mah |
| Stand-by | Up To 270 H |
| Talk Time | Up To 4 H 30 Min |
|
NEC - N410iNEC N410i – i-mode powerhouse
Major features
Tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900MHz frequency support
2.2” 65,536 colour TFT QVGA (240 x 320) pixel display
65,536 colour STN 108 x 80 pixel sub-display
Integrated 1.3 megapixel CMOS digital camera, 4x digital zoom, flash lamp
64 tone polyphonic ringtones
25MB internal memory
USB and infra-red connectivity
i-mode compatible
SMS/EMS, MMS and i-mode e-mail messaging
cHTML compatible browser over GPRS
DoJa™ 1.5 Java™ games and applications
PIM and organiser functions
Problems/Issues?
No memory card support
No speakerphone
i-mode – prohibitively expensive
Sales package (should contain):
1x NEC N410i handset
1x Lithium-ion battery, 950mAh
1x Travel charger
1x Portable Handsfree
1x User Guide
Introduction
The introduction of i-mode on Telstra’s network has seen a myriad of new services available to subscribers, particularly a huge amount of partner-based content exclusive to i-mode. However, you need an i-mode-compatible handset to access the service, and with the N410i clamshell, NEC is clearly the i-mode handset leader. With a large QVGA resolution colour screen, 1.3 megapixel camera, sizeable internal memory, i-mode email support and more, the N410i is the most advanced i-mode handset available from Telstra and currently has no rival. Read on for the review.
New/outstanding features
In Telstra’s current range of six i-mode handsets, three of them are NEC phones, and the N410i is the only handset in the range with such hardware features as a QVGA (240x320 pixel), 65k colour screen, 1.3 megapixel digital camera, 64-tone synthesiser, and many other features. The size of the phone reflects the hardware built-in, coming out larger than even Sharp’s GX30, which is already large enough to handle for many people.
But by far the more interesting topic for most people is the i-mode support. We reported last year at iMobile that Telstra had signed a licence agreement with the creators of i-mode, NTT DoCoMo of Japan, for providing the service in Australia, and months later it is operational throughout Telstra’s GSM network. I-mode adds support for push-based email between i-mode handsets and PCs, as well as a portal site with links to more than 200 different content providers, with the list of partners increasing all the time.
There are websites from a variety of categories, from news (SMH, The Age, CNN and The Australian), weather (Weathernews), sport (rugby.com.au, Fox Sports, ST Mobile and V8Supercars.com.au), Movies (yourMovies), music (Ministry of Sound, triple j and Triple M), and shopping (eBay, Trading Post), and even location-based services by Whereis.com.au. The range is staggering with too many partner sites to list here. However, i-mode is an expensive service to use fully – more information in the Problems page.
Physical aspects
The N410i is a fairly large clamshell. It measures 101 x 49 x 24 millimetres and weighs 118 grams, although possibly due to its large size, it actually feels quite light when you carry it. Nonetheless the size of the phone will put some people off, and I suspect that people who are interested in all the advanced gadgetry built into this phone will be the ones buying it.
On the front you will find the small, 65k colour external screen displaying the phone’s status and a background image, if you have one set up. Beneath the screen is the camera lens with macro focus switch and flash lamp. Above the screen is a nice, big letter i reminding you of the service the phone can access. On the left you will find two separate volume adjustment keys as well as the data/power connector for recharging your phone. The right hand side sees one proprietary connector for the headset, meaning only the included headset is usable with this phone. Both of these connectors are protected by rubber covers that are attached to the phone, so you can’t lose them.
You won’t find any antenna sticking out of the phone as it has been integrated into the casing. On the back you will find the ringtone speaker as well as the battery with two shiny golden connectors, of which I could not find a use for. Likely they will be for connecting to a car kit so the phone can stay powered by the car. Underneath the battery, like in many other phones, you will find the SIM card slot.
The phone opens up with a satisfying click to reveal the large main screen and a keypad that occupies seemingly little room in the large bottom portion of the flip. Nonetheless the buttons are large and well spaced out, and there are plenty of them. Starting from the top, there is your standard arrow-pad with centre confirm button, and this is flanked by four keys. The top two are mail/messages and i-mode access keys that double as regular soft-keys, and the bottom two access the menu and address book. Beneath them are call, hang-up and delete keys, and further below is the standard set of 12 numerical keys. The arrow-pad functions a little differently from other phones when in standby mode. Pressing left or right will access missed or received calls respectively, while pressing up displays the ring profile list, and pressing down takes you to the data storage screen. Finally, pressing the confirm button in the middle of the arrow-pad starts the camera.
