Local handset maker Cherry Mobile recently made history by releasing to the market the country’s first triple-SIM cellphone, the Trident.

This handset is aimed at those who juggle three handsets to make the most out of the offerings of the country’s three mobile carriers. So instead of buying and maintaining three handsets, Cherry Mobile makes this attractive proposition to chuck them all in favor of the Trident.

But does the Trident work well as a triple-SIM phone? Yes, it does and does it surprisingly good and kinda fast.

After placing the three SIM cards (Smart on SIM1, Globe on SIM2 and Sun on SIM3) on the upper portion of the battery compartment, a Trident user would then be able to juggle between the three lines when making calls or sending text messages. The phone also identifies where the incoming calls or messages are routed. (If you were among the first to snag a Trident and your handset freezes when you place a Globe SIM card on SIM3, you could just drop by a Cherry Mobile service center to have your phone’s software updated.)

The triple-SIM interface for placing calls or making and sending text messages is easy to understand and master. Of course, the Trident is no Nokia, Samsung or SonyEricsson so the interface would be new and unfamiliar — but it is not impossible or difficult to understand and master in a few hours or days.

Having used a Samsung dual-SIM phone (the D880), I could very well say that the Trident handles triple-SIM operations much easier and faster. Unlike the D880, there are no special keys at the handset’s side that one needs to press to switch from one SIM card to another. No resets needed.

The Trident handset I reviewed is made of grey-colored plastic. The full-QWERTY keyboard works fine. The nearly 2.5-inch QCGA TFT screen is adequate. The back and the battery cover has a rough texture to it so the handset would not just slide down your hands. Build quality is on the whole acceptable although I would rather have the handset’s color to be pure black to give the handset the look and feel of sophistication.

Instead of a D-Pad or a rolling ball, Cherry Mobile put a touchpad under the screen for easier menu navigation. The touchpad is quite similar to what we can find in the Blackberry Curve 8250 and the Blackberry Bold 9700.

Frequent travelers and occasional tourists would be able to bring the quad-band Trident handset everywhere there is a GSM signal. They could just pop in a local SIM card of the country where they are in so there’s no more need for a separate roaming handset.

The Trident is not only a triple-SIM handset:

It has a camera: It also sports a 2-megapixel camera at the back, with a full a wide range of camera settings that could be changed at whim.

It connects to the net via GPRS or WIFI. Cherry Mobile has placed in the handset the GPRS settings for Smart, Globe and Sun so there would be no waiting time for getting online if there’s GPRS signal where you may be. Setting up and linking to the internet via WIFI is not hard to do.
It has built-in Bluetooth and a memory slot for microSD card of up to 8GB.

It has a built-in TV receiver too. Yes, you could watch your favorite shows while on the move.

It has a wire-free FM receiver as well: No need to put the headsets to get the FM radio running. Just turn it on.

The Trident also has a bunch of software and apps built in to it like Google Maps, Opera Mini and a document reader.

On the whole, the Trident is a very capable triple-SIM phone that’s a good-value buy at P6,490 (about $144), especially considering the many other functions the handset has to offer the user.