Review: TCL A288 Dual SIM phone

Summary

The TCL A288 is a dual-band (GSM 900/ GSM 1800) phone in a candy-form factor. Its 260,000 color TFT touch screen, QVGA (240 × 320), 2.4-inch is bright and readable even under bright outdoor conditions. Standby time is approximately 3-5 days, depending on usage.

It supports the following multi-media formats:  mp3, midi, wav, amr, AAC format. The 1.3 megapixel camera is surprisingly good in lighted conditions. It is capable of recording videos in MPEG-4 (MP4) format, and audio records in AAC.

T9 is available - in Chinese!

PROS: Affordable. Dual-SIM
CONS: No bluetooth.  Doesn't work under Linux.

Bottom line: Good value for money - if you can live with its few idiosyncrasies.

PS
If you're wondering what TCL stands for: The Creative Life. TCL is actually a brand for other home appliances in the Philippines.

Messaging

If message sending gets aborted, your message will be stored in the Drafts folder. If you re-send this message, the message in the Draft folder doesn't get deleted. You will have to delete it for yourself.

Handwriting recognition is neat, especially for a device this cheap. Can't imagine something like this 3-4 years ago at this price. I wish it had English T9 support.

Changing capitalization when writing message is also a chore. You might have to get used to writing in small letters to relieve you of the inconvinience of shifting cases.

MMS works, at least with Globe it does. You can only use the data services of whichever SIM card is inserted in the first SIM slot. You will also have to manually configure the settings. This step took me less than 5 minutes to do, including configuring the phone for Internet access.

If you leave any unfinished message in the editor, it will display the same message when you return without asking any confirmation. You may either like this or not. Personally, I wish the phone asks you first.

Group messaging and mass messaging works but the interface is clunky, at best. You can send a message to multiple contacts BUT only to their mobile phone numbers. Or whatever number you place in the mobile phone field.

Memory - T-Flash

There's no way of copying numbers from one entry to another. You can't send a contact as a business card.

Phone Book

There's no way of copying numbers from one entry to another. You can't send a contact as a business card.

There's no way of choosing which field a phone number gets saved to. It's always saved as the mobile phone number. You have to copy it manually to a different field, if that's what you want.

Getting messages from unknown numbers? Better check your phone book number entries. It should reflect the complete, international GSM format (ie +639999999999 or plus sign, country code, area code/mobile access code, then the phone number), otherwise the phone wouldn't display the correct name.

You can't send a contact as a business card, and there's no way of inserting a phone number from the phone book in a message.

Ergonomics and User Interface

Keypad layout is good. Big enough even for stubby fingers, and with tactile feedback.

It's not bad, but it could be better. For example, you can press numerical shortcut keys but you need to press the middle button of the navigation pad to confirm the selection. If you're used to UIs from more popular brands, this seems like a step back in usability.

It has automatic screen lock which only works when the phone is in standby mode on the desktop. If you have an open application, say writing an SMS or browsing the phone book, it woudn't lock your screen.

There is a row of shortcut icons available for you on the screen: First icon is a shorcut for calling up a virtual keypad, which is quite redundant when the keypad is readily available. (I suspect that this software is used on a different phone with a layout quite similar to the P-Series of SonyEricsson. The suceeding icons are: composing SMS, phone book, changing profile, acessing the main menu.

In addition to these hard-coded shortcut icons, you can also configure 4-other shortcut keys for the up, down, left and right keys of the navigation pad. Then, you can also add four more shortcuts on the desktop.

You can easily switch from having just one SIM working to both SIMS working or turn both SIMS off without having to re-boot the phone. I guess turning off both SIMS is the closest thing to having a Flight mode profile, which it doesn't have.

Your "desktop" or main standy screen will display the SIM mode for your convenience. I still have to deciper what "w" means when a SIM is deactivated, and "Li" when active means.

PC Connectivity

There's no Bluetooth and the USB cable connection only works as a charger. Duh.

The user manual claims that the phone will be detected as a mass storage device or card reader of some sorts. It probably works in some other Windows machine (but not in a virtual Windows machine I have) but it's not working in Linux. Gadget companies should really start designing their devices to be less dependent on a specific operating system and making them work with other platforms as well. We don't live in a Microsoft vacuum world. There are a growing number of Linux and Apple users out there.

Telephony

Calls are clear and crisp. It also supports conference calls - a feature not available in many dual-SIM phones.

I miss SonyEricsson phones ability to "edit before call". My service provider offers a promotional service where calls are charged by the second when calling numbers using the same network and prefixed with a special number. Quite useful for making short calls instead of texting.

You wil have to dedicate a field and write out the number just for the same purpose, if you want to use something like it.

"Cannot dial IP number" mystery
It Is a constant message one encounters when you press the center of the navigation pad while browsing the address book.  I can only suspect that some sort of VoIP is supported. No further details available.

No speakerphone support but if you pump up the volume, it's almost loud enough to act like one.

Internet/Data

Supporting GPRS and Wap 2.0, it has a built-in browser that I find a tad too slow. It doesn't matter much since I rarely use my phone to access the internet, unless I really have to. And when I do, I can live with the slow browser.

It has no built-in email client.

Battery Life

Both SIMs active, with light texting and a few calls: 3-4 days stand-by time. If you use the phone in single-SIM mode, expect longer talk- and standby-time from its Lithium-Ion batteries.