User Interface & display
Screenshots 1
Screenshots 2
The main 2.2 inch LCD is a leader, with a resolution of 240x320 pixels and displaying 65,536 colours. The display is sharp and displays text and object with fine detail, as screens of this resolution should. The text size is reasonably sized and comparable to other mobiles. Text size can’t be adjusted, however.
The external screen displays the same amount of colours and is 108x80 pixels. It displays the status of the phone and a background of your choice (or none at all), and will show the caller of an incoming call. It will also act as the camera viewfinder for self-portrait shots and videos.
The user interface is very Japanese in style, resembling many of the phones made for networks in Japan. The main menu is made up of the standard 3 x 3 icon grid, with icons for the following (from the top-left): Settings, Messages, i-mode, Phonebook, Camera, My data, Java. Accessory, and SIM Toolkit. Selecting an icon with the centre key will take you further through the menu system, with the rest of the menus using text lines.
The fantastic thing about these menus (and the top-level icon-based one) is that everything can be selected through a numerical shortcut. Once you get used to the phone and all its menus, you can quickly navigate to them by pressing numbers in the right order. For example, to get to the language selection screen, you would press the Menu button, followed by 1, 1, 6. While you wouldn’t access the menu button very often, other functions in the phone benefit by this quick access system.
In addition, many i-mode websites use this navigation system for selecting links. As long as there is a number next to a link, you can press the number to directly select the link and go to another page. If you’ve been through pressing arrow keys multiple times to get to a link you want to go to, you will understand how much faster pressing one number button would be.
One other nice touch was the display of the clock in the upper status bar at all times, no matter what application or operation was running. This is such a great idea, and yet barely any phone I have ever used does that. Again, this is a feature that has come across from phones in Japan.
Making and receiving calls
Call quality is average with the N410i. I initially had trouble finding the right position for the phone to sit against my ear, but after enough wiggling around I was able to hear the other caller clearly. Reception is fairly good, with the phone able to pick up a signal most of the time in test areas with little reception. While speakerphone would have been a nice feature, with the external speaker mounted on the back of the phone I can understand the impracticality of having it. Nonetheless it would be a welcome addition to a future NEC handset.
While my test unit didn’t come with a wired handsfree, I suspect that one will be included in the package due to the proprietary connector used for it. As it was proprietary, I couldn’t test any other headsets with this phone.
While the 64-tone polyphonic speaker is fairly advanced, what’s even greater is the included James Bond 007 theme ringtone. As it has been composed specifically for this phone (hence using as many of the 64-tones as necessary), it sounds absolutely fantastic. Many people I played the tone for thought that it sounded better than the real piece of music itself. While I would disagree with them, it was a very good ringtone without a doubt and the one that I ended up using while testing the phone. The rest of the tones were good as well, but didn’t compare with the James Bond theme.
The address book can store up to 500 contacts in the phone’s memory. Each contact can store up to a whopping seven phone numbers, as well as two email addresses, two personal notes, a picture and voice dial tag. You can also set what colour the small LED on the outside of the phone displays in when a certain person calls.
Messaging
In addition to the standard set of SMS/EMS and MMS, exclusive to i-mode is the option of i-mode email. This is a simple form of email that can be sent directly from the handset to other i-mode handsets and PCs without accessing a webpage to do so. You are assigned an email address similar to 1234abcd@i-mode.telstra.com.au, and you can change the part to the left of the @ symbol to whatever you like through the i-mode portal, provided that someone else doesn’t already have the email address you want. If you receive an email your phone will download it and alert you automatically, the same way SMS does. However you can send emails with thousands of characters, significantly more than SMS, and you can send them to a PC as well. You can also attach pictures, sounds and videos to email, up to a maximum of 100 kilobytes.
SMS works normally, with the N410i able to send SMS up to 620 characters through combining up to four SMS messages. Simple pictures and monotone ringtones can be attached through the EMS standard, although most people will skip that and go straight to MMS for attaching proper pictures and sound. MMS messages up to 100 kilobytes can be composed, and can have pictures, sound and videos attached to them.
