PUMA Mobile: Love at First Sight

I fell in love with the phone at MWC 2010, when I got my hands on it in an outside booth. The article was so enthusiastic that I myself am surprised. You can find it here.

When the phone arrived to me in Moscow, I decided to respect the rules of the game in order to prevent my initial impressions from affecting the final conclusions. Should you know, I was unsuccessful. Completely. The situation was unique, as I, lovestoned, played with the device and praised those behind it, without even paying attention to its characteristics. I spent a week with the phone without knowing the resolution of the camera, with only a rough idea of the actual screen diagonal. Usually, what interests me most, are the technical characteristics, not the impressions. But with this excellent product from Sagem, the emotions come first. There is one catch, though. You have to be a PUMA fan to realize the true worth of the phone. Every now and then, the level of its sophistication can blow you away. On the box, made of recycled paper, there is an image, according to which, you will need your brain to use the device. I would put it differently. The people behind the device cared about a plethora of tiny little things, which allows one to say that they like what they do. For example, you can hold the camera button to activate the flashlight mode. Isn't that handy? And it's like that everywhere. The device offers a high general level of comfort, sports plenty of winning details. They make you neglect the fact that it's expensive, based on an outdated platform and with occasional working delays. All of that fades away. The emotional charge beats the disappointment with the technical realization. I am certain that the model will be blamed by many. It can't do that, it's freezing there, it has one icon too many in some menu. All of that is expected. But those, who can understand it and love it, will discover an ideal model. It is an exceptional example of an emotional device. It is the PUMA customization that makes it ideal. Moreover, I believe that we will see more devices like that in future, and all of them will be different. It is important that emotions, impressions, but not technical characteristics matter, which requires a perfect balance of the two realms. The PUMA has it. It is a casual model from the technical point of view but a little masterpiece from the emotional perspective.

Sagem's business is not going well, they are struggling their way out, and the device didn't come natural for them. And that is splendid as it shows what an emotional device can be like. In Russia, it is due this fall. The price is around USD 400. We will talk about that in the review, though. The latter will be out this week if nothing extraordinary happens.