A Miniature Phone With iPhone Swagger

The Neonode N2 offers an array of applications, including a music player, a Web browser, and a 2-megapixel camera.

The Neonode N2 looks nothing like a typical cell phone. It's about the size of a matchbox, measuring just 1.85 inches wide by 3 inches tall by 0.58 inch thick and weighing a mere 2.1 ounces. Its minimalist style slightly resembles the iPhone's--and on a few applications, it works sort of like it, too.

Wrapped in a rubberized, matte black shell, the N2 looks more rugged than the iPhone, but in other respects its external design is similar. The simple front consists of a 2-inch touch screen and a stiff (and hard-to-press) navigation button. Two holes--one on either side of the nav button--provide stylistic effect but appear not to have any practical purpose. 

In lieu of a physical keypad, the N2 offers an on-screen version. Alas, the phone doesn't provide a virtual QWERTY keyboard as well; instead, you get alphanumeric keys with T9 predictive text support. My cousin's teen-age kids, who are fast texters, probably wouldn't mind the lack of QWERTY keys. But for most users, multitapping to write a text message would be too laborious. To reduce the load on your fingers, you could copy and save common phrases, and then reuse them.

The volume control and power button are located on the left side of the N2, and a 2-megapixel camera is on the back. A proprietary connector at the top accommodates various accessories--my test unit came with earphones, an AC adapter, and a USB cable. The physical connection felt loose, though; it didn't deliver a firm, snapped-in click the way most plugs do.

The Neonode N2 lets you scroll through contacts by swiping your finger up or down the screen.

The N2's LCD supports swiping gestures, but unlike on the iPhone, the gestures must be done on specific areas of the screen. Neonode provides a series of arrows along the sides of the device to help guide you in navigating the interface. For example, the upward-pointing arrow on the lower left side of the screen tells you to swipe from the bottom up. This particular action opens the Start menu, where you can access applications such as Contacts, Camera, and Messages.

The Start menu contains a tabbed interface that you can scroll through to view more apps, including a music player, a video player, and a calendar. The N2 lets you move menu items around and place your favorite ones on the same tab. To go from one tab to another, I swiped one of the upper arrows to the left or to the right--a relatively intuitive setup.

Unfortunately, none of the arrows along the bottom of the screen are labeled to indicate where you'll go after swiping them. Consequently, you must either consult the online manual before using the N2 or learn by trial-and-error. After some practice, I eventually became familiar with the user interface. But Neonode would have done better to provide pop-up labels that would appear when users touch the arrows at the bottom. The company does have a video posted on its Web site that shows how the phone works. The video was preloaded on my test unit, too.

As a phone, the N2 won't please everybody. If you like tiny devices and can live with mediocre call quality, you'll probably be okay with this handset. But if you value call quality and the comfort of using a larger phone during calls, you might be disappointed. To me, the handset volume was uncomfortably low: Even when I had it set at full blast, I could barely hear the people I talked to. Using the earphones helped.

The Neonode N2 features a sporty and minimal design--and is about the size of a box of matches.

Some users may find that holding the diminutive phone against their ear feels a bit awkward. It barely covered my (by no means Dumbo-size) ear--yielding an odd sensation. The GSM cellular signal depends on the SIM card you use; in the United States, your main options are AT&T and T-Mobile. I tested the phone with an AT&T SIM. Unfortunately, AT&T's coverage in my San Francisco neighborhood is spotty. Calls made and taken in other parts of the city worked fine.

The N2 lets you send and receive text messages, but it lacks an integrated instant messaging client that would let you chat with buddies on AIM, ICQ, or Yahoo Messenger. The device's music and video players were a pleasure to use. My test unit's preloaded songs sounded good and the videos looked impressively clear on the phone's small screen. Complemented by decent-sounding speakers, the music and video playback made for good entertainment. I also liked being able to listen to tunes while surfing the Web. To add more tunes or movies on the device, you must either transfer them from your PC via USB or sideload them to the phone's memory card. Once the files are loaded, you can create and edit music playlists on the phone.

Less enjoyable to work with was the inconsistent and buggy browser. For instance, if the contents of a single Web page didn't fit within the N2's small display, I had to use the navigational on-screen arrows or the nav button below the LCD. The iPhone's swipe-any-part-of-the-Web-page approach works a hundred times better.

The GPRS data connection, which supports dial-up speeds at best, was excruciatingly slow in my tests. The N2 doesn't support Wi-Fi for a potentially faster connection. The phone isn't preconfigured to run on a particular GSM carrier, so you must set it up to work on your carrier's GPRS network. You also have to set up MMS (multimedia) messaging (for messages that contain photo or video attachments).

Neonode estimates that the N2's battery will last for up to 4 hours of talk time and for 8.25 days on standby. These estimates slightly exceeded the battery time I experienced, no doubt because I frequently accessed power-hungry apps like the media player.

Currently the N2 is very expensive at $606 (as of March 6, 2008), in large part because it's available only as a European import. So you end up paying its value in euros--which are at a higher rate than U.S. dollars--plus value-added tax. Is it worth the hefty investment? I recommend waiting until Neonode localizes the price for the U.S. market. You do get an unusually small, unlocked (no carrier contract) phone and a good media player, but these amenities don't fully compensate for its shortcomings--limits on the swipable screen, low audio volume on calls, an inconsistent browser, and a slow data connection. You can find more-robust smart phones that cost a lot less--the Palm Centro ($200 with a two-year, AT&T contract as of March 6, 2008), for example.

Neonode says that it will officially distribute the N2 in the United States in the second quarter of this year. The price hasn't been set, though the company says that it could cost between $399 and $499. If a U.S. carrier were to subsidize the phone--lowering the price to, say, $100 or $150, and improving the Internet experience--the Neonode N2 would be a more palatable option.