Pantech Slate Review

Permalink: Pantech Slate Review by Franz Bicar

Pantech has released a few high-end phones in the market. You have the Pantech Duo which is a smartphone, the Helio Ocean is more or less also a smartphone, and the Pantech Matrix which has HSDPA speed along with multimedia features like a megapixel camera and a music player. These phones cost a lot and this makes probable users to have second thoughts in purchasing this phone.

The Pantech Slate, on the other hand, is Pantech’s venture into the low-budget, affordable handsets. is fairly slim as far as features go, with only a 1.3-megapixel camera and Bluetooth as its main capabilities. It’s also pretty slim design claims to be the world’s thinnest messaging phone.

The Slate measures around 4.2 inches long by 2.5 inches wide by 0.39 inch thick. At first glance, it looks like a very slim version of Peek or of a BlackBerry. As mentioned, the Slate claims to be the thinnest messaging phone in the world at the time of its release.

The Slate has a very nice 2.2-inch diagonal display with 260,000-color support and 176×220 pixel resolution. Images appeared saturated with color and text looked legible and sharp. The menu interface is easy to navigate and use. You can adjust the backlight time, brightness, font style, and the menu type.

The navigation array sits underneath the display, and consists of two soft keys, a square navigation toggle with middle confirmation key, a dedicated speakerphone key, a Clear key, and the Send and End/power keys. The entire middle square toggle is curved and raised above the surface of the phone. The rest of the keys have alternating bumps going down either the left or right side.

Underneath the navigation array is the full QWERTY keyboard. The keyboard is quite roomy and has raised buttons for easy texting and typing. The keyboard has the typical function and shift keys and a dedicated key for the messaging in-box.

Again, the Slate is a lower-end phone than what you would normally see with Pantech’s handsets. But if you want simplicity and don’t care much for those high-tech gadgetry, then this phone might deserve a second glance for you.