Aside from the fact that it has an FM radio that seems to have presets for plenty of countries in the world except India. Well, enough said I think. But, you do get really clear signals and even the recording on the inbuilt FM recorder (that functions as a voice recorder as well) was quite clear. The problem I had was, during my 1 hour commute through Mumbai, I didn’t get to watch TV nor listen to the radio. It seemed like I got the clearest (and only) signals when I was at work. And it’s not a good idea to get caught at work watching a TV or listening to the radio. For you, at least… my job depends on it. It didn’t seem to get any signals at my residence either, though my Nokia 6270 picked up the radio waves easily enough.

The earphones / antenna slot would have been a big problem if I wanted to hook this up to a set of speakers or an amp, but the people from i-teq have again very graciously provided a converter for stereo audio output. The device’s Windows Media Player version 10 reads MP3s, WAV, WMA and MIDI files, and of course you can view your pictures in normal JPEG formats.

Here’s something really fascinating. With the new ROM upgrade that will be out soon, the TV function will also have an upgrade with recording capabilities. You’ll simply have to keep the camera button pressed for a couple of seconds to record your favorite TV program. The file gets stored on the memory card in 3GP or WMV formats to be viewed at your leisure.

Camera
The i-teq X-Bond has a 2.1 megapixel camera with a flash. It’s not an auto-focus lens, which has been cited as the reason for the absence of a business card reader. If you need to activate the camera, you’ll need to keep the button pressed for at least 3 seconds and allow another few to slip by before it turns on. In sunlight, the pictures are not clear. They seem a bit faded, overly bright and a bit blurry. What appalled me most was the time it takes from when I press the trigger to the time the snap is actually processed. So this camera is meant purely for pictures of inanimate objects.

But I have to say, the flash is rather powerful and really brightens things up. The flash can also be used as a torch. Really, it can be; there’s a setting for it! Under florescent lighting if the settings are changed the pictures are quite good and the same goes for the night mode which is excellent. Apart from the various modes, there are also effects that could be added for black and white, sepia or sketch. And there’s also a setting for sequential shooting. The picture editor software is fun to use.

Videos can be recorded in 3GP, MPEG-4 and WMV formats. Now, what I fail to understand is why a device with such a large screen utilizes it so poorly. I’m referring to video playback. Naturally I figured it was perhaps a problem with the file formats. But I was wrong. It seems like it just doesn’t play on the whole screen. What really puzzles me is the fact that while filming; the videos are captured on the whole screen, so I don’t see why they can’t be played back the same way.