Ubergizmo in Japan: Hands-on with the Casio GzOne Type-R

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I want it!!

Better late than never: we should have posted it earlier, but I have to admit that I was more interested by tasting new sushis. We had the chance to play with Casio's latest cellphone: the GzOne Type-R during the launch at KDDI's design center. We have been told by KDDI that we were the very first consumers to touch the device.

From the outside, the GzOne is a nicely designed handset that's shiny with a very sporty (may be even aggressive look). Compared to other phones here, it's a bit chunky, but it's surprisingly light (with the battery).

On the inside it's even better. The finish and the quality of the materials is very good. The phone felt solid. The 2.2" QVGA (240x320 screen is very sharp. It's more dpi than the large majority of US cellphones. Reading on this screen is very comfortable. The keypad is nice and it is indeed backlit when in use.

One of the novelties with this phone is the use of Macromedia's Flash for the user interface. There's a bunch of animations and it is all pretty smooth. The theme of the UI is "Racing". Each model has its own UI theme.

Even though it's a 3G phone, I was not impressed by the speed at which we want to Google's website, or to Ubergizmo.com. The integrated browser really had a hard time with our website. That was a bit disappointing.

I found the shock-absorber invasive, even if it looks fairly good. I wish that it was more discreet. I love the external round-shaped screen/watch. I know a lot of people who don't wear watches because they use their phones, they would be happy with this clock.

In the end, this is a phone that I wish we could have in the USA. It's nice, 3G and light. My first wish for any device is to get a really good screen. And if you think that 240x320 on a 2.2-inch screen is good, I can tell you that Casio has a 480x640 (VGA) 2.2" LCD display working in their labs already.

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