Dmobo M900 Disney edition

Design
The M900 will appeal to fans of the celebrity mouse with its attractive white or silver leather design blended with cute miniature Mickey icons. Even the camera lens component of the phone is shaped with the outline of the famous head motif at the top left corner of the cover, in place of the standard round lenses.

As with most clamshells, the Dmobo M900 comes with two onboard LCDs. The 1.9-inch 262K-color TFT panel is the main screen, while the smaller external LCD acts as a secondary display. While in idle mode, the outer screen displays Disney images and animations together with the default clock.

Once the phone is flipped open, Mickey Mouse fans are treated to an eyeful of the character's head and ears, which double as control and navigation buttons on the keypad. The Send and End buttons are also imprinted with Mickey's famous glove icons and light up in a cool shade of green and pink upon pressing. We found the keypad nicely spaced and relatively easy for SMS messaging.

Overall, we weren't impressed with the ergonomics of the M900. We found it a tad too plasticky and its rectangular shape difficult to grip when making calls. Having said that, the clamshell is a handy size to carry around. The phone cover also flips open easily using the thumb.

The Mickey Mouse theme isn't limited to just the phone's exterior design. The icons and animations as well as ringtones also feature Mickey-centric designs, which should appeal even more to fans of the cartoon character.

To go with the whole Mickey Mouse theme, Dmobo has bundled its earpiece, shaped in the design of the character's head, with the M900. Interestingly, the three fingers of Mickey Mouse are used as the microphone on the handsfree kit.

Features
The M900 is typically what most people will call a no-frills phone. It has a 262K-color 160 x 128-pixel display which we found to be just tolerable in terms of resolution. The onboard 1.3-megapixel camera comes with an automatic LED flash that functions in low-light conditions.

The sub-LCD screen on the cover allows users to take self-portraits by pressing the camera key on the side edge of the phone. Another interesting feature is the photo editor which allows you to include text or change the filter exposure setting after you've taken your photos. Adding to the whole Disney experience are built-in photo frames which let you customize captured images with fun character pictures.

There are five different types of shutter sounds available, though we found two of them more annoying than useful. And if you are thinking of using the M900 for spy work or covert reconnaissance missions, forget it. There are no options to disable the shutter sound on the handset.

Our biggest gripe about the M900 is its sluggish camera operation. Clearly not built for capturing candid shots, the Dmobo handset takes an excruciating 5 seconds for the camera screen to load. On top of that, the images and videos take quite a while to save. What's worse is that video is recorded without sound and limited to 15-second footages.

While operating the phone, users will be delighted with the abundance of animated Disney graphics. For instance, the display shows Mickey posting a letter each time you send an SMS, looking pleased when you have incoming messages, cycling when you make a call, with Minnie looking sad when you miss a call. There's more. Mickey and Minnie are shown taking off on a plane during incoming calls and driving away when you switch off your phone.

While we give credit to the designers for coming up with a good Disney-themed handset, this is not a phone for everyone, particularly heavy SMS texters. For one thing, assigning the same button for the OK function in the SMS menu and Send option is a bad idea as it resulted in accidental sending of empty messages during tests. The input method also resets to the default eZi mode after each use. We were unable to key in single letters and numbers in eZi mode except for a, b, c, i, g, h, 1 and 4. To type in the other isolated letters and numbers, we had to switch to abc or 123 mode.

There are no wireless (infrared and Bluetooth) or 3G connectivity options on the M900, which is somewhat of a disappointment. The commercial unit comes with the PC synchronization software for uploading more tunes onto its 20MB onboard memory. However, with the limited storage and no card expansion slot, we seriously doubt that anyone will consider using this phone as a replacement for an MP3 player.

Performance
Throughout the tests, we didn't encounter any major problems with the M900. Our test unit worked reliably for both calls and reception. On a full charge, it lasted approximately two days based on normal call and text usage. Those who are always on the go with a notebook will appreciate the USB-charging capabilities on the M900. On the average, it takes about 1 hour 45 minutes to fully charge the battery via USB.

We weren't too impressed with the phone's below-average sound quality, especially when we were trying to relive the Disney memories with its built-in tunes. You won't find high-quality images from the onboard camera, though its 1.3-megapixel resolution should still suffice for occasional 4R prints.