TryPhone makes cell phone shopping easier

John Chan | Jan 15, 2008

If you want to try out a mobile phone before buying it, you have a few options. One of them is to borrow a friend's, though you need to have a friend with the model you want. Another is to swing by a shop to fiddle with it while under the uncomfortable scrutiny of a mobile phone salesman. If neither of those options appeals to you, perhaps TryPhone will.

This new Web site has virtual mobile phones which run like the actual devices. When you click on a phone model, an image of the device loads on your browser with buttons you can click on. You can then operate the image as if it were a real phone, going into menus, pretending to make a call. It operates only up to a few menu levels deep, so not everything works. But we found it good enough to get a decent feel of the interface.

The models listed are US-centric and aren't very plentiful. The homepage says more handsets will be added weekly. Some of the mobiles already available online are the Apple iPhone, BlackBerry Pearl and HTC Shadow.

It's a good idea, if you ask us. We were only a tad disappointed that it didn't show what's behind our LCD monitor when we hit the camera button on the virtual phone.

TryPhone | Via Cool Hunting

Filed under: Mobile Phones
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