Digital Cameras

Megapixels: This term describes the highest resolution photo a camera can take. Often mistaken as the most important factor in a digital camera, a high megapixel count — such as 10MP or more — isn’t necessary for the average user unless he or she plans on heavily editing or enlarging photos. Most new digicams offer between five and eight megapixels, which is usually more than enough.

Optical or Digital Zoom: Optical zoom, determined by the physical movement of a lens, matters much more than digital zoom, which digitally alters an image using the camera’s internal computer. Camera companies still try to confuse potential buyers by listing a camera’s total zoom, or the optical and digital zooms multiplied together. Ignore total zoom numbers and instead focus on optical, which now averages around 5x for many new cameras.

Image Stabilization: When generously sized LCD viewing screens started replacing optical viewfinders, they also forced users to hold their cameras at arm’s length, making for plenty of blurry photographs. To remedy this, camera manufacturers have added image stabilization, tools once found only in high-end SLR models. Optical (also called “mechanical”) and digital image stabilization correct for unsteady hands and moving subjects, respectively. Cameras with both types advertise dual image stabilization, which corrects for both situations and costs more.

Mobile Devices

HSDPA and EVDO: HSDPA, or High Speed Downlink Packet Access, is the name for AT&T’s 3G, or third generation, mobile network that operates at roughly the speed of a slower DSL in a home. HSDPA is available in most major metropolitan areas and is seen as the competitor to Verizon and Sprint’s EVDO (Evolution Data Only) networks, though the popular iPhone runs on AT&T’s network using Wi-Fi and EDGE technology rather than HSDPA.

Multi-Touch Technology: Most popularly found on Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch, multi-touch is starting to show up in other products, such as in Microsoft’s Surface, a coffee-table-like computer. Rather than just responding to on-screen touches, this technology enables moving, resizing and zooming pictures and Web pages using one or more fingers simultaneously. Look for many more devices — mobile and otherwise — to incorporate multi-touch in the future.

GPS: Global Positioning Systems are most often found in cars — either built-in or on portable devices from companies like Garmin and TomTom. These gadgets use satellite technology to determine geographic location, and high-end models even display Web content like news and weather along with directions. GPS integration in mobile devices can be used to plot routes in cars, can help users find nearby businesses while on the go and can link friends by showing one where the other is located and what they’re doing.

Digital Music

DRM: Digital rights management is a set of standards that protect the intellectual property rights of online content like music and videos, preventing it from being illegally distributed across the Web. In the past year, Vivendi’s Universal Music Group, Apple and (most recently) Sony BMG said they will start selling DRM-free versions of songs, often for a higher price. In Apple’s iTunes store, these files are called “iTunes Plus” and aren’t restricted like other iTunes content.

MP3: MP3 files are open, without any DRM restrictions. Files that you rip (copy) from your own CDs are usually converted into MP3s, though iTunes users can automatically rip tracks into that program’s special format, called AAC. MP3 files can be uploaded to social-networking sites for sharing with friends and online communities.

These file types are protected by rights that tie them to specific players. Generally, AAC files make up the majority of tracks sold on Apple’s iTunes store and play only on Apple’s iPods; WMA files are Microsoft’s version of proprietary files.

Wi-Fi

The popularity of Wireless Fidelity, or Wi-Fi, brings this technology to more and more portable devices like the iPod Touch and Microsoft Zune and gives companies good reason to incorporate Wi-Fi receivers in new computers — laptops and desktops alike. While available in many flavors, different letters like b, g, a and n stand behind Wi-Fi’s more technical name, 802.11, to help discern one version from another according to characteristics like speed and compatibility. The latest version, “n,” offers the greatest range and speed, and “n” devices are usually compatible with earlier versions.

Televisions

HDTV: High-definition television has now become the standard, capable of displaying vastly better pictures, provided the source is also HD. Today’s more popular flat panel HD televisions are LCDs, or liquid crystal displays, though plasmas still hold their own. Recording HD content can’t be done with a regular digital video recorder; instead, a special HD recorder is required to capture this higher quality content.

480p vs. 1080i vs. 720p vs. 1080p: These numbers refer to the resolution, or sharpness, of a digital display, while “p” stands for progressive and “i” stands for interlaced. A resolution of 480p, known as EDTV or Enhanced Definition TV, is found most often in low-end plasmas or LCD screens. A TV with a resolution of 1080p is currently considered the Holy Grail, and costs the most. But 1080p pictures usually can’t be distinguished from less expensive 1080i or 720p pictures by average viewers at the typical distances from which most folks watch TV.

