A phone that shoots 30FPS Video? Meet XCute's DV1

We first talked about the DV1 from XCute Mobile back in February. The DV1 is noteable because it is not only one of the first 3 megapixel cameraphones available on the market, but because it is capable of shooting 30 frame per second video at VGA resolution. That is serious video. Well, only a few months have passed since that initial story and we now offer you a full hands on review. Since it is the multimedia capabilities that make the DV1 so special, I am going to spend a bit more time on those aspects of the phone and perhaps a bit less on the other more mundane parts.

XCute DV1

XCute DV1

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The DV1's Physical Design

But before we start talking about all of the features with a high gee-whiz factor, first let's talk about the physical design of the DV1. To the uninitiated, the DV1 probably looks like a slightly off-centered clamshell phone with a very beefy hinge. The DV1 isn't particularly large at 90mm x 46/61mm x 26mm (3.54" x 1.81/2.40" x 1.02"), or heavy at 121g (4.26oz), but that large diameter hinge certainly does make it look bigger than it really is. That hinge area is where you will find the camera lens, flash, and macro switch on one side, and the function dial on the other. Beneath that dial on the side of the phone is the volume/zoom control and what XCute calls the "shift" key. The body has some rough edges on it, particularly on the rear battery compartment cover, but nothing particularly obvious.

The top half of the folder is home to a very small and narrow external 65k color display (much smaller than the black area that surrounds it would suggest). The top half of the folder itself is attached to the rest of the phone with a rotating hinge that allows for 270 degrees of rotation, enough that you can twist it around and close the phone so that the main display shows - something that serves no real purpose as best I can tell. The reason for the hinge becomes clear when you start taking photos and recording videos, though, as it allows you to hold the device like a miniDV video recorder, in a somewhat gun-like setup. The hinge in my unit felt a bit weak and was a cause for concern, but XCute has told me that the hinge has been replaced with something more durable in the current handsets. The top of the device is where you will find a rather large speaker port. Under an attached rubber cover on the bottom of the DV1, you will find the miniSD card slot, the USB and headset port, and the power port.

The inside is where you will find the main display, which is capable of showing a whopping 16.7 million colors. That sounds very impressive, and the display does look good when viewing photos, but it is lacking when it comes to displaying the phone's UI. It almost appears that the pixels are arranged in a different pattern than is normal, often causing horizontal and vertical lines to look jagged, and causing awful artifacts on most text. The numeric keypad is quite nice, offering large and spacious keys. The 4-way directional controller (d-pad) is good enough, though a 5-way controller with a center button would have been welcomed. The softkeys are too narrow for my liking, something that becomes particularly obvious when the phone is configured for recording videos or shooting photos.

 

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