Mobile phones have firmly entrenched themselves in the way we live our lives. Once upon a time, seemingly so long ago now, we got along perfectly fine just heading out of the house and being content with dealing with life’s little issues on our own and finding payphones and landlines for contacting the people we had to. Then, of course, mobile phones made their appearance and revolutionized the communications landscape – now, we can get clarifications, updates, and messages concerning the most important or most mundane things at the touch of a button, throwing wireless messages and calls into the ether and being assured of their arrival. Even information and entertainment have piggybacked onto this newly-portable way of doing things.
Long dedicated to communications, AT&T have recently championed a commitment to the messaging handset market, maintaining that while the growing smartphone trend is indeed noticeable, there’s still a significant market to be catered to that don’t look for that many bells and whistles beyond messaging, which is an important feature in its own right. To that end they’ve released the Pantech Pursuit, sometimes referred to as a “smartphone lite” device or “quick messaging phone” that offers such features as a QWERTY keyboard, 3G connectivity, a 2-megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth, and even a unique “shake” trigger. On the whole, while its screen is somewhat on the small side, it’s a solid messaging phone for general use that is priced accordingly.
Its bright green face border gives it something of a toy-like vibe – something furthered by its compact 3.6” long, 2.5” wide, 0.6” thick frame – and the Pursuit’s rounded-corner design continues this look. However, it feels sturdy in hand and the playful design is accentuated by a smooth, glossy finish. Right up front is a 2.8-inch touch screen, which is pretty useful for its small size. The 262,000 color support and 320×240 pixel resolution help the image come across clear and crisp, from images to text. The resistive display is responsive, although it takes a bit more pressure than you’d expect. There’s a touch calibration wizard to help you determine that pressure, and haptic feedback to help you tell that a touch has registered.
The phone offers a virtual keyboard, Graffiti handwriting recognition [which works in conjunction with Drawing Commander to launch apps based on certain gestures], and a slide-out physical QWERTY keyboard that works better for faster typing with its large keys. An internal accelerometer is combined with a unique “shake” trigger that can be set to user-defined functions [one shake, two shakes or three can trigger three different functions, from browser to music player]. Touch-sensitive Send, Clear and End keys are found underneath the display – while these are generally less obtrusive than physical buttons, they may also allow for accidental call making or dropping.
Along with the shake trigger, 3G connectivity and stereo Bluetooth are joined by a 2-megapixel camera as the bigger features of the Pantech Pursuit, along with a great suite of social networking features – from AT&T SocialNet to the dedicated Facebook and MySpace apps.
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