Blu-ray vs. HD DVD: Blu-ray and HD DVD are incompatible high-definition disc formats that continue to fight a seemingly endless battle to replace the DVD. The Blu-ray camp is led by Sony and the HD DVD camp is led by Toshiba. The two formats aren’t so different, technically speaking, but their very existence is confusing to consumers. The recent decision made by Time Warner’s Warner Bros. to use Blu-ray gives Sony’s side a boost, and now Viacom’s Paramount is rumored to be switching to Blu-ray from HD DVD. Dual-format players from Samsung and LG offer some solace.

Email: mossbergsolution@wsj.com

MobiTV, from MobiTV Inc., www.mobitv.com, gives people a way to watch television on their cellphones.

For lovers of portable video, the arguments in favor of TV on phones are speed and convenience. Rather than waiting to download movies, video podcasts and TV shows to a computer and then to transfer them to a portable player like an iPod, some would rather see current, live content streamed onto the device they already carry — their cellphone — whenever they want, wherever they are.

Live TV on cellphones isn’t new. We first tested it in 2004. But it was awful then, choppy and almost unviewable, because the cellular networks were too slow and the phones were too wimpy. So I decided to try it again.

Many cellphones are capable of displaying streamed television using built-in services, but few people are aware of these capabilities and not every phone will work as well as the next. The best results are delivered on devices with good quality screens that can retrieve and display the content using high-speed networks.

I used a mobile content-streaming service called MobiTV on three phones serviced by two carriers, Sprint Nextel Corp. and AT&T Inc.’s Cingular Wireless, watching a variety of shows on screens smaller than the palm of my hand. Monthly usage for watching cellphone TV with these two carriers costs about $25 and $30, respectively, on top of your voice plan. MobiTV is compatible with more than 150 handsets, offering roughly 40 channels — about half of which show live content like that found on your home TV.

All in all, MobiTV offers a fun and simple solution for people seeking TV on the run. High-quality images appeared on screen just moments after I opened the MobiTV application and an on-screen guide labeled each channel. TLC, ESPN, The Discovery Channel, The Oxygen Network and major news channels are entertaining enough. And though my eyes hurt after 30 minutes of watching such a small screen, I only ran into a few other snafus: on-screen images disappearing while audio continued, certain channels cutting out and lips moving out of sync with audio. In more cases than not, these instances were rare or corrected themselves in seconds.

Other carriers offer video clips that might easily be confused with MobiTV Inc.’s technology. Verizon Wireless, for example, offers its V Cast service. But V Cast requires that you download clips onto your device. Sprint and Cingular also offer video-on-demand options. But the MobiTV service streams content onto your phone, showing it just about a minute later than the same content on live TV.

If you don’t use Sprint or Cingular and you’d like to download MobiTV to your standard cellphone, or to your Palm or Windows Mobile smart phone, you can do so through third-party vendors like Handango.com; these options can be found on www.mobitv.com. Vendors charge about $10 a month on top of any data charges that you might owe your carrier.

MobiTV’s service includes a channel guide.

Sprint and Cingular encourage you to buy an unlimited monthly data plan in addition to your voice plan if you’ll be watching TV on your cellphone. Sprint calls its live-TV service Sprint TV Live — though it’s really MobiTV beneath the covers — and offers TV-inclusive data plans for $15, $20 or $25. These return 8, 13 and 25 channels respectively. Sprint’s exclusive content includes the NFL network. To further confuse matters, you can also buy stand-alone Sprint TV Live on top of those three data plans; it costs about $10 monthly. Cingular charges users about $20 for its unlimited data plan plus $10 for MobiTV usage. This carrier keeps the MobiTV name.

MobiTV worked relatively the same way on all three handsets with both carriers: two Windows Mobile devices, the Sprint PPC-6700 and Cingular 8525, and a basic cellphone, Samsung Electronics Co.’s SGH-A707 with Cingular’s 3G network. In my tests, MobiTV came pre-loaded on the devices, letting me simply select it from a list to start watching streaming content.

