Mvl G81Dual Sim Qwerty

[copperco2 24]

MVL review

PRO

Dual SIM,

Decent QWERTY tactility,

good screen clarity,

decent optical trackpad,

push mail support,

wallet-friendly price

CONS

Odd symbol placement on keyboard,

certain elements in UI are downright stupid,

no support for hyperlinks or HTML in mail client

Push mail, a few years ago, was the proverbial Hattori Hanzo sword with which BlackBerry was able to slice up other QWERY keyboard wielding smartphones. That's not the case anymore today; Google's Android phones do it, Nokia's Symbian phones do it, and now this once-premium service is even seen in a few sub-Rs. 5,000 'uber-china' phones, as I like to personally call them.

Yes, I'm referring to phones from brands like Micromax, Karbonn, Lava etc. that are flashed on TV these days in India. MVL is one such player in this league, and their prime focus currently is on the G81 model -- more popularly known as the 'Push email' phone. It is an affordable, dual-SIM supporting, QWERTY keyboard equipped phone.

But is it actually worth buying the G81 instead of going for a much more expensive Nokia or BlackBerry?

Let's figure out. Design and Build The MVL G81 is a typical candy bar QWERTY shaped phone. It does not look 'cheap' in any sense, thanks to the glossy materials used and that metallic rim wrapping the edges. The phone felt quite light in the hand and the build quality seemed pretty fair too. The keyboard is very much "inspired" from the Blackberry Curve series (especially the 8310 model). The buttons are shaped and even curved the same way as the Blackberry. The typing experience is also similar; the keys have good tactility and despite their apparent small size, they are pretty decent to type on.

Above the keys lies an optical trackpad, which is similar to the BlackBerry Curve 8520. There is no D-pad surrounding the trackpad, like the Nokia E72, so usage is entirely dependent on it. Thankfully, the second usage related stumble has been bridged successfully too. The trackpad is fairly accurate to use and "swipes" across menus swiftly. We kept the sensitivity at 50 percent, which gave us a fine balance between speed and accuracy.

Surrounding the trackpad are two navi keys, two call accept keys (it's a dual-SIM phone), a dedicated key to open the e-mail app and a call end key. Speaking of keys, the camera shutter button is rather weirdly placed to the top-left side. Right-handed camera usage results in the index finger coming in the way of the camera sensor. A mini USB port lies to the right along with a microSD card slot. Sorry boys, no 3.5mm headphone jack on this one.

At the back you have a camera sensor surrounded on either sides by speaker grilles. Some like their music played out loud and theMVL delivers on that front. The "Loud" speaker is actually useful for conf-calls and blaring music. The 2.4-inch display seems to have a resolution that looks like a QVGA (320 x 240 pixels) to my eyes. It is fairly bright and vivid, and portrays content with good clarity. The only issue we had with the design of the phone is with some of the idiotic symbol placements on the keyboard. Almost EVERY phone I've used has a full stop next to the M key, followed by a comma sign. It is because these two are used while typing most commonly. The MVL G81 rather has a $ and @ sign. The comma and full-stop is placed as an alternative above the M and N keys. So now I have to do a Fn+M key to enter a simple full-stop. I mean, when these guys have done such a great job of giving us a Blackberry-esque keyboard, why not go a step further and keep the key-position constant as well? User Interface The user interface seen on the MVL G81 is similar to the ones I've seen on the competing Micromax Q series phones.

After getting used to smartphone OSes like Android or even Symbian, this Nokia Series 40-like UI feels a little dated to use. Nonetheless, the home screen has shortcuts to six applications, along with network states for both SIM cards and other things like time, notification symbols for messages, alarm etc. The main menu is similar to what you'd find on a typical Nokia or a Sony Ericsson phone under Rs. 10,000. Importance is given to three pre-installed Java applications; Opera Mini for web-browsing, Nimbuzz for instant messaging, and Snaptu for information feeds. The Opera mini on-board is the older version, and not the latest version 5.0 that brought in many important features like Tabbed browsing, speed dial and a download manager. You cannot update to this version too. Nonetheless, the older version lets you surf full-fledged websites with ease. Techtree.com opened up and was usable for the most part. So, the browser is just fine for casually surfing but won't give you the functionality that the newest version of Opera offers. Same is the case with Nimbuzz, it isn't the latest version. The worst part is it even prompts you to update to the latest version on start. When you click, the system throws up an error saying "default game cannot be updated". What we can make of that is, it won't let you update core apps like these to their latest iteration. Our guesstimate is mostly due to the lack of sufficient RAM or processing power, which will make the latest versions crawl (or worse, unusable) on this phone. Let's talk about the USP app of this device -- the push mail client. It is also a Java-based application which has an easy setup to configure popular mail providers like Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail etc. or to key in POP3 settings of your provider manually. Setting up my Gmail on the device was an easy affair. I was curious to know how the push mail service will function when I exit the Java application. But to my delight, I was notified of a new email on the homescreen itself; clicking the 'read' button would invoke the client to run. The pushing frequency wasn't as instant as a Blackberry or Android's Gmail app; there was generally a lag of a couple of minutes. But it worked nonetheless -- as advertised. But was it usable? Firstly, I was a little irritated that the client took about 10-15 seconds just to open the client, connect to Gmail and open my new e-mail.

