Latte Boom Review

Introduction:

Apart from Slim11b, Latte have sent us the other model they have launched on the market, the Boom. This is a phone with an interesting design, emphasizing on the listening-to-music feature with the idea of replacing completely your pocket music player. Its main advantage, compared to the other music players, is that it has inbuilt stereo speakers which can play loud music so that the people around you can also hear the music you are listening to.

The set includes, apart form charger and a computer connection cable, also headphones that make a musical claim: they are noise cancelling and their design is almost identical with that of the SonyEricsson headphones of the Walkman phones; they are practically an adapter with a 3.5 mm jack to which you can connect any kind of headphones, the only difference being that they are white and, compared to the SonyEricsson headphones, the material they are made of much inferior quality.

Design:

Boom calls immediately to mind a few Samsung models that look similarly: a narrow slider with a small display and round shapes around it. However, unlike Samsung X830, there are two round features on the front panel here: two loudspeakers, rather than the navigation button. Those loudspeakers can very well compete with the pocket stereo systems, intended for connecting with phones / pocket players.



The 1.5 inch display with a resolution of 176x220 pixels, is very suitable for watching videos and its small sizes seems to be its only shortcoming. It can visualize up to 65 thousand colors but it is definitely not the most important part of the phone.

The keyboard is on the lower slider; just like the display, it is rather small. It is predictably arranged in 3x4, so that all the keys are in their usual places; however, the small key sizes could result in you pressing the wrong button. The navigation buttons are on both sides: the mp3 shortcut, which serves as a left software button and the green receiver are on the left, as well as the headphones / charger connector and the microSD memory slot, covered with rubber protectors. On the right are the red receiver, the camera shortcut (it is the right-hand software button) and the volume slider, which can also be pressed, and can be used for navigation. The biggest inconvenience during navigation is that the two software buttons are not at the same height and therefore you can be confused. The slider can be conveniently used only with one’s right hand.



Latte Boom is a comparatively short and a VERY narrow phone; it is, however, thick, so that everything can be fitted in. With its 22.9mm it is twice thicker than Slim11b and four times thicker that the ultra slim Samsung U100 Ultra 5.9. Anyway, it fits easily in your pocket and its weight of .... ensure that you (do not) feel it.

Interface:

Because of the specific layout of the buttons, using the phone feels a little weird, but one gets used to this, too. From the home screen the two soft buttons act as shortcuts to the mp3player/camera and, in order to browse in the menu, you have to press the volume slider inwards. The main menu is visualized in a vertical list with icons to the side. You can scroll up and down using the slider and you can select by pressing it inwards or by the left soft button.

The phone book can memorize up to 300 contacts, each of them containing a few numbers of a different type, a picture and a melody. You can save *250* more numbers on the sim card. You can search for numbers using the Quick Search option, but you’ll be disappointed not to find results by a contact’s second name.



The organizer includes a calendar, featuring opportunities for setting tasks (as well as an alarm with a recurrent option), To-DO list, 3 alarms that can be set for different times and days (with a recurrent option) and a World Clock with an interface of the world map. A calculator, unit converter (weight and lenght) and currency converter are to be found in the Extra menu. The stopwatch is in the Fun & Games menu.



In messaging you’ll find two separate boxes for SMS and MMS. The Ezi Predictive Text input, designated in the menu as “Smart abc”, analogous to T9 and iTap, is there to help you type in texts. When writing a text message you can format, using three different fonts, as well as different styles and alignment.



Latte Boom is a three-band GSM phone, featuring an American and a European version. The first one works perfectly in the US and the second one is only usable in certain zones, due to its 1900 MHz. We consider the lack of Bluetooth, to help you both transfer data and connect to a handsfree or even to a multimedia device (stereo headphones or stereo system) a big disadvantage.

Camera:

The phone’s back is equipped with a 1.3 megapixel camera and a small ‘mirror’, but unlike Slim11b it does not have a flash that can be conveniently used as a flashlight. You start the interface in two seconds, by holding down the button on the right. The interface is a little confusing, but it takes just a while to get used to it: the icons are allocated a number, showing which number key to press in order to change a setting, using the slider.



The images are with very low quality, which would be suitable for the first cameraphones. Being in 2007, we may say that the Boom has awful camera. It is useless.




You avail of a video recorder, but it can only record with a poor resolution, suitable for playback on the phone’s display and not on a PC.

You can view the pictures you have taken in the gallery. A list of thumbnails is visualized there and you can view the zoomed up pictures.

Multimedia:

The video and audio players are to be found here. We used the video player to view a video that comes preloaded with the phone, and a Janette Jackson music video in a mp4 format. You can not watch videos on a full screen and the only options are viewing at a speed that’s different from the normal one. The music was heard through the loudspeakers, which really amazed us! The sound was louder and better than that coming from Nokia N95’s loudspeakers, which was until now at the top of our ranking and is now overtaken by this small Latte model. Although a little sharp, the sound is nice and better than any other in-built phone loudspeakers.

The audio player uses the same loudspeakers, which is its main advantage: your phone acts as a small stereo system. When you plug in the headphones from the set you can not share the music with anybody else, but you’ll enjoy the benefit of a bass: they isolate the surrounding noises so that you can hear very well and enjoy a good sound quality. This is one of the best phone headsets that we have used; however, in case you are not pleased with it, you can easily replace it, thanks to the interconnect. The inconvenience, related to the music player is that it can only play the files from the „My Music” directory on the card and it does not show the tracks’ full names. You can use shuffle and repeat, but there are no playlists. Since the model is intended as a business phone, the music player can be left at a background level and you can listen to music while you’re doing other things with the phone.

Latte Boom is equipped with three games, but you won’t be able to add any others because of the lack of Java. In „Extra” you’ll find an application, calculating Body Mass Index (BMI) and a ladies’ calendar.

Performance:

The sound of the Latte Boom is excellent not only for music playback but also during a call. The sound volume is very high in both directions when put at maximum volume. The other party hears you slightly muffled with weak high-frequencies of the voice, but still very clear. The quality of the sound you hear is excellent, the voices are clear and realistic.

Conclusion:

The Boom is a strange phone, and has the hate-it-or-love-it factor: you would either love it for the music playback capabilities, offering the best speakers integrated in phone on the market, or will hate it for its inconvenient navigation – the side-located keys and all.

If you are looking for an alternative phone which you will carry with you and need a portable juke-box, this is an excellent choice. But if you consider replacing your main phone with the Boom, first check if you will be able to handle with the operation!