The Motorola Debut i856 is a nifty iDEN push-to-talk phone for Boost Mobile subscribers. As Sprint's wholly owned prepaid brand, Boost sells plenty of iDEN phones already. But the i856 is the first slider with PTT capability. Despite a few stumbles, it acquits itself fairly well. While it's not my top pick, it's still a good choice for anyone interested in Boost Mobile's awesome $50 per month unlimited calling and texting plan.
The Debut i856 isn't a stand-in for rugged devices like the Motorola Tundra VA76r on AT&T and Casio G'zOne Boulder on Verizon. That said, the i856 still feels sturdier than most handsets. It measures 4.2 by 2.0 by 0.6 inches (HWD) and weighs 4 ounces. The back panel is covered in charcoal grey rubber, while the front panel features silver and grey plastic. The 2.2-inch, 176-by-220-pixel LCD screen looked dated, with blocky fonts and UI graphics, but at least it was colorful and bright. Six shortcut buttons bracket the five-way control pad, which doubles as a media player control. The vertical slider mechanism felt nice and solid; it revealed a bright red, recessed membrane keypad that looked and felt durable, and was evenly backlit. But dialing numbers on the stiff keys was slow and cramped. The keys also had differing amounts of resistance.
The Debut i856 is a proper iDEN (800 MHz) device, albeit with no 3G or Wi-Fi support. Calls sounded hollow and a bit echo-y in each direction, though no one had problems understanding me. Reception was average. iDEN subscribers like their phones loud, and the i856 doesn't disappoint. Its stereo bottom-mounted speakers delivered a powerful punch for both speakerphone calls and Push to Talk. Battery life was also solid at 5 hours and 51 minutes of talk time. The interface looks like a lower-resolution version of the Motorola Stature i9's. The i856's home screen displays a scrolling band of shortcuts for common tasks. There's also a nine-icon main menu with submenus for each category. The i856 threads SMS and MMS messages, but with such a stiff numeric keypad, you'll want to limit communications to very short text messages anyway. It's also not much of an Internet device; the i856's Openwave 7.21 browser brought up WAP pages at a glacial pace, though I couldn't get an actual benchmark result due to its lack of JavaScript support. Motorola claims there are POP3 e-mail, IM, and GPS clients, but I couldn't find any of them. Things improved on the multimedia side. The side-mounted, standard-size 3.5mm headphone jack was welcome. The microSD card slot supposedly only works with 8GB cards, but my 16GB SanDisk card worked fine. The slot is located underneath the battery cover (but not the battery). The music player was pretty responsive; it played my MP3 and AAC tracks, and displayed album art in a tiny thumbnail without problems. Playback was simple with the five-way control pad. Music even sounded passable through the built-in stereo speakers at the bottom of the handset, although it distorted horribly near maximum volume. Strangely, using Bluetooth devices with the i856 was a problem. Music sounded fine through Motorola S9-HD Bluetooth headphones, although it took three tries to get it to pair and connect correctly. The i856 also wouldn't pair with my benchmark Plantronics Voyager Pro Bluetooth headset, despite repeated attempts. The 1.3-megapixel camera is on the low end of the spectrum. But it was fine for throwaway shots; test photos looked reasonably sharp and detailed as long as there was enough light. Shutter speeds were quick at under one second. Recorded 352-by-288-pixel videos at 14 frames per second looked terribly pixilated, as if I had used digital zoom on a 176-by-144-pixel video. Motorola actually sets the latter as default—apparently with good reason. There's an on-board video player that worked fine with camcorder videos, but the app refused to find any of the standalone videos on my microSD card. If you want to save over $100, the $59 Motorola i335 is a simpler, candy bar-style phone that gets voice quality right and goes very loud. But its budget 130-by-130-pixel LCD and archaic UI look more 2004 than 2009. Buyers with extra cash on hand should check out the $299 Motorola Stature i9. While it's a more traditional flip design and lacks a standard-size headphone jack, the Stature i9 includes a nicer, higher-resolution LCD screen, a more powerful 3.1-megapixel camera, and a more comfortable numeric keypad. Spec Data
* Price as Tested: $169.99 Street
* Service Provider: Boost
* Operating System: Other
* Screen Size: 2.2 inches
* Screen Details: 176-by-220 TFT LCD screen
* Camera: Yes
* Megapixels: 1.3 MP
* 802.11x: Yes
* Bluetooth: Yes
* Web Browser: Yes
* Network: iDen
* Bands: 800
* High-Speed Data: 1xRTT
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