On the Cingular 8525, a smart phone running the Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system, I browsed through a guide until I found The Oxygen Network. The Isaac Mizrahi Show, not a favorite of mine, was just ending. It was followed by a quirky game show called “Can You Tell?”

MobiTV streams two types of programs: Live and Made for Mobile. Live shows are like those on your regular TV though slightly delayed and with different commercials in the local ad slots. I watched MSNBC’s “Hardball With Chris Matthews” using MobiTV and my regular TV, and an interview with Mia Farrow started about a minute earlier on my TV than it did on my mobile device.

Made for Mobile channels include special MobiTV content, such as music-video channels, or content for certain channels that MobiTV stitches together to show in a better format for mobile. The latter is the case with ESPN; in 15 minutes, I watched clips about football, Nascar, baseball, boxing and basketball with only a few quick commercials. In these snippets, however, lips weren’t synched with the audio.

I often opted to view content in full-screen mode, which, in 10 seconds, alters the image to take over the whole screen in horizontal view. A few times, while watching full-screen view, my on-screen content froze and had to restart in the regular view.

MobiTV says that using its service to watch programs saps battery at a rate equal to that of voice calls.

People who use digital video recorders at home to pause or rewind live TV will be disappointed to find you can’t do that with MobiTV. The company is hoping to offer these capabilities in the future. But because of the smaller screen, you probably won’t want to watch your mobile screen for as long as you would a regular TV, reducing the need to pause and rewind.

MobiTV’s services will never replace your home-entertainment center experience. But the ability to watch TV on your phone is a great way to stay plugged into news and entertainment. Just be sure that you’re using a fast network and a generously sized screen.

– Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Google has been branching out from its search-engine roots to offer a variety of Web-based applications. Some of these, especially Gmail and Google Maps, have been well received and are quite popular on computers. Now the company wants us to use these and other applications away from the computer, too — on mobile devices.

This week, we put Google’s suite of mobile programs through the ringer to see if we might let it infiltrate our on-the-go lifestyle as easily as we’ve let Google search become an everyday part of our computer’s browser. Google offers five Web applications for downloading onto your mobile device including Maps, Gmail, SMS, Search and News.

We focused on the first three programs to see how they would fare on a tiny device with a smaller screen that demands more scrolling to view information that is normally contained in a single screen on a computer.

Overall, we were pleasantly surprised by Google Maps for mobile, Gmail for mobile, and Google SMS (Short Messaging Service), a system that uses text messaging to find answers about certain topics. The programs are visually attractive on smaller screens, and didn’t require much practice, catering to people who want quick assistance without much fuss.

And Gmail for mobile lets you open attachments containing photos, Microsoft Word documents and PDFs — a capability typically only found on Treos, BlackBerrys and Windows Mobile smart phones, not cellphones.

Google Inc. isn’t alone in this field. Many companies, including its rival, Yahoo Inc., make mobile applications for cellphones, and this category is likely to keep growing.

We used three mobile devices for our Google tests: the $80 Samsung A900M cellphone from Sprint, the $225 Samsung Drift cellphone, from a new phone carrier called Helio and the $400 Palm Treo 700p with Verizon service (all prices include two-year contracts). Your cellphone carrier must use Java programming language to work with Maps and Gmail for mobile; Verizon does not. The Treo works with Google Maps for mobile but not with this new Gmail version. Any phone with text messaging capability can use Google SMS.

These Google mobile applications are free to download, but your cellphone carrier may charge you for Web browsing or text messaging, depending on your plan.

To download any of these applications, you can go to www.google.com/mobile and enter your cellphone number, triggering the site to send a text message to your device with a URL link for the program you want to download. Or you can enter the URL (found on the Web site) into your cellphone’s browser. We tried both methods with success, downloading Google Maps for mobile in 10 seconds during one test.

Our Sprint Samsung A900M came preloaded with Gmail for mobile, so we quickly entered our Gmail username and password to get started. In seconds, our screen was filled with up to six emails at a time, each clearly divided by lines. Each email’s subject, sender and date were visible on our tiny screen, written in a legible font that didn’t seem squeezed. New emails were listed in bold type.

We used the phone’s directional buttons to scroll up or down, highlighting and selecting emails to read them. Each email read much like on a computer screen, but (thankfully) without the advertisements that Gmail usually lists along the right side of a computer screen.

