Preview Your Next Cell Phone--Virtually

You need a new cell phone--but you can't make up your mind which one to get. Sound familiar?

Given all the cool handsets around, with new ones coming out all the time, it's no wonder people have difficulty deciding. And all the user and/or expert review sites in the world can't substitute for your own hands-on evaluations--but who has the time to traipse from store to store to play with every model you're considering?

A Web site called TryPhone might help you narrow down the field. It shows large replicas of selected handsets, complete with a few clickable keys that activate the screen and demos for important tasks such as creating a new contact or SMS message. The site also provides user reviews and technical specifications.

I wouldn't make a buying decision based on TryPhone alone, but at least it gives you a pretty good idea of how a handset will work and, especially, what the user interface will look like.

Remote Access for Phone Developers

TryPhone has an interesting pedigree. It's a relatively new undertaking by a company called DeviceAnywhere (formerly MobileComplete), whose principal business is a service that provides cell phone application developers access via the Internet to real handsets on carrier networks worldwide. The service isn't cheap, but for companies that develop and test phone applications, using DeviceAnywhere is a lot less expensive than, say, buying dozens of devices and sending a team of engineers out in the field to try a new application on an overseas network.

DeviceAnywhere lets developers try up to nearly 900 different combinations of devices and networks. But the TryPhone beta doesn't have a lot of phones--only 12 as of late April, including such popular items as the iPhone and the Motorola Razr 2.

That's because even after the company spends ten days setting up remote access for a DeviceAnywhere unit, it has to spend another ten days generating the Ajax-based virtual phones on TryPhone, explains DeviceAnywhere marketing director Leila Modarres. The company is ramping up its staff, however, and it hopes to have between 100 and 150 handsets up by the holiday season, she adds.

The company also plans to increase the interactivity of the virtual handsets. Right now you can click navigation buttons to reach top-level menus, but if you try to virtually type an SMS message or enter a new contact, a video demo using canned input kicks in. "We do intend to add a more free-form way of interacting," Modarres says.

TryPhone will never replace an in-person encounter with a handset, nor does it claim to. You can evaluate keyboards and displays only with actual hardware. But playing with the site's virtual handsets costs nothing, and once TryPhone offers a critical mass of current models, it could be a useful (and fun) screening aid--which is all that it's trying to be.