Toshiba Portege G900 review

Toshiba Portege G900 Review

Reviewed by: Andrew Lim

Reviewed on: 24 July 2007

This well-connected smart phone runs on the new and improved Windows Mobile 6 (Professional) operating system and comes with a nifty fingerprint reader on the back for added security.

It's currently available SIM-free from eXpansys for about £400.

Design
The Toshiba G900 is very similar in design to the HTC TyTN, but we don't think it looks as good. Not only is the G900 quite chunky, but there's also a large border around the screen, and we're not fans of the grey and black colour scheme.

The slide out Qwerty keypad also left us a little underwhelmed -- the top section is too close to the bottom of the slider, making it more difficult to type emails or text messages than on certain other Qwerty keypads.

The fingerprint reader on the back is surprisingly useful if you don't want to password protect the G900

The G900 simply lacks style -- it's unlikely you'll want to show it off to your mates. It's just a little too big, too heavy and too ugly to make a good impression when you drag it out of your pocket.

Features
It may not be much of a looker, but this handset comes jam-packed with features. Connectivity options are particularly impressive with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 3G and HSDPA (3.5G) on offer.

There's also a fingerprint reader on the back for accessing the handset without the need for a password. Although this might sound like a gimmick we did actually find this useful, and it worked much better than expected.

Once the G900 has recognised your fingerprint, you're presented with the Windows Mobile 6 Professional interface. This is quite fiddly to navigate and does involve using the provided stylus for certain tasks.

If you don't like using the stylus, you can access several of the G900's features, including the 2-megapixel camera on the back, using the provided soft keys. Unfortunately, the camera doesn't have autofocus or a flash. There's a secondary camera on the front if you want to make video calls.

Other features are tied in to the Windows Mobile 6 Professional OS, such as Windows Media Player, which supports MP3 and WMA files among others, and Internet Explorer, which lets you browse full HTML pages.

The G900 won't win any beauty competitions but at least it's packed with features

We set the G900 up on our Microsoft Exchange Server to receive push email -- very useful if you're often on the move. The fast connection options mean that emails can be downloaded very quickly.