Email attachments were easy to open and read; we opened a Microsoft Word document and a digital photo in JPG format, the photo was shrunk to fit onto our phone’s screen so we didn’t have to scroll. Attachments can’t be edited.

You can perform every action in Gmail for mobile that you can in regular Gmail, including replying to and starring emails, searching through messages, reporting spam and archiving. We searched through emails for the word “Walt” and quickly got a list of relevant emails, and an email that we sent from the phone was received on the other end in seconds. Tasks performed in Gmail for mobile automatically synched with our Gmail account.

Google Maps for mobile was familiar and simple. After downloading it and opening it on our cellphone, we entered our ZIP Code and a map of Washington, D.C., appeared on the entire screen. A list with Find Business, Find Location and Directions options helped us narrow our search.

The select button on each of our devices zoomed in on the map, and scrolling around with directional buttons moved the map accordingly. We quickly switched between map view and satellite view, the latter showing us detailed aerial shots of our tree-filled neighborhoods. A Show Traffic option color-codes highways in 30 major cities to show how fast the cars in that area are moving.

We searched for our local Four Seasons hotel by typing “Four Seasons” into the Find Business section of Google Maps for mobile. Nine results were returned, the second was the hotel. The hotel’s address, phone number, parking fees, room rates and acceptable credit cards were also listed.

The Helio Samsung Drift cellphone comes preloaded with Google’s Maps for mobile, and also has built-in GPS capability. This feature lets you press “0″ when using Google’s mapping program on your phone; a tiny circle marks where you are on the map.

The Google SMS mobile tool is fun to use, and doesn’t require a download. We just sent questions via text message to GOOGL, or 46645 on the numeric keypad. Various data can be retrieved including local listings, weather, sports scores, trivia, movie times and translations.

We asked for George Bush’s age and got the 41st president’s birthday sent back in a text message a second after our question was sent (June 12, 1924, if you’re curious). While on the way to an Irish pub for dinner, we typed in the slightly odd name of the place and its ZIP Code (RiRa 22201) and got a local listing response, including the address and phone number for the two RiRa Irish Pubs in the area.

Sometimes we had to rephrase our inquiry to receive a helpful Google response, and if you don’t have text messaging included in your phone’s plan, this could get costly. But as we used Google SMS more, we got better at asking questions the right way.

If you use a computer every day, chances are good that you’re spoiled by being able to retrieve helpful data within seconds, thanks to the Internet. Google’s mobile applications give you that convenience on the go, in a way that doesn’t leave you missing your computer.

Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com

You own a cellphone, but someone else added the names and numbers stored in it. You don’t keep your phone turned on, nor do you think to charge it regularly. Your voicemail was set up by one of your kids or grandchildren, and you don’t know how to check it. You begged the cellphone salesperson to sell you the most basic phone.

If you’re nodding as you read this, either personally relating to the challenges of using a cellphone or on behalf of someone you know, you’re not alone. Many people — especially baby boomers and their parents — feel anxious about using these increasingly complicated gadgets. These people are usually smart and capable, but just don’t know their way around a cellphone.

The OneTouch Jitterbug cellphone has three large buttons.

This week, we tested two new cellphones and a new cellphone service designed to address this problem, by placing simplicity and ease-of-use first. These $150 phones are called Jitterbugs, and they come from a Del Mar, Calif., company called GreatCall Inc. Its phones are physically and functionally different, emphasizing easy navigation with large buttons and simple menus. And its service includes an operator who acts as a concierge, optionally placing calls for you and even remotely adding numbers to your phone’s contact list.

We found using the Jitterbugs to be a little challenging at first because we’re more accustomed to the myriad of menus, buttons and shortcuts in our more complex cellphones. But we soon became comfortable with the Jitterbugs’ straightforward style and helpful operator/concierge.

We did miss some of the features that come standard in regular cellphones, like a battery indicator on the main screen that tells how much juice remains. (This information is only visible on a separate page in the menu.) And, while GreatCall has introduced simple calling plans to go with the Jitterbug phones, these plans are a bit pricey when compared with some plans offered by the big carriers. GreatCall is a small phone carrier that relies on roaming agreements with major cellphone carriers to handle most of its calls.

