Before buying mobile phones, try them out first with TryPhone

Posted on February 4, 2008 at 7:19 am

With billions and billions of mobile phones in the market, people who opt to buy a mobile phone are often overwhelmed by such variety. And looking at the websites of mobile phone companies doesn’t even help. You would probably want to try those phones out, dissatisfied by what you see in the boxes, posters and websites. Well, there is a solution to your problem now, in the being of TryPhone.

TryPhone is simply just that – it gives you the ability to try the phone via the Internet before buying one. They have fully interactive virtual handsets perfectly patterned from the mobile phone models themselves, complete with applications, content, services, and the look-feel of it. In addition, you have the opportunity to browse among mobile phone models in a breeze. And finally, you can try out some (stupid) things with those virtual mobile phones at the comfort of your own home, in your desktop, without the pressure from salespeople and co-buyers that you usually experience from shops.

DeviceAnywhere

OK, so now you get the idea that you can simply visit the website to try out those mobile phones. But you might be asking, how in the world did they make virtual copies of mobile phones? Well, here’s the answer, found in DeviceAnywhere’s website.

DeviceAnywhere is built on Mobile Complete’s unique Direct-To-Device technology foundation. Direct-To-Device enables “virtualization” of mobile handsets through an electrical integration approach in which electrical connections are made to live handsets and a virtual view of these handsets is exported over the Internet. Software acts as a virtual user, remotely controlling and operating the devices, pressings keys using electrical signals, listening to ringers and speakers using audio capture and streaming, and viewing displays using video capture and streaming.

With that being said, all the virtual handsets you would see in TryPhone have been derived from actual mobile phones. Those virtual phones are then hooked up to a server and are made available to the Internet for use. Simply put, you are using an actual mobile phone virtually. Cool!

Here’s a sample of the Apple iPhone in the website (just click the image as this one is just a picture):

Summing it up, TryPhone is a one-of-a-kind technology providing fully interactive handsets to the puzzled, the overwhelmed , and the mobile phone buyers-to-be. And the mobile phones in the website are derivations of real ones, too, so you can use them as they are built to be used, somehow similar to first-hand experience. Simple, huh?

I would like to end this with how TryPhone ended its “How It Works” area:

Remember, the goal of TryPhone is to show you how things REALLY work (not how they were designed to work) – without marketing hype – to help you make a better, more informed purchasing decision. Loki

[tags]mobile phone, tryphone, virtual phone, virtual[/tags]

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Comments

4 Responses to “Before buying mobile phones, try them out first with TryPhone”

nirmal said on : February 6th, 2008 at 7:16 am

I have tried this website before, only problem is that they have only limited phones to try out.

Loki said on : February 6th, 2008 at 7:26 pm

Well, we should be happy that some tech savvy people have shared this kind of technology with us. Maybe they will update and furnish a list that can include more virtual mobile phones in the future. After all, I feel they are the first in this endeavor, if not the most popular.

Dan said on : February 13th, 2008 at 12:28 pm

I work for Mobile Complete, Inc. building the virtual phones for http://www.tryphone.com. I would like everyone to know that we are adding new phones as quickly as possible and that the current site is a beta version.

Al said on : February 13th, 2008 at 12:43 pm

Hi Aseem,
I’m the lead developer for Tryphone, and I wanted to say thanks for the nice write-up.

nirmal: Yeah, we started slowly with only 4 device, but we’re ramping up our phone build-out, and currently have 15 or so live, with a bunch more in the works. You have to hit the Phones button at the top of the page to see them all.

Aseem: I’ll see about a link back. Cheers.