Esc! But don't get lost

The Esc! doesn't look like much, harkening back to the days when mobile phones were chunky affairs. If you can't remember those days, just have a look at what Richard Gere uses in Pretty Woman.

The screen, although black and white, is a massive 14 line equivalent with 10 lines of text to play with, all the better do display maps for the Global Positioning System(GPS) function. The downside of such a large screen is a large and weighty phone, 12.9cm long and 177g.

The phone has a fairly standard keypad with a power button on the side, and a chunky aerial sticking up the top. The main indication of GPS capabilities is the flip up aerial on the back of the phone, designed to pick up the weak signals put out by GPS satellites.

So who needs a GPS/mobile phone anyway? Benefon has released a few of these handsets to the market, but the Esc! is targeted towards the adventurous types, such as those who go yachting or four-wheel-driving. The GPS part has a lot of cool features, but you will need to read the manual carefully in order to learn how to use them.

The most important feature in our mind is the map option. The phone comes with the world map installed, and you can visit a Web site to download other maps, such as city maps. It's a fee-based service, but you get 500 tiles free with the phone. The site only has some topographical maps for Australia, but we have been assured more Australian coverage is on the way.

The maps can be downloaded to the phone via a cable, and you get some software with the phone that allows you to manipulate the memory on your computer. This software is actually some of the more useful and intuitive that we've come across.

The phone allows you to plan routes, and can be set to automatically send confirmation messages when waypoints are reached. This feature is useful for couriers and other mobile workers, and should also help ease parents worries when their little darlings are off hiking or some other adventure. Of course, the phone still has to be able to get coverage. GPS signals are weak, and can be blocked by buildings, trees and even people if conditions are poor.

There is also a Friend Find feature, which allows you to request the position of a friend with an Esc! phone, who then replies -- if they want you to know where they are. The information is sent via the SMS service. You receive the a set of co-ordinates, which isn't terribly useful. Their position also shows up on any maps you have, which is useful.

You can set the phones up so you track their movement, or they track yours, or both, and there are a variety of screens to display the GPS data. You can view a map, which shows your position along with current speed. The Guide screen displays a compass with an arrow pointing in the direction of your target while the Position screen has your coordinates, time, elevation and a bar graph of satellite signal reception. The movement screen shows your speed, odometer, destination and figures relating to that.

The speedometer works fairly well, but the elevation gave results that we sometimes thought were strange.

The regular phone services are basic, but serviceable. They are found under the GSM menu and include Phone Book, Messages, Recent Calls, Network Services and Help Desk. The Help Desk works by sending an SMS to another country and having them call you.

The SMS works well, though initially we had trouble finding punctuation marks. After we read the manual (we keep telling you-read the manual with this phone!) we found the system a lot quicker to use than those found on many other phones.

The accessories are found under the main menu, and includes the standard alarm clock, calendar, notepad, calculator and games. We initially had trouble with the alarm clock because the time kept reverting back to the incorrect time after we changed it, but eventually we noticed (after reading the manual) that we had left the small box labelled -satellite time" marked.

There are seven games on the phone, of the very basic Space Invaders and Minesweeper level. The battery lasted from 4.30 pm Monday to 8.30 pm Thursday, or 72 hours. The GPS was not on for this entire period, as GPS functionality eats up a lot of power. There are some energy saving settings for GPS, where it only checks position periodically. This is important because with GPS at full power the battery will last less than a day.

All in all, despite the GPS wow! factor, this phone is not designed to impress your friends at parties. It doesn't have a colour screen, GPRS or even WAP. It doesn't support MMS. The hook with this phone is strictly the GPS-centric features, and that's the only reason to pick up an Esc!

Benefon Esc!
Company: Benefon
Price: AU$1475.10
Distributor: Australian Business Telephone Company
Purchase: Online

(Back to top)