Usability & Performance
4.5
I tested Rumor on Sprint’s CDMA network in the San Francisco Bay Area with generally quite good results. Signal strength and voice quality were very good in most cases, and callers were able to hear me loud and clear with only very occasional minor static. The integrated speakerphone was okay in a pinch but not great, and the handset worked well with mono and stereo 2.5mm headsets (not included). I also wired some higher quality 3.5mm headphones to Rumor by way of an adapter, and was pleased with the results when listening to music via the phone’s media player.
I was able to easily pair Rumor with a variety of mono and stereo Bluetooth headsets. Wireless range and voice quality over Bluetooth were good.
Though I’ve read some reports online complaining about keyboard lag and software bugs on Rumor, I experienced nothing but smooth sailing in my tests of the device. The handset’s display auto-rotated and its messaging app launched without a hitch every time I slid the QWERTY board out, and the device registered my keystrokes just as fast as I could tap them out with my thumbs. In general I was very pleased with the performance of the phone relative to its capabilities.
That said you’re not going to be happy with Rumor if you want a full-on smartphone or an advanced multimedia or Web browsing handset. Rumor’s 1.3 MP camera lacks a flash or self-portrait mirror and the photos it took for me were average at best - low-light performance was notably poor. While the camera is capable of video capture, the results were similarly low-quality. Rumor’s display is also on the lower end of phones in its class, though its decently well suited to the phone’s features. The 176 x 220 resolution display is smaller and of lesser quality than the 320 x 240 screen that’s become standard on mid-range devices, its fonts tend to look a bit outdated, and it’s hard to read in bright, direct light. Then again, it’s perfectly usable for messaging and phone-related tasks in most indoor situations.
While I understand that Sprint wanted to keep Rumor’s price point as low as possible to widen its appeal to budget-minded parents of the teenagers the device is being marketed to, I really do wish they’d included Power Vision access. Sprint’s Music Store is one of the best in the business, and for the number of teens and young adults I see every day tapping away at their thumbboards while plugged into earphones, I’d imagine that texting + music = revenue generation. A Rumor with EV-DO access to 99 cent per track over the air downloads would seem a teenager’s dream - or, rather, a marketing person’s dream in the face of selling gadgets to teens. Again, the Samsung Alias for VZW comes to mind as another compact, messaging-focused device that bests Rumor in the areas of multimedia and high-speed Web/data access.
