Why You Can Trust CNET Boost Mobile Platinum review: Boost Mobile Platinum (D615)
Inside its stylish facade lurks low-grade features and some of the most boring video games ever coded -- and we've played Cooking Mama!
Design
Out of the box the Boost Platinum looks the part of a quality mobile phone. Without power the reflective screen reminds us of the LG Shine in standby mode, and the stainless steel trim gives the appearance of quality. It's only after the power kicks in that the illusion of quality is shattered when the 128 x 160 (QQVGA) resolution display bursts to pixel-ly life. There is essentially nothing wrong with a low resolution display for basic phone functions, but as this is the Boost "Game" phone, we expected better.
Boost Mobile Platinum
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
Asides from the low quality display the handset is a nicely laid out candy-bar phone. The keypad, while on the small size, is easy to use and there's no doubt that the 12mm thick profile will slip easily into your pocket.
Features
The selling point for the Boost Platinum is the pre-loaded games from gaming juggernaut Electronic Arts, including: Medal of Honor, Need for Speed, and Sim City. If these games were the only reason for checking out this review, then it's time for you to click the "back" button on your browser and continue searching for your new phone. These games are astoundingly dull and of the same quality as the AU$5 games you can download from every Web site with hip-hop ringtones and bikini girl wallpapers.
But even if the games were good fun -- and we reiterate, they are not -- the low resolution screen makes playing them virtually impossible. Fans of Sim City on their PC can attest to the visual complexity of the game, and to play it successfully on the Boost Platinum definitely requires a magnifying glass. Young eyes be warned: your precious 20/20 vision will deteriorate exponentially as you try to read the in-game information boxes.
The Boost Platinum also has a 1.3-megapixel camera on the back which takes average pictures for the resolution -- the photos we took appeared blurry and overexposed -- though it'd be a sufficient shooter for taking pics of your mates on bright, sunny days.
Performance
As a phone the Platinum works fine. Voice call reception is adequate, although we did experience a little bit of interference during calls. Text messaging is easy enough, although strangely, there is no predictive text option for starting a sentence with a capital letter, meaning you -- and by you I mean the grammatically fastidious editors at CNET.com.au -- are constantly switching back and forth to have sentences read correctly.
As with playing the games you can expect the low-res display to affect your Web browsing experience on the Platinum, plus, without 3G, browsing is tedious.
Overall
There's no doubt there is a strong market for a "games phone", and expect to see some excellent mobile game content coming from Nokia this year when the N-Gage Web portal really kicks into gear.
The problem with the Boost Platinum isn't that there are features missing, it's the absolute absence of quality features and components. With the exception of its physical appearance, every aspect of the handset is mediocre. You could say that at least it performs well as a mobile phone, but for the RRP of AU$149 you could buy better for half the price, albeit, minus the boring games.