Spice Edge S-1000

Spice Telecom recently launched around 15 new mobile phones in the city, ranging from ultra low end, black-and-white phones to high-end touch-screen smartphones. We'll be taking a look at some of the interesting phones they've launched, starting with the Spice Edge S-1000.

The Spice Edge S-1000 is the highest end, most expensive model that Spice Mobile has in its range. It is a touch screen smartphone running Windows Mobile 5.0. Ironically, the Spice Edge doesn't support EDGE network technology (Enhanced Data rate for GSM Evolution, 2.75G), the successor to GPRS (2.5G). It only does quad-band GSM and GPRS. We asked them why the Spice Edge doesn't support EDGE, and they said it's not about that specific technology, but rather it's meant to imply the 'cutting-edge' features of the phone. Almost all new phones launched recently at 3GSM support HSDPA (3.5G), while several phones in the local market are already UMTS/3G ready. After this you bring an EDGE-less phone to the market and call it 'cutting-edge'? I would shoot my marketing department if they even suggested such a branding campaign for a product like this!

Anyway, let's move on to the review.

Design
The phone does appear a bit bulky and heavy, but it won't stick out like a sore thumb in the hands of a businessman dressed in a suit, who would otherwise typically be carrying a BlackBerry. The phone is pretty smart looking, and though the shape won't win it any merit, the choice of using a brushed metal finish on the surface of the phone gives it that elevated status.

The phone has a large, 2.8-inch, 65k color QVGA display that's quite bright and doesn't go blank when you take it out in sunlight. The screen is touch sensitive and the phone also comes with a stylus placed on the rear. The screen was calibrated perfectly out of the box and it was effortlessly usable both with the stylus as well as the fingers.

Below the screen is a numeric keypad with a few oddities. First of all, some of the buttons are too small, making them difficult to click considering the size and weight of the phone. Then, the 5-way navigation joystick is set into the middle of the 2 and 5 keys, which is one thing that will take a lot of getting used to. Not to simply use the joystick, but to NOT use it when you're in the middle of writing a text message. The click of the joystick is also quite sensitive, so it's guaranteed that you WILL end up clicking the stick at least once during an SMS. The keypad has the normal set of keys and also a 'modus' key that lets you cycle through a list of 'favorite' applications. It's like a shortcut key, with an Alt-Tab like interface. The phone doesn't have a QWERTY keypad, so the only input methods available are touch-screen/stylus and T9 using the numeric keypad.

On the right side, you'll find an unusual 'Hold' key that looks the keypad, which is more common among portable media players and Walkmans. But it's an interesting idea because it is so much more effective than a combination to lock the keypad. Just a flick of the key and the keypad is locked. A lot easier than struggling with keys placed far away from each other to activate the lock.

On the rear of the phone, you can see the camera lens, an LED flash, a loudspeaker and a 'Powered by ASUS' logo next to it. The Spice Edge S-1000 is actually a re-branded Asus P525 smartphone. Nothing has been changed in the phone - when you start it up, you get the Asus logo splash screen and the interface also has Asus Today and other specific stuff.

Below the phone, you get a standard mini-USB slot and a standard 2.5mm stereo headphone/headset jack.