[denveruser1]

My vga 1000 was frustrating me so much that I had to get a new phone. I chose the toshiba 4050 because of the screen. I carry two devices with me when I travel. My iPod and my phone. Between the two, I would like to have everything at my disposal from ebooks to music to phone calls to e-mail, etc... The Toshiba really does fill the void for the most part.

The Good - The 4050's screen is absolutely unbelievable. It is as good as a laptop screen. You can upload pictures via the focus tool and have your whole picture album in your pocket (don't forget to optomize). It has 3 megs of storage for applications, games, and pictures in gcd format. The camera is actually very good for viewing pictures in your album, the text messaging and web browsing are easy to use on this phone. There doesn't appear to be any significant bugs that crash the firmware. The battery life is as good as any other camera phone even with the insanely hires screen.

The Bad - the phone looks like a design from a couple of years ago, almost like a pre-production beta testing model. The menu is not as graphically pleasing or intuitive as a samsung vga 1000. While not ugly, there is nothing cool looking about the outside of the phone. It is also not as sturdy feeling as a samsung and it's a little bulkier than it should be, but when you open it up and see the screen, most of these flaws are forgivable. The web browser is not able to auto-dial a number, so websites like the internet radio site that connects you to a number don't work. Also, certain graphical websites don't load pictures. I haven't yet figured out why, but it hasn't been a great hinderence. The webviewer application works very well on this phone, but who wants to pay $20 extra to load websites faster.

The Ugly - The external dispaly is absolutely hideous. I think Toshiba spent all of the manufacturing costs on the screen (that screen has to cost $100+ to make) and had to sacrifice everything else. They keypad is absolutely horrible. It feels like the keypad from a $50 phone and I am really disappointed with the way the flip opens in such a flimsy manner (not with one hand and not solid). The worst issue of all has to do with support. Currently, there are only 3 games and one application that work with the phone. Tetris (looks awesome), bingo, football (cheesy), and 1KTV (they didn't increase the size of the feed so the pictures are tiny) are all that's supported. No mobitv and no real one. On midlet.org, there are probably about 10 games that work full screen. I am mad about that. Also, the video is horrific. I can't believe how bad the quality is. They are compressing a 15 second video with sound into the same size as a 640x480 jpeg (about 58K) which means that it is almost unwatchable. I am definitely disappointed.

But then I think that this phone has incredible potential. If developers support it then it is capabable of processing video feeds at increased frame rates, gps positioning with maps, beautiful games with music and sound. I just hope that sprint supports the apps for it and I'll be a very happy man indeed.

PS - Video mail is included with picture mail (as rightly it should be since videos are the same size as pictures) SMS works great because it doesn't require you to log onto the wireless web first. I recommend this phone highly for the bright person who has the time and intellect neccessary to figure out how to maximize its capabilities. Otherwise, stick to something cheaper.