I was recently invited to go to a launch for the new Puma Phone, and being The Gent I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the latest bit of gadgetry. Smart phones are all the rage at the moment, with the iPhone and Blackberry providing tough competition for anyone willing to take them on. Many of you will be worrying about a phone made by a sports company and that it will be nothing more than a gimmicky, tacky handset with no real thought to features and usage. By this I mean you expect the owners of the phone to either be chavvy teens who need it to go with their ill-fitting tracksuit, or those people who want a sporty looking phone so you think they go to the gym. Some of you may even be these people, and I can tell the excitement is already growing within you.
However this phone will surprise even the most concerned of you out there. With competition fiercer than ever in the mobile phone market, especially since the introduction of the iPhone and Blackberry, Puma couldn’t afford to bring out a bog standard model. All too often, especially from Nokia and Sony Ericsson in recent times, we’ve seen handsets brought out that have offered little new, certainly nothing revolutionary, and has culminated in them drastically falling behind the new smart phones. But as you can see from the pictures included in this blog, Puma have created what is really quite an attractive phone. It’s a phone with potential, rather like the new Samsung Galaxy Portal (which you can stand a chance of winning through this very site! Click here for details).
Built in partnership with Sagem Wireless, the phone will launch in the UK in May and has a lot of promising features. Presented in a completely recyclable carry case, Puma have gone above and beyond what many will expect from them. Inside that case is a Puma lanyard, red plug and USB cord, plush red carry case and sports armband holder. The phone is of a similar size to the iPhone with a 2.8 inch touch screen. The contents of the phone are delivered in two categories; a sporty side and a playful side. The handset also has front and rear facing 7.2 mbps video cameras for video chat as well as those squish-face photos we all take on nights out. To help with those it has a flash as well. The phone’s memory is supplied through a microSD 2GB memory card which comes with the phone. A top the face of the phone is a chrome Puma logo, which also acts as a speaker.
Then of course there’s the most impressive feature of the lot. Solar charging. That’s right my friends, this phone can recharge itself without being plugged into any sockets. I know that might not seem like a big deal now, hell the weather’s so bad we can’t even see the sun, but come festival season it will be the owners of these phones who will be laughing while we all queue hours missing our favourite bands in the hope of reviving our dead handsets. Plus, no sun? Then just stick it under a lamp and it can recharge from that as well. This feature also means the Puma Phone is now one of the most environmentally friendly phones currently on the market in the UK.
The Puma Phone has a slick design. It is aimed primarily at the 18-30 range, and the features are very impressive and will appeal to many people. The sport side has some great features. The compass is very nicely set out, there is a pedometer, a stopwatch and a bike tracker. Plus in the initial package the phone comes with a sports holder, so there’s no extra outlay to be able to use it down the gym. It also has a set up that will bring you up to date sports news. With Puma’s recent success in being linked to winners, particularly the Italy 2006 World Cup winning side and their new star, Usain Bolt, it’s no surprise that the phone has a dedicated sports section. Puma is increasingly becoming a hi-brow sports brand that made profits of £233 million in 2008 having been on the verge of collapse ten years earlier.
Then there’s the playful side. It comes with many of the features you’d expect of a phone these days, but several of them have been ‘Puma’d’ and given their own unique twist. Take the MP3 player for example. Not only does it play very clearly from the speakers in the phone, and is very nicely presented as a turntable on the screen complete with spinning Puma vinyl, but you can scratch any song. Oh yes, just rub your finger on the turntable and suddenly you are the next Run DMC, though I don’t recommend scratching over Coldplay – Yellow. It just sounds wrong. This feature had me enthralled straight away and I’m sure will be of much interest to the guys out there. There’s also the sarcastic calculator, which if given too easy a sum will berate you for it, and starts up with the words ‘hit me…’. Depending on how sarcastic it can get could have a bearing on how likely that is to becoming a reality.
A lot of the playful side is controlled through Puma World, where you can get all your minute-by-minute scores complete with photos, as well as taking you to your Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr apps. Games and other apps will be available to download and will be competitively priced, so expect a similar price to the iPhone. The phone also comes with a starter pack of Marco Polo City break guides, only they’re presented in the Puma way of thinking, so it keeps it cool, young and fresh. It comes with a few cities to get you going and more can be purchased later on. There is also a link to the Puma Store, which with geo-tagging means it will only let you buy what is available in the UK, rather than teasing you with offerings in Italy or the US only to find you can’t purchase them. A nice feature with apps is unlike the iPhone they’re not kept on page after page, instead being nicely contained under the Puma Fun Bag option.
But enough about all the exiciting things it does, lets get down to the basics of what it is – a phone. The contacts are nicely laid out, with space for the typical information you’d expect to get from a friend, including e-mail address and birthday. Text messaging is again similar to the iPhone in that you get the constant stream of text history, and it has the interesting addition of icon messaging. There are approximately 30 icons on the phone which represent the equivalent of a short text, which you can send in addition to a text. It’s a nice idea and the icons are both funny and eye catching, but with it only being available between Puma Phones you need a mate with one to make it a worthwhile feature.
Overall the Puma Phone is a nice bit of kit. It’s been placed in the market straight between the iPhone and Blackberry to draw people from both camps as well as appeal to a whole different audience. I can see it particularly being of interest to those who find the Blackberry a bit too text based and are looking for something more fun without becoming a member of the iPhone clan. Issues? Only that to make use of the whole phone it really needs to be in contact with other Puma Phones so that the icon and video messaging works to its best. Another concern is that the handset will only be available through High Street retailers like Carphone Warehouse, and it doesn’t appear like it will be available new or through upgrade if you choose to deal directly with your network provider. Personally I see this as being a bit limiting, especially when the phone itself is so good.
As hard as I tried, I couldn’t find much to fault the Puma Phone, and am even thinking whether I may be tempted to get one when I next upgrade. By no means should you write this phone off, it’s a corker and I urge you all to go out when it’s released in May and have a play with it in the shops, you’ll be more than pleasently surprised.
Oh and did I mention Dylan? He’s a Puma. He’s on the phone too.
Visit www.pumaphone.com for more information. The Puma Phone will be released mid-May. RRP £349 (price differs with contract deals)
This blog was by The Gent. You can follow his goings-on on Twitter – @MrMcBear
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Long Tall Ally, 1 year ago
Ooh I’m torn. It looks good, really good but at the end of the day for a layabout like me who prefers cocktails and shopping to running and sweating I think the sporty gadgets would be wasted. Plus I’m a bit of a Blackberry fiend and would rather jab myself in the eye than do business with the Carphone Warehouse again.
Ooh, look at that! I’m *not* so torn. It is bloody nice though. xx