Toshiba Portege G900 Review

SPB Benchmark results, compared to other PPC Phones

Performance:

Although the G900 uses pretty fast (on theory) processor running at 512 MHz, it is not very fast in the operations. Opening/closing the slider changes the orientation of the display and in our case this isn’t immediate but takes a few of seconds. We compared it to another WM6 Pro phone, the HTC TyTN, which also has such type of QWERTY and runs on 400MHz Samsung processor, and the TyTN changed the orientations of the display twice faster than the G900.

We used SPB Benchmark to compare the G900's system performance to other PPC phones.

In other aspects, the phone worked well. We put a Skype on it and were able to chat and use the options while a call was present. Most other PPC phones are inoperable while a Skype call is on. The call itself wasn’t that great, as the voices are transmitted through the loudspeaker on the back. The other party hears you relatively clear and with average volume.

During a call, the G900 performs well for the outgoing sound but gets average score for the incoming one. The outgoing sound is very loud and with high quality, slightly sharp but realistic voices. The incoming sound’s volume is below the average, the voices are slightly muffled and with weak high-frequencies but the low volume is bigger problem.

As our G900 was a defective unit, we were not able to test the battery, as the device restarted after a few minutes of continues talk. The manufacturer claims it will last for 4 hours and 20 minutes, but of course this also depends on the other usage. If you use the phone with the display brightness set to maximum this will greatly reduce the battery’s charge.

We are surprised unpleasantly that the signal reception of the G900 is just average. We tested it as any other phone we review in an area with gradually decreasing signal and rated it 5 out of 10. As the phone is pretty massive, we would have liked to see a great antenna and respectively reception, but this is not the case.


Conclusion:

The G900 has its appeal and like any other phone, pros and cons. We aren’t keen on huge phones, even being WM Professional devices but can close our eyes for that when the display is a 3 inch unit with resolution of 800x480 pixels, best in class. It gives huge advantage when it comes to internet browsing or text reading, but unfortunately that’s all. It will also bring inconvenience like slower refresh rate and will not allow you to use all applications on the market, which is ridiculous considering the target group of a WM Professional phone.

If you are seeking WM phone with huge screen resolution one of the few other options is the X500+ which is way smaller, has GPS and is quad-band, but lacks 3G, keyboard and has VGA (640x480) resolution for the display.