The T9 predictive text system is used here, and support for a custom-word dictionary means you can input words that aren’t known by the phone. Message input is reasonably smooth, and input of special characters is quick due to a numerical access system similar to the one used in menu shortcuts. There are also a set of coloured emoticons that you can add to i-mode email messages to make them look better, although they will only display on an i-mode phone and not on a PC, as they are programmed into the text font used by the phone, rather than being attached pictures.
Connectivity
The N410i is tri-band GSM compliant, connecting through 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz frequencies. It will work in Europe and Asia and some areas of the American continents without any problems. The phone supports GPRS for internet access through the ACCESS browser, and can ‘access’ webpages conforming to the cHTML standard, a simplified form of HTML. Suffice to say cHTML webpages are often more lively and colourful than comparable WAP 2.0 xHTML pages.
Local connectivity consists of only USB cable and infra-red. The infra-red function in the N410i can be used to send a picture, phonebook entry, schedule entry or ToDo list entry to another phone, or a PC without the use of any special software as long as you have an infra-red dongle for the PC. There is synchronisation software for the N410i for moving data from the phone to a PC, however it only works through the USB cable and not through the infra-red port. As both the USB cable and the software weren’t included in the test kit, I can’t tell you how they perform.
Build quality
Build quality was average with my test unit, although I suspect that it has changed many hands before I got a hold of it. The flip would creak if stressed and it felt a bit loose, but other than that the phone felt durable. When opening and closing the flip the phone clicks loudly, indicating that its locked in place. One problem however is that the weight balance across the phone means that if the flip is open the phone won’t sit properly if placed on a desk or other flat surface. Rather than sitting on its back, It will fall onto the flip instead.
Battery life
With a 950mAh Lithium-ion battery, NEC claims a standby time of 180 hours and talk time of 220 minutes. In practice, the N410i lasts up to two days with light usage. But if you buy this phone, you’ll likely be using the camera, browsing the internet, and other power-consuming operations. With all of those in mind, expect to recharge the phone every night, because after one day of heavy usage the phone usually had two bars out of four left on the battery indicator. Recharging takes about two hours.
Major features...
Tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900MHz frequency support
The N410i connects to GSM networks running on 900, 1800 or 1900 MHz frequencies. This means it can access networks in Europe, Asia, and some countries in the Americas.
2.2” 65,536 colour TFT QVGA (240 x 320) pixel main display
The main LCD in the N410i is large and very high in resolution, so pictures appear with vivid detail and lots of text can be displayed at once. Ten lines of medium-sized text can be displayed simultaneously, one of the largest amounts in any clamshell phone. Font sizes can’t be changed however.
65,536 colour STN 108 x 80 pixel sub-display
A smaller sub-LCD is featured on the front of the phone and is useful as a viewfinder for the camera when taking self-portraits, as well as clarifying the phone’s status.
Integrated 1.3 megapixel CMOS digital camera, 4x digital zoom, flash lamp
The integrated CMOS camera can take pictures up to 960x1280 pixels and video at 176x144. More than a hundred 1.3 megapixel, high-quality pictures can be saved in internal memory. Additional features include 4x digital zoom, exposure control, delay timer and special effects editing. A switch on the front of the phone lets you change to macro mode, for taking pictures of very close objects. Video can be recorded at up to 256 kilobytes, which means about 25 seconds of reasonable video. The integrated flash lamp helps illuminate objects in close proximity of the phone.
64 tone polyphonic ringtones
The ringtones sound great, and the 007 theme sounds fantastic! Ringtones can be set for incoming calls or mail and can be assigned specifically to certain contacts in the phonebook. More ringtones can be downloaded from i-mode websites.
25MB internal memory
This fair amount of internal memory is shared across all the phone’s features, including pictures, sounds, videos, Java games and mail storage. It is fairly generous for what you will be storing on the phone, considering that there is no music replay ability in the N410i.
USB and infra-red connectivity
USB data cable is the main way of connecting to a PC. It can be used to connect with the synchronisation software for sharing data between both devices, as well as using the N410i as a GPRS modem for your computer to connect to the internet.
Infra-red on the other hand is extremely limited, useful for sending contacts, pictures and scheduler objects to other phones as well as a PC. When sending pictures you don’t need any special software, so it’s a quick and easy process. You can only send one picture at a time however, so the USB cable is certainly the more convenient of both connection methods.
i-mode compatible
The new i-mode service on Telstra’s network adds two features to a standard phone’s feature list: support for i-mode email, and access to i-mode websites, of which there are more than 200 websites accessible from Telstra’s i-mode portal. In terms of quantity it beats all other operators hands down. Java games and applications are also available from certain websites. The cost of i-mode may be a barrier however – take a look at the Problems page for more information.
