AT A GLANCE

• 2.8-inch resistive QVGA touchscreen
• Solar panel
• 3.2 megapixel camera with LED flash
• Forward-facing VGA camera for video conferencing
• Sports tracker

The Puma phone is a solid device that fits comfortably in the hand.  A little extra weight is added by the solar panel at the back.  This is a nice green touch that unfortunately fails to add more than negligible amounts of power to the phone.  You still need to plug the phone into the charger in order to use it.  A solar tracker lets you know exactly how much energy has been absorbed from the sun and what it has been diverted to, like minutes of MP3 playback time, for example.

GOING GREEN?

Let’s get the moans out the way first

As a social media portal, the Puma phone is less than adequate.  The Facebook mobile site is fairly standard, but the Twitter app doesn’t support retweets, notifications or hashtags, and requires you to log on EVERY SINGLE TIME you enter it.  To describe this as irritating would be a very mild understatement.  I seldom use Flickr or YouTube, but other reviewers have noted that on the Puma Phone these are for browsing only, with no capacity to upload new material.

Dylan, the Puma Phone cougar, is clearly a boy and not a girl because his phone doesn’t multitask very well. Music playing in the background causes all other functions to slow down to early analogue-era speeds.  And if a message comes through while music is playing, the music just stops, and doesn’t resume play.

DYLAN, THE PUMA COUGAR

Final moan of the day is dedicated to the resistive touchscreen.  Quite a firm pressure is required to activate a command, which makes typing a slow business, either on the portrait-format multitap keyboard, or the landscape-format Qwerty keyboard.  

There is at least a buzzing feedback sensation that lets you know whether the screen has registered your command or not, but the process remains slow and cumbersome.

Now for the good bits 

I had high hopes for the Puma Phone as a workout buddy and I was not disappointed.  The sports page is accessible by nifty, thumb-flick scrolling that almost makes up for the slow typing capacity.  This filmreel-type scrolling to access different menus goes from left to right, as well as up and down, and is one of the nicest features of the phone.  

The sports page includes a cycling tracker, a running tracker, a compass and a timer.  The running tracker includes a pedometer and also tracks speed and distance.  You can also visualise your route on a map thanks to GPS.  All of these applications live up to their promises, with no disappointments lying in wait for the user.

Turns ons

• Solid, attractive build
• Partially solar-powered
• Dylan the cougar (no, he’s not a virtual pet, but I still dig him)
• Sports tracker – it’s comprehensive and it works
• Fun and user-friendly menu scrolling

Turn offs

• Poor social media apps
• Slow resistive touchscreen
• Phone becomes laggy when music is playing

Price: R3099.00 (through Vodacom)