T-Mobile MyTouch Updated

T-Mobile recently updated their MyTouch phone.  It’s always been a simple to use phone and now it’s even easier.  A unique feature to the MyTouch is the “Genius” button, which is a green circle with a “g” on it.  It is one of the touchscreen buttons always available at the bottom of the phone, along with the “menu,” Home,” and “back” buttons.  Clicking on the Genius button gives you the ability to make voice commands such as,   “Call Mom” “Text Jennifer” “Search for Kentucky Fried Chicken” “Navigate to…” “Make Reservations at…”   There are many great ways to use the Genius button to decrease the amount of typing you need to do while using the phone hands free.  The Genius button is powered by Nuance Diction, which is the leader in talk to text technologies.  My old MyTouch phone used this technology too, but now there is so much more you can do with it.

• Genius button – enabling talk to text
• Built-in tutorials to learn how to use the phone
• Included apps like Google Search, Gmail, Navigation, YouTube, Google Maps, Google Play (Android apps marketplace)
• Physical camera button on side of camera
• Protruded on/off button on top of phone (making it easy to feel/find)
• Universal mini USB charging cord, which most likely works on other devices a person has
• LED 4 inch screen is a good size…not the largest but certainly not the smallest
• 5 MP Camera – takes good pictures in good lighting
• Downloads – the myTouch has a tray when you click on the all apps button to show you what apps are open and what you have downloaded

Not-So-Friendly User Features

• There are no visual, quick-glance indicators to alert you of incoming texts, e-mail’s, or voicemail’s.  In order to find out, you have to click on each of these areas to check.  I can’t tell you how many texts and voicemail’s I didn’t respond to because I simply didn’t check.  There are some small pictures at the very top of the phone screen, but they are not easily recognizable what they are nor what they mean.  This is my biggest concern for the phone
• The hard camera button on the side of the phone only works once you have opened the screen saver.  Some mobile phones allow you to go straight to the camera without having to turn off the screen saver.  You have to press the button pretty hard for the camera to appear, but I’m sure this prevents accidental bumps from turning on your camera
• The keyboard is horrible to type on, most of my words turn out wrong.  I have finally resorted to using the voice button to talk my texts, which works pretty well overall, when there is Wi-Fi or a good mobile cellular signal
• The auto-rotate doesn’t work well.  Many times I have tried to rotate pictures or webpages to make them bigger and easier to see, but the phone would not rotate them
• The camera does not take good pictures at night-time

A Mother’s Perspective