SMS/EMS, MMS and i-mode e-mail messaging
SMS support allows for text messages of up to 620 characters, with T9 predictive text support and a custom word dictionary for those words that aren’t included by default. EMS support allows for simple monochrome pictures and monotone ringtone attachment, and the more advanced MMS supports colour pictures, polyphonic ringtones and video, up to a total of 100 kilobytes. I-mode email can be sent to other i-mode handsets and PC email addresses and can include text, pictures, sounds and videos up to a 100 kilobyte limit.
cHTML compatible browser over GPRS
The ACCESS browser included in the N410i is able to browse cHTML webpages, which is part of the i-mode service. It connects through GPRS at speeds up to 40kbps, and with cHTML webpages optimised for such speeds, webpages load up fairly quickly. The addition of numerical shortcuts for webpage links makes browsing a very pleasant experience. The ACCESS browser cannot display WAP pages at all, although with the range of i-mode websites available you can hardly call that a disadvantage.
DoJa™ 1.5 Java™ games and applications
While most phones support the MIDP Java profile, the N410i, like other i-mode phones, supports the proprietary DoJa (DoCoMo Java) profile only, conforming to version 1.5 of the specification. While this is all technical, what this means is that the phone will be able to download Java applications and games from i-mode sites only. The range of games and applications is excellent however, and some applications are actually used to enhance the features of an i-mode website. For example, The Trading Post website has a downloadable Java application that provides more advanced search features for its database than the i-mode site it is downloaded from.
Included on the phone is one Tetris-style game. Keep in mind that if you insert a different SIM card than the one that was used to buy and download a game/application, that program won’t be usable until the previous SIM card is reinserted into the phone.
PIM and organiser functions
There are a variety of extra, useful functions in the N410i. These include a calculator, wake-up alarm, scheduler (calendar), ToDo list, notepad, voice recorder and currency converter. You can also record voice tags to attach to contacts, for voice dialling with the phone.
Problems/Issues?
No memory card support
On most advanced phones these days memory cards are beginning to be implemented, and I was initially disappointed when I heard that the N410i would not get a memory card slot. Granted 25 megabytes is a fair amount of memory for what the phone is capable of storing, but personally I would have liked to have a large memory card in the phone to handle all the pictures, Java applications and other material that I would download or copy onto the phone.
No speakerphone
In this case, this is a feature that makes its way to many phones, simple and advanced, and one that should be included in an advanced phone such as this. Hopefully NEC will decide to have a speakerphone in future phones they produce.
i-mode – prohibitively expensive
What may prevent i-mode from becoming the number one data service across phone operators in Australia is its expensive pricing. While SMS and MMS tend to have a flat-rate charge for sending – usually 25 cents and around 50-75 cents respectively – i-mode mail is charged per kilobyte for both sending AND receiving. At 2.2 cents per kilobyte this may be fine for small text emails, but if you were to receive a large picture email from a friend, you could pay more than a dollar to receive that email (if the picture was more than 50 kilobytes). I-mode websites are also expensive – to receive the full service for just one i-mode website, you may be required to pay a subscription charge of anywhere between $1 - $5 for that service per month. If you want to subscribe to multiple websites, you can see that charges will skyrocket quickly. Don’t forget that browsing each page costs 2.2 cents in data usage as well. Telstra offer GPRS data packs for i-mode with data included, and if you are going to use i-mode frequently I strongly recommend signing up to one. The data pack won’t cover subscription charges however.
To their credit, Telstra are offering an introductory offer of completely free i-mode access (including GPRS charges and subscriptions) for the first two months of service to new i-mode customers (current Telstra subscribers are ineligible). The offer is available until the end of this year (2005).
In Summary
If you want to experience all that i-mode has to offer, and be ahead of the rest in the techno crowd, then the N410i has it all for you. With full access to all i-mode services, including i-mode email and i-mode websites, as well as multimedia features such as high resolution camera, 64-tone speaker and QVGA LCD screen, the N410i is the perfect combination of hardware and services. It’s available from most Telstra, Crazy John’s and Fone Zone stores now on contract or outright at $979. |
| Common misspellings on this brand: nbec |
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