Why You Can Trust CNET T-Mobile Concord review: T-Mobile Concord
It's business time -- aimed at first-time smartphone buyers looking for something simple and easy to use, the T-Mobile Concord's got it going on with a 3.5-inch screen and 2-megapixel camera.
Aimed at first-time smartphone buyers looking for a simple, entry-level Android device, the T-Mobile Concord is a prepaid device manufactured by ZTE.
T-Mobile Concord
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
While it's true that the phone's specs are nothing to write home about -- it sports a meager 3.5-inch screen, a 2-megapixel camera, and an 832MHz processor -- it does have an attractive and unique dark-blue design. Most importantly, however, it offers satisfactory call quality and decent 3G speeds.
For those of you who are commitment-phobes, the Concord is currently available in retail stores including Wal-Mart and Target for $100 without a contract.
Design
The T-Mobile Concord is reminiscent of the ZTE Fury, though it's slightly smaller in size. Measuring at 4.59 inches tall, 2.43 inches wide, and 0.45 inch thick, it's compact and fits easily in the front or back pockets of a pair of jeans. It's lightweight at 4.48 ounces, but it feels hefty and dense in the hand.
Aside from a thin, dark strip of chrome that runs along the edges and top, the device is made from a dark-blue, soft-coated plastic. I'm a fan of this material because it looks and feels more luxurious than plain, glossy plastic. Also, it doesn't trap fingerprints like other glossy surfaces. The back plate also has a subtle but attractive lined pattern running through it that reminds me of wood grain.
On the left side is a volume rocker, and up top are a 3.5mm headphone jack and a sleep/power button. To the right is a Micro-USB port.
At the top left corner on the back is a 2-megapixel camera with no accompanying LED flash. Two small grid openings for the output speaker are located down below. A small indentation in the bottom center of the handset allows you to remove the backing. It'll take a lot of muscle to pry the plate off, but once it's removed, you can access the microSD card and the 1,500mAh lithium ion battery.
The handset's 3.5-inch touch capacitive touchscreen has a resolution of 320x480 pixels. The display was responsive and snappy. I didn't notice any lag when swiping through the four home screen pages, browsing through the app drawer, or texting. However, the resolution wasn't so hot. Colors gradients were extremely streaky, the edges of text had heavy aliasing, and default images were grainy. Images in HQ YouTube videos looked patchy with poor color range.
Above the display is a small metal accent for the in-ear speaker. An LED is located to the right of that. You can choose to have it blink on and off for notifications. Below the screen are the four usual hot keys (menu, home, back, and search) that unfortunately do not light up when in use.
Features
The Concord is powered by a meager 832MHz processor. Simple tasks, like unlocking the phone or switching from landscape to portrait mode were performed swiftly enough, but more complicated actions like opening the camera, launching games, and transitioning back home felt noticeably laggy.
Unfortunately, the device ships natively with the dated Android 2.3 Gingerbread, and is stocked with your standard number of Google apps, such as Gmail, Plus, Latitude, Maps with Navigation, Messenger, Places, Play Books, Movies, Music, and Store, Search, Talk, and YouTube. There are also three T-Mobile-centric apps: AccountInfo, which lets customers check their account online and billing information; an app for mobile hot-spotting; and T-Mobile Mall for purchasing ringtones, MP3s, and games.
Additional device features include several task-managing apps like an alarm clock, a native Web browser, music player, e-mail client, and navigator, Bluetooth 3.0, a calculator, a calendar, a news-and-weather app, a notepad, a sound recorder, a stopwatch, a video player, a voice dialer, and voice search. Otherwise, the handset is pretty light on the bloatware. The only other apps are Facebook, Slacker Radio, and Docs To Go, a Microsoft Office-esque mobile suite that lets you edit or view Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, and other files.
Camera and video
The camera features a few photo options. Along with geotagging and a 2x zoom, it also has five white balances, three antibanding options, an exposure range of +1 to -1, two scene modes, six picture sizes, three picture qualities, and five color effects,
There are even fewer options if you want to record video. The only features retained are the same five white balances and colors effects. You can also decide from four video qualities that record anywhere from 30 seconds to 10 minutes.
Photo quality was understandably poor, even in ample lighting. Objects had ill-defined edges and bled together, colors were muted, and photos contained noticeable digital noise. Pictures taken indoors showed similar results -- people appeared grainy, whites were washed out, and dark hues were hard to distinguish.
Video didn't fare much better. Feedback lagged noticeably behind my moving of the camera, and there was a small humming sound that played back throughout the recording. Because of the poor focus time, lighting was all over the place. Objects were also pixelated and colors were muted.
Performance
I tested the quad-band (850/1700/1900/2100) handset in San Francisco using T-Mobile's network. Signal and call quality were great. While I used the Concord, there were no dropped calls, audio clipping in and out, or any extraneous sounds or buzzing. Volume could be a bit higher, but voices were audible and clear regardless. Speakerphone sounded good as well. Voices came in crisp and clean, though, again, max volume could be louder.
Even though it's not the fastest network on the market, T-Mobile's 3G was reliable and consistent. Loading the CNET mobile site took an average of 10 seconds, while loading our full site took 47 seconds. The New York Times full site took shorter on average, clocking in at 26 seconds. ESPN's mobile site took 16 seconds, and its full site loaded in 27 seconds on average. The 18.34MB game of Fruit Ninja took a mere 54 seconds to download and install. Ookla's Speedtest app, showed me an average of 3.92Mbps down and 1.0Mbps up.
During our battery drain tests the battery lasted 9.75 hours. Anecdotally, I still had about a third of battery power left at the end of the day, after I surfed the web, played games, and watched YouTube videos. According to FCC radiation tests, the phone has a digital SAR rating of 1.38W/kg.
Conclusion
Simply put, the T-Mobile Concord won't turn any heads. When considering its meager specs and dated Android OS, it certainly isn't a hot-ticket item. But if you're in the market for something simple, inexpensive, and includes some basic necessary features, this device won't let you down. Aside from its subtly stylish design, the handset performed with solid call quality and respectable 3G speeds. Best of all, it comes with a bargain-basement price with no contract in tow.