Porsche P'9521

The trend today is – if you have a big brand name, why not ‘mobilize’ it? Plenty of companies are doing it, from fashion houses like Prada and Christian Dior to watch makers like Tag Heuer. Even carmakers seem to be getting into it. Big names like Lamborghini, Ferrari, Hummer and now Porsche are, after conquering the roads, aiming for the airwaves. Porsche's P'9521 is out in India and I managed to get hold of one. It's been a long time coming, but it's here now and here’s what I have to say about it.

Form Factor
The P9521 Porsche Mobile is, well... not as you’d imagine one of their cars to be. If you’re thinking sleek, sexy, curvy, you couldn’t be more wrong. The P'9521 is more of a Cayenne and not a Carrera. It's actually handmade from a single block of Aluminum. Although that does give the handset a squared -off block shape, it also gives it a totally rugged and macho feel. It has a 1.1-inch AM-OLED screen with a 128 x 96 pixel ratio. It's made of Dark Mineral Glass that’s scratch resistant. The black shiny glass does give the handset a certain classy and elegant look and feel to it. Though of course, it’s a finger print magnet, but I doubt anyone’s going to complain.

The internal display is a brilliant 2.2-inch QVGA screen with a 320 x 240 pixel resolution. The display portion of the handset, although you won’t see it at first, can swivel around and be placed down over the keypad. Firstly this is to facilitate the use of the 3.2 megapixel camera that can only be activated in this mode and secondly it’s a whole lot more comfortable to watch videos like this. The reason being, when reversed it has an auto rotation feature that can flip the screen any which way you want while watching videos. The Biometric sensor for fingerprint scanning is located just under the screen and this too serves a dual purpose. For the camera it can be used to activate and navigate through the camera settings and for videos it can be used to skip or play and pause the file.

The keypad is totally flat and may take a bit of getting used to if you have fat thumbs, as it’s extremely responsive and you might end up pressing two keys simultaneously. But trust me, when you get the hang of it, and you will, you’ll find the texting so much better than most other handsets. It also has a light sensor to conserve energy. The camera lens is located at the rear of the handset and it also has 2 LED flashes that double as a really bright torch if necessary.

The P'9521 doesn’t have a Hot Swap Slot for the 2GB micro SD card it comes with and it’s not extremely easy to remove it either. Then again with 2GB, would you want to? I think not. The proprietary USB and handsfree port is located at the top of the handset and the camera key that can also be used to activate the audio player is located on the side. Below that is the Zoom/volume keys. The P'9521 phone also has 2 stereo speakers located on either side. Although it seems bulky, it weighs in at 139 grams which is not too bad.