The second (and BIGGEST) drawback of the client is its inability to read HTML email. This is a major inconvenience since a majority of e-mails one receives are designed using HTML. You can't even click on hyperlinks within your mail. Oh, and I know why, because you cannot run two Java applications at the same time. So, when you chat, you chat. When you browse, you browse. Again, I am tempted to point to the lack of sufficient RAM or processing.

The fonts used to show text seem ancient and tiny, which further spoils the experience. You can't search within mails too. In the end, this mail client is just good enough to read text-only conversations, and reply to with text. Another irritating aspect is when inputting text in a Java app. For instance, while chatting in Nimbuzz when you click a text box, you'd ideally expect the text to appear there itself and sent across when you hit enter. But here, clicking on the text box brings up a blank window where you write, then click menu->Done. This takes you to a preview of sorts showing what you've typed. Then you click Menu->OK again to input that text.

Some saving grace for this phone is its 2000 contacts and 1000 SMS holding capacity. All in all, the interface doesn't lag too much for the most and basic functions work, but maybe not as they are expected. Performance As a phone, the MVL G81 ain't bad. Call clarity was acceptable and so was network reception. Multi-media wise, the phone's 3.2 megapixel sensor takes decent day shots. Video recording is rather crappy and resembles that MMS video-like quality you might have come across in the past. Audio via the given pair of ear-phones is just about average. And there's nothing much you can do about that either, since there's no 3.5mm earphone jack to swap to a better pair. The quality may just be acceptable to a person who really does not give two-bit about quality to begin with.

The battery life was also fair. On a full charge it lasted me an entire day of moderate usage (mostly phone calls) with one active SIM card. Price and Verdict The MVL G81 costs Rs. 5,500. That's a really fair price and a benchmark cost for most of such uber-china phones out there. The push email that MVL advertises about works, but like we mentioned above the limited functionality of the email client would hamper its usage for almost every e-mail user.

If you were to look at other options, you've got the INQ Chat 3G for Rs. 2,500 more that gives you push e-mail with 3G support and GPS too. It also has quite a well-done UI and Facebook/Twitter integration. Then there's always the Nokia E63, which will set you back by roughly Rs. 8,500 but will give you push mail with the backing of the Symbian smartphone OS. The G81 isn't a bad phone. Usability of the phone is a subjective matter. If you're the kind of person who is keen on using the feature-set in a phone, then the G81 ain't for you. You rather spend more and get something else. But if you don't pay too much attention to detail, have a fair amount of patience, and need push-mail support for just text based conversations, then the G81 is a decent option.

--Well there goes the review by an expert. if he says its okay then its an excellent phone for the masses or consumers..

[copperco2 24]

There is a mistake here. I apologise for the same and request Mods to shift the topic to GSM other handset.

I sincerely regret the mistake.

thanks.

[parin 857]

I think forum people will prefer 8830 over this handset

[kshah 452]

There is no comparisons between Bb and mvl. Mvl has its own niche which Bb can not cater to. Very nice and neutral review. Just 5.5k phone offering so much.

[Himanshu Singh 19]

Good phone at this price.

[Honest 836]

There is no comparisons between Bb and mvl. Mvl has its own niche which Bb can not cater to. Very nice and neutral review. Just 5.5k phone offering so much.

I second that.

[KanagaDeepan 1,084]

Seems OK for a rebranded Chinese handset.. First rank student in Lunatic school... It would be much better, if this handset has WiFi like Q7, though..

[raccoon 53]

If you were to look at other options, you've got the INQ Chat 3G for Rs. 2,500 more that gives you push e-mail with 3G support and GPS too. It also has quite a well-done UI and Facebook/Twitter integration.

--Well there goes the review by an expert. if he says its okay then its an excellent phone for the masses or consumers..

INQ Chat 3G is now only Rs. 2.5 k?? Are you sure??

Any more comments about the usability/quality of this phone?

Nice review btw.

Edited September 13, 2010 by raccoon

[kshah 452]

3G phone with slower CPU would be nightmare. So if one wants to go for 3G faster CPU becomes necessity. Unless for data its only going to be used as modem to tether.

[mailgujarat 0]

where can i buy INQ chat 3G for Rs. 2500??

[commonman 228]

^^^

I want one too. The last time I checked, it was around 7,000.

[KanagaDeepan 1,084]

If you were to look at other options, you've got the INQ Chat 3G for Rs. 2,500 more that gives you push e-mail with 3G support and GPS too. It also has quite a well-done UI and Facebook/Twitter integration.

I think the reviewer tried to say that INQ Chat3G is available for Rs2500/-EXTRA for the MVL price of Rs5500/-, that means cost of INQ CHAT 3G is available at Rs8000/- (Rs5500 + Rs2500 = Rs8000)...