T-Mobile Shadow Review

Performance

With a 200MHz processor and 128MB of RAM, the Shadow’s performance left much to be desired. There was no in-between ground as it was either very sluggish or, on the rare occasion, quite responsive. At one point, we activated the silent mode and it look about 3-4 seconds before the handset responded.

Reception is pretty good and we managed to get signal in most places, even those unexpected spots. It did tend to fluctuate wildly at times, where one minute we had full signal and the next we found only two bars.

Sound quality was more than disappointing, it was painful too. With the volume turned all the way up, the other person’s voice sounded artificial and had a very high tone. Once the volume was reduced, the high pitch wasn’t an issue but the voice still seemed digital making it sound very artificial. The loud speaker didn’t suffer from the high pitched tone but sound quality didn’t improve either. It seemed as this was only a one way problem and the other party had no complaints with our voices. They came through clear without being too loud or unnatural.

At least the battery life won’t let you down. After 5 days of use, it was still had a 50% charge. From full charge, the battery lasted an astonishing 9 hours and 37 minutes during our talk-time tests.


Conclusion

The T-Mobile Shadow manages to make itself stand out in a crowded market all while not diminishing its features. Sadly, its sluggish performance and average incoming sound quality cripple it slightly and disappointed us. Still, it manages to be a good alternative to the more known handsets in its class by providing elegant looks, a great battery life, and the functionality you would expect from it.