General Mobile DSTL1 Imaginary video review and gallery
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.
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[...] Update: don’t miss the review videos and photo gallery, either. [...]
[...] [via Android Authority] Tagged as: Android Leave a comment Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) ( subscribe to comments on this post ) [...]
[...] So what is the conclusion? Here are some highlights from the review: [...]
[...] So what is the conclusion? Here are some highlights from the review: [...]
Which cellular carriers support this phone?
I own a General Mobile DSTL1 and I am positively surprised. The phone is fast, the camera makes excellent pictures (in good lightning conditions), and mail, internet work great. You can install some applications, but access to the Android Market would be cool of course. The phone is really well built and looks great. WiFi works very well. Some might miss 3G or GPS – I don’t. It seems General Mobile offers updates as well. I installed one and it worked fine.
The Music Player is excellent. All cover arts are shown, unlike on my Nokia, LG or SE phones and the sound is pretty good, both through speakers and my own headset (thanks to the adapter)!
I have one question though: How do I access the memory card. It appears in my Explorer but I can not access it? I have to use a card reader!
Got it – you have to click on the USB icon and choose which action to take. Now I just have to find out how to send/receive MMS and then I am all set!
I have a DSTL1 and i like it a lot. Most of the apps i installed on it worked, and i love the dual sim that means i don’t have to carry 2 phones in my pocket. And the design is very cool :D
But i find the lack of Android Market anoying. I really don’t understand why Google doesn’t just let users download the .apk and install it. This forces me to download the apps from diffrent sources, and while searching for the free apps you come to notice that you can download some of the non-free ones too. That can’t be a good thing for either Google or the developers. So far the only explanation i heard was “the Android Market is Google’s app and they can do what they want with it”, but that doesn’t explain why they would want their install base diminished.
Anyway, those of you that are intrested in the DSTL1 or already got one, please email GM to let them now that we would really like access to the market, and that Android 1.6 probably solves a lot of the resolution problems they encountered with some apps. (the upgrade now on their site is for 1.5)
[...] like a pretty good upgrade from the capabilities of the DSTL1, General Mobile’s first Android smartphone. My contact also told me that General Mobile is working on an app store to include in the phone. [...]
[...] Mobile has released an Android 1.6 (Donut) update for its DSTL1 Android smartphone. The release adds proper support for the phone’s WVGA resolution resistive touchscreen [...]
[...] screen shots are from a WQVGA display, such as found on General Mobile’s DSTL1, but the store will work at the other resolutions offered by its future phones, [...]
[...] specs for the COSMOS, below, are much better than those of the DSTL1 that General Mobile released earlier this [...]
Dear All DSTL1 owners, is it possible to update DSTL1 to latest android version, or must wait update from GM site. Is it possible to download android apps