The company says the service is best for people who are light or moderate users. Monthly or yearly plans are available; buying a yearly plan includes a phone. The monthly plans cost as little as $10 for an “SOS” plan with no included minutes (these cost 35 cents each) and top out at $40 for 300 minutes. The same plans cost $244 and $569 when purchased in annual packages. Extra chunks of time can be purchased at $25 for 100 minutes, or a whopping 25 cents a minute. Each call to the operator includes a free minute of talk time but instantly deducts five minutes from your plan, in addition to the time you spend on the call over one minute.

Jitterbug phones come in two models: OneTouch and Dial. Both are white, clamshell phones made by Samsung that are a little larger than typical cellphones so as to feel more comfortable when you’re holding them. They each come with an ear cushion; GreatCall says this reduces outside noise.

OneTouch has just three large buttons where a numeric keypad would be; these are labeled Operator, My Choice, and 911 by default (but can be changed). The Dial model has a numeric keypad with large buttons that are easy to press. Yes and No buttons take the place of Send and End, and questions appear on-screen to walk you through how to use a Jitterbug phone.

When you order a phone from the Jitterbug Web site www.jitterbug.com, you tell GreatCall the names and phone numbers that you’d like programmed into your phone’s address book. These numbers come preloaded on your phone and are also kept in your profile with GreatCall so that at any time, you can ask the operator to make a call for you using one of those numbers instead of finding it in the phone yourself.

We tested both phones, finding the OneTouch to be a simpler solution for those who want as little confusion as possible, but it bugged us not having a keypad to dial a number. The first time we opened each of the phones, we were startled to hear a sound completely foreign to cellphones: a dial tone. An on-screen message asked if we wanted to use the phone’s voice-recognition feature; this works without any training.

We found the reception on our Jitterbugs to be somewhat fuzzy compared with our regular Verizon service.

We tested the operator feature by pressing Operator on the OneTouch phone or “0″ on the Dial phone, and a live person picked up right away. In one instance, we asked the operator to dial our office number for us, and he put us right through. Another time, we called the operator to add a number to our GreatCall database.

On Monday, GreatCall will be able to remotely add numbers to its phones using a Short Message Service (SMS) technology. For now, OneTouch phone owners can’t do this on their own, but Dial owners can add names and numbers to their phones using a smart step-by-step process that was easier than that of a regular cellphone.

Setting up and checking voicemail works by following simple audible directions. Instead of pressing numbers to delete or save messages, you can just say “Yes” or “No” to vocal prompts, or press those buttons on the phone. And no four-digit password is required.

Your cellphone number is printed on a sticker just below the phone’s screen. This screen never goes dark when left opened, allowing you time to read menu prompts. But this always-on screen also affects the Jitterbug battery life, which the company estimates will last for an unremarkable three hours of talk time.

In early 2007, Jitterbug will start offering a Web site that you or others can access to input names and numbers that will show up on the cellphone. Other features, such as the ability to get digital photos on a Jitterbug cellphone, will also be offered. But GreatCall wants to focus on simplifying cellphone features for now.

Whether you like it or not, cellphones are already a big part of many people’s lives, and are quickly becoming a part of yours. Instead of feeling helpless, we suggest trying a Jitterbug. These phones aren’t perfect, but they’re much easier to understand, and the operator service is a built-in helper.

• Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com.

Cellphones keep getting sleeker and smaller, which means they are also getting easier to lose or misplace. For instance, Motorola’s latest model, the SLVR, is so thin and light, you’d hardly notice if it slipped out of your pocket or purse.

And, of course, losing your cellphone can be a disaster, because it contains your address book. In fact, it often contains the only copy of your address book. Except for a few smart phones, like the Palm Treo, most cellphone models — especially the small ones that are easiest to lose — don’t synchronize with your computer to back up data.

So, how can you back up your data to protect against losing your phone?

Most of the big-name phone carriers offer services that will store your cellphone contacts for a relatively small monthly fee. But these services, which are designed in part to keep you tied to a carrier, aren’t widely used, or even well known to most users.

The $39.99 CellStik by Spark Technology plugs into your cellphone and copies your contacts onto the tiny device with the press of a button.

There are also various carrier-independent backup software products out there, but they involve the use of a computer and can be clumsy and complicated. Some use cumbersome cables to attach your phone to a PC, others use your phone’s messaging capabilities or Bluetooth functionality to send data onto a nearby hard drive.

