Review: Casio G'zOne Brigade
Bluetooth
I had no trouble pairing the phone with a variety of Bluetooth devices, including an earpiece, stereo headphones and a portable stereo speaker. The earpiece sounded pretty good, even better than the phone's built in microphone, according to my callers. Reception was a problem with all the headsets, and sound would drop out often if I shifted the device around or got too far from it. Stereo speakers also sounded good playing music from this phone. I had trouble with the object push protocol. Even though I paired the phone successfully with my Macbook Air, I was never able to complete a file transfer from the image gallery to my laptop.
Clock
To check the time quickly, the Casio Brigade offers a large clock that takes up most of the external OLED display. You can choose either a digital or analog, but the analog was tough to read, thanks to a busy design. One complaint I have is that e-mail notifications are too persistent; the new e-mail message takes up the whole screen and you have to dismiss it before you can check the time, which is a step too many.
GPS
The Casio G'zOne Brigade uses VZ Navigator for turn-by-turn directions. It's a nice edition of the software, though it's not as developed and friendly as the newest version I saw on the Motorola Devour. Still, VZ Navigator supports spoken input, so you can speak your destination or search terms and the phone will use an online server to interpret your instructions. This may be handy while driving, but the menus still require enough attention that I would always pull over before using this app. VZ Navigator did a fine job finding my favorite points of interest and guiding me on my trip. The maps could have been easier to manipulate; there seemed to be too many screens to scan through. But it still tracked me accurately and suggested alternate routes when I got lost. VZ Navigator even offers local movie times and event listings based on venues in your area, which is a nice bonus feature. There are no other GPS options for this phone, so if you want navigation you'll have to cough up the $10 monthly fee.
One thing the Casio Brigade lacks is a compass, a feature I enjoyed on the Casio G'zOne Boulder. It seems appropriate for this outdoors phone. I wish there were other appropriate GPS services, too. A trail map would be very cool, or even a sort of breadcrumb tracking service would be useful for hiking.
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Casio G'zOne Brigade
