Compared with blackstone

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I own a Blackstone and a Kaiser and I think that could be interesting to give the first impression that I have of the phone compared with Blackstone. I compare with a Blackstone in his maximum speed with original rom and after using several custom roms (dutty etc)
Warning: this is simply a quick test of features as I have the phone a few hours. I could be wrong in some of the opinions.
Speaker: very disappointing. We were told that Rhodium has two speakers and it is very loud for free hands calls. The reality is that the speaker has the same volume than the Blackstone. Kaise, Blackstone and rhodium have good quality in the speakers, better than average. It is odd that it is the same quality and there is no evolution.
Responsiveness: I feel it more responsive than Blackstone
Video player: faster, less jerky playing videos
Camera: it is 3 megapixels instead 5. But in low light conditions it is a very good camera phone when Blackstone is rubbish (slow and blurry). In general super responsive. I’m surprised.
Photo navigation: feels faster navigating the pics and more responsive
GSM reception: similar reception than Blackstone, that it is not great really.
Zoom bar: ok feature, nothing great but the fact that doing zooms in Blackstone is a lot of time unresponsive this is a cool difference
Keyboard: the best ever. Simply great and a lot faster than on screen keyboards. The only point is if you really need a keyboard. For small amount of text the on screen keyboard of Blackstone is enough.
Weight: you feel the phone. Blackstone is so thin that you don’t feel it. Not big problem but something to have in mind.
Sunlight: visible under sunlight. Blackstone is not visble under sunlight. Really nice.
Software: because the last custom roms of Blackstone have copied a lot of the features of rhodium there is not a lot new there but I have spotted a brand new Bluetooth manager (very cool) and perhaps there are more stuff there.
Style: better looking than blackstone because looks and feel more like a luxury object. You need to use to understand what I mean. The quality of how the phone is done and feels is stunning.
Battery: longuer battery life than blackstone, around 25%. It feels than never goes down.
In general Rhodium feels like a evolution rather than a revolution from Blackstone: A better phone but you should no change to it except if you need the keyboard. I would have been happier if the speaker was what was supposed to be.
For anybody that has not a Blackstone this phone is simply great. Nearer to the responsiveness of a iphone (not quite it yet) and with some features that iphone hasn’t (stereo Bluetooth, keyboard, more resolution etc)

It sounds like it really is a good phone then, but I think the point of having 2 speakers was for better sound quality not louder, but then again im not sure, but on a blackberry pearl with 2 speakers music sounds a lot better than on a kaiser, and better than on some laptops, and it has 2 speakers so im hoping the touch pro 2 will be even better than the pearl's sound is.

without any doubt it has no more quality and it is no louder. Initially I was confusing and thinking that I was mssing something, for example an option that I need to activate or whatever. But there is nothing more than the blackstone speaker quality. The only different thing is that it has a button to deactivate the mic in the back.

Has the Blackstone have stereo speakers then? cause if not, there has to be a quality diffrence when playing stereo music (set sound options to stereo in coreplayer)

Also, the blackstone is a multi media phone and I suspect it has a pretty good speaker.

The speakers for the TP2 are probably optimized for speech and not for music. At least you would think, it being a bussiness phone

Originally Posted by karlpj

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Radio: similar reception than Blackstone, that it is not great really.
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You told about GSM radio layer or FM radio???

Originally Posted by ed_bracam

You told about GSM radio layer or FM radio???

GSM, there is no music radio.
also I have added this point to the list;
Sunlight: visible under sunlight. Blackstone is not visible under sunlight. Really nice.

Originally Posted by quarintus

Has the Blackstone have stereo speakers then? cause if not, there has to be a quality diffrence when playing stereo music (set sound options to stereo in coreplayer)

Also, the blackstone is a multi media phone and I suspect it has a pretty good speaker.

The speakers for the TP2 are probably optimized for speech and not for music. At least you would think, it being a bussiness phone

It has two speakers but as I said there is no difence of quality with Blackstone. If they are stereo or not is not relevant as the quality is not that great and they are too near to notice the stereo. This doesn't mean that the speaker is bad compared to other phones. It simply means that it is not better than blackstone and this product was suppose to have the dual speakers as a diferenciated selling point.

Originally Posted by karlpj

It has two speakers but as I said there is no difence of quality with Blackstone. If they are stereo or not is not relevant as the quality is not that great and they are too near to notice the stereo. This doesn't mean that the speaker is bad compared to other phones. It simply means that it is not better than blackstone and this product was suppose to have the dual speakers as a diferenciated selling point.

thats disappointing because a blackberry pearl with 2 speakers plays music VERY good and the bass is so good on the pearl it is almost shocking, I thought that HTC would top that cause they make better quality phones

Originally Posted by Link278

It sounds like it really is a good phone then, but I think the point of having 2 speakers was for better sound quality not louder, but then again im not sure, but on a blackberry pearl with 2 speakers music sounds a lot better than on a kaiser, and better than on some laptops, and it has 2 speakers so im hoping the touch pro 2 will be even better than the pearl's sound is.

yes it is for sounds quality and as a blackstone owner I think the quality is far better than the blackstone.

When you said that the video playback is not jerky.

1. What codec movie are you playing?
2. What resolution size?
3. Which player did you use?
4. Did you need to re-encode your movies to play on the Rhodium?
5. Are the pictures in sync with with the sound?

I play a lot of videos on my HD and I would like to know if I can play videos without encoding all my movies.

When you place the phone down with the screen tilted, the speakers are on the bottom, right? How does affect the sound coming out of the speakers? Does it get blurred?

What is the speed of files transfers from your PC to the Rhodium? Is it faster than the HD?

Has they fixed the thread SMS? On the HD, when you use thread messaging, the on screen keyboard hides the entry box. You had to hide the keyboard and then show it again to show the entry box so you know what you are typing. I know the Rhodium has a keyboard, but what if you use the on screen keyboard to send SMS.

Thanks in advance for your answers, I am still waiting for the Rhodium to come out here. Can't wait to found out. Cheers!