But this week, we took a look at a new product from Spark Technology Corp. in San Jose, Calif., that eliminates the need for a computer altogether: CellStik. This $40 product is a pocket-size USB thumb drive with a cellphone adapter on one end and a USB adapter on the other. By plugging the phone adapter into your cellphone and pressing a button on the CellStik, you can have your contacts backed up on the device in just seconds — problem solved.

In our tests, we found CellStik to be a smart solution that really works, and it’s about as easy to use as possible. We did have one problem with it, but that was relatively minor compared with the potential loss of all your contact data when a phone goes missing.

While CellStik doesn’t require a computer, it can optionally be used with one. The USB end of each CellStik can be plugged into a Windows PC, so you can view and edit your backed-up contacts via a simple software program. You can then unplug the CellStik and reattach it to your phone, uploading any changes.

In addition to backing up your phone’s data, CellStiks can be used to transfer contacts from an old phone to a new one, but you may need to buy a separate CellStik for each phone if they differ in manufacturer or connector type, and use a PC as an intermediate device.

Six versions of the CellStik are currently available for about 70 different models of Motorola, LG and Samsung cellphones, and Spark hopes to introduce CellStiks for Sanyo, Sony Ericsson and Nokia this spring. CellStiks can be purchased online at www.sparktech.com and Amazon or at retail stores including Fry’s Electronics and J&R Electronics.

CellStik can also be used with your computer for viewing and editing your cellphone’s contacts.

We tested two of the three CellStik-compatible phone brands: an LG VI125 and two different Samsung SCH-A670s. Backing up the contacts from each phone took just a few seconds after we pressed an arrow-shaped button labeled “Save to CellStik” and waited until it stopped blinking green, indicating that all contacts were saved.

The CellStik software, called CellStik Central, is basic and self-explanatory, listing each of your contacts’ names, various phone numbers and other data in spreadsheet-like fashion. We loaded it onto our computer from an included CD, but it’s also available as a free download.

After making a few changes in our list of contacts with the convenience of a full computer keyboard — rather than using the painstaking entry process on our cellphone — we selected “Save to CellStik” in the software program, detached it from the computer’s USB port and reattached it to our phone. By pressing the “Update to Phone” button, we made sure the changes were reflected on our cellphone.

We ran into one frustrating problem with CellStik: in the case of our Samsung cellphone, which has a built-in camera like most new cellphones, the pictures that we had assigned to our contacts were scrambled on the phone after CellStik was used. In two cases, instead of a friend’s picture showing up on the cellphone screen during an incoming call, a picture of Katie’s mother appeared. That was pretty confusing and also made caller ID via pictures useless.

Spark Technology says this picture mix-up is a problem only with certain cellphones and that CellStik is a backup product, first and foremost, so most users would be most concerned with keeping contacts rather than getting images associated with the wrong caller. This problem only occurs if you reattach the CellStik to your phone and press “Update to Phone,” not if you’re opting solely to use CellStik without a PC, as a data-backup device. But it’s still irritating.

If you’d like to transfer one cellphone’s contacts to another, such as if you bought a new cellphone, you can do so using “Transfer Phonebook” in the CellStik’s software. It walks you through steps of removing one CellStik from the USB port and inserting another, onto which the old device’s contacts will be saved.

Overall, CellStik is a fast and simple solution that could save users from the frustrating ordeal of losing a cellphone and every name and number on it. Its independence from phone carriers and from your PC — if you so choose — make it a smart buy, but check first to be sure it’s available for your phone. And keep a lookout for photos that might be mismatched with incoming calls.

• Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com

If you’re unfamiliar with using a numerical keypad to enter text (lucky you), spelling out a simple word like “dance,” for example, would require pressing 3, 2, 66, 222, 33. Typing out full sentences using this method is even more annoying, leading users to get creative with abbreviations and short-spellings. “R u goin 2 b l8?” is text-speak for “Are you going to be late?”

Phone makers have tried to solve this problem by squeezing little keyboards into the bodies of some phones. But these keyboards usually make phones bigger and bulkier than normal, and often show up only on costlier models, like the Treo or BlackBerry.

This week, my assistant Katie Boehret and I tested a new phone that attempts to solve the text-entry problem in a novel way that doesn’t involve typing, and can be used on a small, inexpensive phone with just a numerical keypad. This new phone lets you dictate your text messages by just speaking into the phone.

