Pantech Matrix Pro

Call Quality

Calls and speakerphone: The call quality of the Matrix Pro is very impressive. Voices sounded clear with unusually warm, rich tones. Callers reported that we sounded clear on their end, as well. Things fared less well over the weak and tinny speakerphone, though callers said they had no problems hearing us when we had the speaker activated.

Audio quality Music playback through the external speaker is much too weak and tinny for enjoying your tunes. Songs of various genres sound just fine, however, with a decent pair of headphones. You can also listen to music through a stereo Bluetooth headset.

Ease of Use

Menu/phone book: The Windows Mobile 6.1 interface isn’t particularly slick, but it does put a lot of functionality at your fingertips directly from the get go. The home screen lets you view messages, appointments, play music, and adjust settings without having to wade through the Start menu. The phone book holds as many contacts as the device’s memory will allow, while the SIM card holds an additional 250 contacts. The phone book holds up to 12 numbers per entry, as well as e-mail and street addresses, and instant messaging IDs. The Matrix Pro synchronized with our Microsoft Outlook address book flawlessly.

Messaging: Given that it sports a full QWERTY keyboard, you’d expect the Matrix Pro to offer up a full slate of messaging tools. The included Xpress Mail client automatically sets up POP and IMAP e-mail accounts—setting up our Comcast and Gmail accounts was simply a matter of entering usernames and passwords. You can set the Matrix to check for new messages at specified intervals. It also supports Microsoft Direct Push for synchronizing with corporate email accounts. The Matrix Pro also comes with AIM, MSN Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger instant messaging services already installed.

Camera/video: The Matrix Pro features 2-megapixel camera and can also record short videos. However, the smartphone lacks a flash and a mirror near the lens for taking self-portraits. The photo quality is adequate. The images are fairly sharp, but colors are a bit dull. After snapping a picture, you can send it via email, MMS, or directly to HP’s Snapfish service. You can set it up to upload images to your own Snapfish account or create a new one.

As for extra, there’s 4x digital zoom, white balance settings, three effects (gray, sepia, negative), and a self-timer with delays of 3, 5, and 10 seconds. But the shutter lag is a bit long, so it’s not ideal for action shots. You can also shoot video with the Matrix Pro, but only in the lower-quality 176x144 resolution. The Matrix Pro also supports AT&T Video Share, which lets you make video calls to another caller on a Video Share-enabled phone.

Music: As a Windows Mobile device, the Matrix Pro comes with the mobile version of Windows Media Player, which supports WMA, MP3, and unprotected AAC files. You can sync music files to a microSD card (this smartphone will support up to a 32GB microSD card) or directly to the device, which has 95MB of internal storage (though significantly less than that is available). If you want to store a few albums of music on this smartphone, we recommend getting a MicroSD card. However, we should mention that there’s not much you can do with the music when it’s on the smartphone. You can only play, pause, shuffle, and repeat.

You get several options for listening to or acquiring music, including Napster Mobile, XM Radio Mobile (if you have a subscription), as well as a trial version of the Pandora streaming music service. For fun, the Matrix features the MusicID service free. When you place the phone next to a speaker playing a song, the service identifies the song and artist, and includes a link to purchase the full track from Napster Mobile.

Connectivity/Bluetooth: The Matrix Pro includes full Bluetooth 2.0 capabilities, which means you can use it as a modem, use the stereo Bluetooth to stream music wirelessly, or use it to transfer files from your device to another. We had no trouble pairing the device with a Plantronics Discovery 610 headset. Calls were loud and clear through the headset, and callers reported no problems hearing us either.

Design

Look and feel:/ The Matrix Pro isn’t what we’d call svelte. It’s chunky and heavy, so holding the smartphone to your ear grows tiresome during extended calls, and it’s too bulky to fit comfortably in a front jeans pocket (even if you can fit it in, it’ll look rather unsightly). The upside of this heft is that the construction feels solid and durable. There’s a nice, firm click to the slider in either direction.

Underneath the front display of the Matrix Pro sits a circular button that looks like it should be a scroll wheel, but it isn’t. Instead, it’s a five-way toggle you press up, down, left, or right to move through menus, documents, Web pages, and so on, with a button in the center for making selections. Other then the center Select button, the only raised buttons on the front of the device are the Home and Back keys. The call answer/end keys, as well as the left and right soft keys, are flush to the surface and surround the Home and Back keys, making it easy to press the wrong button.

Moving the slider to the right to expose the QWERTY keyboard will change the display from portrait to landscape mode. There’s a bit of a lag that’s noticeable, but not off-putting when moving between viewing modes, as well as when launching applications. The left side of the amartphone holds the volume rocker and a Record button, which you can use to record voice memos or access the voice command menu. One bit of frustration: it’s tough to insert an expansion card into the microSD card slot at the bottom of the unit if you don’t have fingernails, since the actual slot is slightly recessed.

Keypad: The numeric keypad is fairly large, but the white backlit buttons are far too slick and flat to dial by touch. It feels like one large smooth surface. The keys on the QWERTY keypad are raised slightly and well spaced, though not as tactile as they could be. Still, for writing short emails or text messages, it’ll get the job done.

Battery Life

The Matrix Pro’s battery life is pretty good. If you make regular phone calls, download email regularly, and occasionally surf the Web, you should get about three days of use before recharging. If you’re a heavy user, you’ll need to recharge every other days.