• Tweet

• Tweet

General Mobile DSTL1

As you probably know, I finally received my General Mobile DSTL1 the other day.  It’s a pretty nice device with dual-SIM GSM support.  I’m not going to post a real nitty-gritty detailed review right now, because I simply don’t have the time, but I have shot a pair of videos and a photo gallery (all after the jump) that, with some of my notes, will give you the important details.

For starters, I like the device overall.  It’s fun, like most any Android phone.  I find no problems with the resistive touchscreen display, in spite of the fact that everybody seems to whine about how much better capacitive is.  For some things capacitive is indeed better, but when it comes to accuracy, such as that needed on a fairly low-res and narrow display, I think resistive does just fine.

The 5 megapixel camera is quite nice.  I’ll post samples later.  Slow focusing at times, but in general works.  The browser is very nice, in spite of the low res display.  The lack of Google Maps and the Android Market is bad, though.  Thankfully you can load the SlideME (APK here) software store to get access to some nice apps.

Roughly 80% of the apps I tested on the device worked fine, even though they were designed with a half-VGA res display in mind.  That’s a pretty good sign.  Some on-screen widgets will not fit on the low res display.  There were a few bugs, such as with video playback and the phone’s ability to reconnect to WiFi after going into sleep mode, but overall the phone was stable.  Considering its 624MHz Marvel CPU, though, it was a bit slow at certain tasks, such as text input.

Text input is OK in portrait mode (slightly easier with the included stylus, perhaps), but works just fine with fingers in landscape mode.  As mentioned, text input is a bit slow at times, as you can see in the videos.

The tri-band GSM/EDGE support will disappoint many since there simply is no way to get 3G on one of these.  Not sure if the version I have supports 850/1800/1900MHz or 900/1800/1900MHz (my guess).  No matter how you stack it, though, the dual-SIM capability is awesome, and General Mobile has done a nice job of integrating it into the system.  It might eat up battery power faster, though.  Too soon to tell, but battery life appears to be an issue.  The speaker-independent voice dialing works well, though.

If you are interested in seeing the case and battery charger and other stuff that comes in the box, check out the unboxing video.

The DSTL1 can be purchased from Amazon.com or ArtOfHiTech.com for US$499.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

1. Unboxing Video: General Mobile DSTL1

2. General Mobile DSTL1′s Dual-SIM feature in screen shots

3. General Mobile showing dual-SIM DSTL1 Android phone at Mobile World Congress

4. General Mobile show off the DSTL1 at Computex 2009

5. General Mobile DSTL1 seen Live