The Samsung p207, $79.99 with a two-year contract from Cingular Wireless, has built-in “speech-to-text” technology: It turns what you say into text on the screen. This technology, called VoiceMode, was created by a small Massachusetts company called VoiceSignal Technologies Inc. If it works properly, VoiceMode should make composing a text message as simple as dictating a voice-mail message.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work very well. In our tests, the system made so many errors requiring tedious corrections that it might have been faster for us to peck out our messages the old-fashioned way — especially if we used the abbreviations and shorthand phrases so common among text-messaging fans.

The p207 is a handsome all-black flip phone with a built-in camera that, outwardly, betrays no sign of its special capability. To set up VoiceMode for the first time, you must teach your phone the acoustics of your speaking style. This requires reading 122 words out loud as they appear on the phone’s screen, and Katie did this in a few minutes.

Once the phone was trained for her voice, Katie set its text-messaging system to use VoiceMode by default; manual typing is still an option, you need only switch modes to type letter by letter again. The p207 also comes with VSuite, a more common technology from VoiceSignal that’s found in some 60 cellphones. It allows users to speak commands like “Call Walt,” instead of scrolling through menus to find phone numbers.

A special button on the phone activates VSuite and the voice commands. Katie simply pressed that button and said, “Send text, Walt Mossberg,” and she got to a blank screen for entering her text message, already addressed to me, since my phone number had been plucked from the phone’s address book.

Then, to dictate messages into the text screen using VoiceMode, you hold down the camera button on the side of the phone, which acts like a walkie-talkie switch. As you dictate, VoiceMode requires you to speak in a slow, unnatural manner, pausing after each word so the system can distinguish one word from the next.

The phone was trained to Katie’s voice, so she started off, speaking a rather simple sentence: “Hi (pause) period (pause) I (pause) am (pause) testing (pause) a (pause) new (pause) phone (pause) period.” But VoiceMode flunked even this easy test. It typed: “Hi. I am having a mail file.”

Once you release the walkie-talkie button, VoiceMode automatically corrects the words that it thinks were wrongly interpreted. While this helped during some of our tests, it usually didn’t correct sentences entirely. For Katie’s first test sentence, none of the words were auto-corrected.

The Samsung p207, $79.99 with a two-year contract from Cingular Wireless, has built-in technology from VoiceSignal Technologies Inc. that lets you dictate text messages. For more info: www.cingularwireless.com or www.voicesignal.com.

You can also edit words yourself, which Katie did by scrolling through her message, highlighting entire words and pressing the “0″ key, which pulled up a list of five words that she might have said, instead of what appeared on the screen. For example, Katie found “testing” on the list when she scrolled over “having” and selected it to make the change. This list also offers an option to spell out the word if you don’t see it on the list, by entering it the old-fashioned way one letter at a time. The whole process can be agonizingly slow if VoiceMode misses badly on the first try.

I had similar results when I tried my best teenager imitation. I said, “Hi. This is so cool. I’ll show it to you when we meet at the mall.” The phone wrote, “Hi. This is Saul cool. I’ll show it to you when we made at the walls.” To be fair, I hadn’t trained the phone for my voice, so it had a harder time recognizing what I was saying.

VoiceSignal says that the phone is constantly adapting, so as you go through the message and edit incorrectly detected words, it remembers those changes for the future. And indeed, the system did get better at recognizing some words the more we used it. But it was inconsistent, and messages still required significant editing.

The company says its dictionary holds “many tens of thousands of words,” including slang abbreviations and so-called emoticons — those little smiling or frowning faces created using punctuation. We tested that claim by saying “laughing out loud” into the phone; “LOL” — a common text message and e-mail abbreviation — appeared on screen. Speaking the words “smiley face” produced a “:-)” after three false results (”analysis,” “minimizing” and “violated”).

In addition to the frustrating inaccuracies of VoiceMode, there are other problems with speaking your text messages out loud. One of the benefits of sending a text message is that it can be done in sly silence, during boring meetings or classes. But dictation makes that impossible. It also makes your message public to anyone within earshot.

And unlike phone calls, text messaging doesn’t require a quiet environment; noisy bars and concerts are fine places to type text messages. But attempting to use voice-recognition technology in such environments might drive you crazy.

While VoiceMode has good intentions and did learn certain words as we used it more, we still found ourselves spending too much time editing our messages. This is one of those technologies that looks better on paper than it does in the real world.

With reporting by Katherine Boehret

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com