Review: ZTE C88
Two things to note here. Because we were roaming, we had no access to MetroPCS's data applications. So far everything we've spoken about was unaffected by this, Moving forward, however, a lot of our experiences were governed by the fact that the network wouldn't allow us to access a number of features.
MetroPCS has loaded with C88 with the ability to send SMS, MMS, IM and email messages. So whichever way you like to stay in touch with people, the options are there. The default way to send a message is via SMS. During the process of composing a message, you have the option of inserting a picture or a tune.
Emails and IMs can only be sent from the @Metro application. Setting up an AIM account was no big deal, and neither was setting up mail accounts. MetroPCS included the settings for Gmail, Earthlink and AOL accounts, but strangely leaves out Yahoo and Hotmail/MSN. Why it would ignore these two large email providers is beyond me. You can choose to set up "other" POP3 email systems. This process is a little bit more labor intensive, but you can add a Yahoo account here if you wish.
Aside from connectivity issues, one major issue both Rich and I have with the C88 is its T9-like auto-word-complete program. ZTE does not license T9, so it uses a home-brewed version.
As you begin to type, rather than appear in the main message box, the words form at the bottom of the screen. If what you type can lead to a number of different words, you get a lot of options. The dictionary of the C88 is definitely strong, but the basic functionality of typing with this predictive text program is so frustrating that I gave up and switched to regular triple tapping.
Once you have the word picked along the bottom of the screen, you'd expect that hitting the space key would automatically send it up to the message. Not so. You have to hit the center of the D-pad to select it. Since your hand naturally jumps to the bottom of the keypad, I found it infuriating to have to continually move my thumb all the way up to the D-pad to "enter" a word into the message. Granted, we understand that this will become a learned behavior over time, but for us, it was sheer pain.
In addition, once you send a word to the text box, it automatically inserts a space after the word. This also takes getting used to, and I found myself inserting two spaces into numerous messages through force of habit. And if you want punctuation to follow a word without a space in between the two you have to insert it before you send the word up to the main text box. Again, another unnatural way to compose messages that is different from any other predictive text program we've used.
We would recommend that ZTE spend a little bit more time on this software.
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