After two years, <a href="http://reviews.cnet.com/cell-phones/sprint-nextel/4505-6454_7-32137729.html">Sprint</a> has finally introduced a replacement for the aging <a href="http://reviews.cnet.com/smart-phones/sprint-pcs-vision-smart/4505-6452_7-31517199.html">Sprint PPC-6700</a> smart phone. Take a photo tour of the new Sprint Mogul by HTC and check out its updated look and feature set.
The Sprint Mogul by HTC replaces the two-year-old Sprint PPC-6700, bringing with it upgrades to the operating system, design, and camera. The Mogul is available now online and through business sales channels, and will hit store shelves nationwide by mid-July. Pricing starts at a wallet-crunching $399.99 with a two-year service agreement.
Sporting a thinner design and updated features, including Windows Mobile 6, the Mogul is a powerful Windows Mobile smart phone for the most demanding user. It also has integrated Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and EV-DO support, and will work with the Sprint Music Store in the near future.
A quick, 360-degree visual tour of the Mogul shows that there are a lot of buttons adorning the device. While they can be a bit overwhelming at first, they do allow for easier and faster one-handed operation. Here on the left side you have a thumb wheel for faster scrolling, an OK button, a voice-recorder key, and a switch that lets you turn on the Wi-Fi.
The overall look is reminiscent of the Cingular 8525 and the T-Mobile Wing, though we think the Mogul isn't quite as comfortable to hold as the Wing since it lacks a soft-touch finish.
The Mogul gets rid of the external antenna found on the Sprint PPC-6700 and is marginally thinner, but the Mogul is actually heavier and taller than its predecessor (4.3 inches high by 2.3 inches wide by 0.7 inch deep and 6.5 ounces for the Mogul vs. the PPC-6700's 4.2 inches by 2.3 inches by 1 inch and 6.1 ounces).
To access the full QWERTY keyboard, just push the front cover to the left. The sliding mechanism is smooth, and the cover locks into place with a satisfying click. The screen also switches automatically from portrait to landscape mode.
The Mogul's keyboard is similar to the ones found on the T-Mobile Wing and Cingular 8525, though the two soft keys have been moved to the top. Although there isn't much spacing between the buttons, the squarish keys are large and tactile for easy typing.
Below the display there are two soft keys, the Talk and End buttons, a Start menu shortcut, an OK button, and a four-way navigation toggle. We thought this last one felt cheap and plasticky. It was also stiff to press and would stick sometimes.
Like the T-Mobile Wing and HTC Touch, the Mogul sports a 2-megapixel camera with an 8x zoom, flash, and video recording capabilities. Overall, picture quality was mixed; colors were bright but there was a bit of a hazy effect to the image.
The Sprint Mogul gets a bump in memory over that of the Sprint PPC-6700 with 256MB of ROM (versus 128MB) and 64MB of RAM. The smart phone also is equipped with a microSD expansion slot, which accepts up to 2GB cards.
