The Android is an impressive device, but out of many people's price range. Never fear – here's the T-Mobile Pulse. Designed to be a low-cost Android – the first to be available on prepay –  it's had some of its bells and whistles removed to bring the price down.

Social networking has fallen by the wayside and the on-screen keyboard lags a bit, but it still offers excellent web browsing and, for a low-cost smartphone, the Pulse performs well.

Manufactured by Huawei, the Pulse fits comfortably in the hand, with smooth, rounded edges. It's sleek and glossy, with a large, 3.5-inch touch-screen. It's nothing new, but is nonetheless a good-looking handset that feel great to hold, especially in landscape mode.

Underneath the screen sit four buttons and a trackball. On the sides are the power switch, camera button, volume control and a microSD card slot.

 

Navigation

The capacitive touch-screen is sensitive with no delay. To display the menu, simply press and hold.
There are three homescreens you can customise with applications, live folders and widgets.

You only have Android programmes to choose from on the Pulse, with no extras from the manufacturer or T-Mobile. This is a real shame – and our main problem with the handset: the powerful Android operating system has no chance to shine without an appropriate interface. You can sync your contacts with MyCommunity, an online service that will come live in November, but you can't do it with Facebook or other popular social networking sites.

There are also some glitches with usability. Android handsets such as the HTC Hero will prompt you to switch on Wi-Fi when you open your web browser, or GPS when you launch sat-nav – the Pulse doesn't do either or these. And to turn on GPS, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, you need to either go into the Settings menu or, as we had to do, download Battery Widget from the Marketplace.

 

Internet and messaging

If you're after an emailing device, you may want to look elsewhere, as the on-screen keyboard lags somewhat. There is also no spacebar in the number mode of the QWERTY keyboard, so to get a space you have to go back to alphabet mode, put in your space, then return to number mode. It's a small glitch, but does get annoying over time. Other than that, though, the touch-screen itself is excellent, and on-point autocorrect a useful tool.

To set up push-email, the Pulse automatically searches for and downloads server settings, but it's not intuitive. The Gmail and RoadSync clients sync with Microsoft Exchange so you can get push-email on work accounts. Also, the fact that you can scroll between three keyboards isn't made clear.

 

Internet Browsing

 

Web browsing, however, is a seamless experience, thanks to the fact you can use it in landscape mode like a tablet, and a full HTML browser that handles websites with ease whether they are mobile-optimised or not. It’s easy to hit your chosen link and you can zoom with either the zoom keys or by going into full-page view and moving the magnifying box – this is very effective. The hard back key takes you back, where and you can view all your recently viewed web pages.

 

Sat-nav

 

The GPS service is excellent. We got a very quick fix in less than a second. Google Maps works really well, with the usual ease of use, and the standard map, satellite and terrain views are available – but not street view. Other GPS applications include the Layar, an augmented reality browser.

 

The verdict

The is a very pared-down Android compared with other models on the market, but it's still a good phone, largely thanks to the operating system. You can fill it out with social networking applications and widgets, which are available from the Android Marketplace. For a well-priced prepay Android device, the T-Mobile Pulse is a job well done.